thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Discuss deer hunting tactics, Deer behavior. Post your Hunting Stories, Pictures, and Questions/Answers.
  • Advertisement

HB Store


dan
Site Owner
Posts: 41553
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:11 am
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuntingBeast/?ref=bookmarks
Location: S.E. Wisconsin
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby dan » Fri Jun 17, 2011 4:26 am

Lets say your correct that the button buck number is only 25 % of the harvest... People are going to shoot whatever they see to get the buck tag. Trust me, only a few children will go without a buck tag that probably wouldn't of gotten anything anyway. So now, in year two, you are already down 25% less 1 1/2 year old bucks from the EAB the year before. To top that, you doe herd is cut in 1/2 so you have 1/2 the fawns... So this year when 25% of the doe harvest is fawns the next year there will be another huge 1 1/2 year old buck population drop...

There were a lot of people that supported EAB in Wisconsin till it happened and they saw the distruction...

2 THINGS ARE CERTAIN TO COME FROM eab. #1) The population will drop. #2) There will be less bucks of all ages.


User avatar
kenn1320
500 Club
Posts: 3474
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:19 am
Location: Shooting my bow (MI)
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby kenn1320 » Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:41 am

OK, you guys probably don’t believe your state has 1.8m deer. Let’s take the 1m that is the population goal of the state. In most cases, the worst your buck to doe ratio could be is 1:3. If you have 1m deer, you have 250k bucks and 750k doe. To maintain a population at its present level, you must remove 30% of the female population. In 2010 your harvest numbers show you killed 148k bucks and 185k doe. 30% of 750k is 225k. So you guys didn’t meet the 30%, so your deer population is going to increase. There are other depredation factors, but that’s the quick numbers and likely your herd is larger then 1m.

As for the button bucks being killed: Let’s use small numbers here so it doesn’t become fuzzy math. If I have a ratio of 1:1 buck to doe (not likely in a hunted herd) and had 20 deer, you have 10 bucks/ 10 does. All 10 doe get bred and you kill all 10 bucks. You then shoot your 30% of the does left. You now have 7 bred does. Some does have 1 fawn, some have triplets. On average they will have 2 fawns. Typically buck fawns make up 58% of the annual fawn crop, but for this instance let’s say 50%. In the spring your 7 does have 14 fawns, half bucks, half does. Your population is now 14 does and 7 bucks for a total of 21 deer. Your buck to doe ratio is now at 1:2. You now have more deer than last year, yet got to shoot every buck in the herd and also 3 does. Your buck to doe ratio has automatically corrected itself. Since not every button is getting shot, you will have many 1.5yr old bucks next year. Your also protecting some of the bucks, since guys have to kill a doe first, many will not get that buck, which adds more to the next age classes.

While EAB has been very unpopular with the hunters (are we ever happy?) it was nothing more then a tool to meet the population goals. All hunters seem to agree the herd numbers are down, so it’s working. The days of seeing 30 deer a sit are in the past. It appears your states goals are around 25 deer per square mile. That’s a lot of deer guys. Remember some of those square miles will have fewer or none, while adjoining land will have more then 25. It’s an average DPM of that DMU. If you take the 1 sq mile you hunt in and the adjoining sq miles, and lets say each of those only had 5 deer in them each, that puts 185 in your section. This is why many can say there are no deer, while others ½ mile away say there are lots of deer.
"Its about taking the right shot at the right time with good equipment." Dan Infalt
User avatar
BackWoodsHunter
500 Club
Posts: 3011
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:13 am
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Fri Jun 17, 2011 6:58 am

The real issue is where these "ideal" or "goal" numbers came from? We didn't have hundreds of deer just dying of starvation in winter kill, we didn't have an overpopulation problem...the insurance companies had a problem with car deer collisions and Jim Doyle had a soft spot for more money....either way if EAB worked as well as it does in your theory and math there then we'd have a state full of happy hunters no? Also, if it worked like that, the population would continue to increase beacuae your math showed we ended up with more deer than we started with....EAB does NOT work, if you want to shoot bucks older then 1.5yrs old then you should probably start hunting areas that hold deer of an older age class...
"The history of the bow and arrow is the history of mankind." Fred Bear
dan
Site Owner
Posts: 41553
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:11 am
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuntingBeast/?ref=bookmarks
Location: S.E. Wisconsin
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby dan » Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:04 am

OK, you guys probably don’t believe your state has 1.8m deer. Let’s take the 1m that is the population goal of the state.

There were actually a lot of actual proffesionals ( not govenor appointees ) that said the poopulation figures were wrong. One study that I believe Ron Kulas ( Rancid crabtree on the forum ) was involved in showed based on car deer accidents that the population was way below what the DNR, Insurance companies, and Governor, wanted us to believe.

To maintain a population at its present level, you must remove 30% of the female population. In 2010 your harvest numbers show you killed 148k bucks and 185k doe. 30% of 750k is 225k. So you guys didn’t meet the 30%, so your deer population is going to increase. There are other depredation factors, but that’s the quick numbers and likely your herd is larger then 1m.


Most of us would like to maintain a higher population, not a reduction or the same... There are areas where you can hunt for a week and not see a deer. I went over 30 days straight of hunting hard every day without seeing a single deer.

As for the button bucks being killed: Let’s use small numbers here so it doesn’t become fuzzy math. If I have a ratio of 1:1 buck to doe (not likely in a hunted herd) and had 20 deer, you have 10 bucks/ 10 does. All 10 doe get bred and you kill all 10 bucks. You then shoot your 30% of the does left. You now have 7 bred does. Some does have 1 fawn, some have triplets. On average they will have 2 fawns. Typically buck fawns make up 58% of the annual fawn crop, but for this instance let’s say 50%. In the spring your 7 does have 14 fawns, half bucks, half does. Your population is now 14 does and 7 bucks for a total of 21 deer. Your buck to doe ratio is now at 1:2. You now have more deer than last year, yet got to shoot every buck in the herd and also 3 does. Your buck to doe ratio has automatically corrected itself. Since not every button is getting shot, you will have many 1.5yr old bucks next year. Your also protecting some of the bucks, since guys have to kill a doe first, many will not get that buck, which adds more to the next age classes.


Your math may sound good to you, but I believe my ratio for sightings was 1 doe for every 10 bucks I saw in the public marsh behind my house... During our 9 day gun season I saw only 1 doe in 9 days of driving every inch of marsh, and unfortunatly I had to shoot her in order to hunt for bucks.
10 years ago in that same marsh I guided 1 to 4 hunters a week and averaged 33% on pope and young opertunitys on 3 day hunts. I personally had opertunitys at pope and young class deer almost weekly. Now I get about 1 or 2 chances a year if I am lucky on that same ground.

Sure, some of the nearby private land supports some good bucks, but the public land has about 3300 acreas and about 150 different hunters who all have to take an antlerless in order to shoot a buck and will shoot every one they see to get a stamp for bow, gun, and next years bow, and gun...

If you think its so great, go along with it. I could hardly believe how much damage it did here in Wisconsin.
User avatar
stikbow26
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:22 am
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby stikbow26 » Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:43 am

Ken I am from Michigan and I feel your pain, I believe deep down you are grasping for anything that will help Michigan become what others have. It never will and EAB will not do it. I mostly hunt Illinois and hate every minute of it, spending my money out of state not here where it is needed and paying big NR prices suck. Michigan can have what the other states like Illinois/Ohio/Ind./Wis. have we just need to make some big changes and it would start with our hunters and Traditions. Michigan hunters are brown its down always have been and always will be, is it changing slowly yes some of the younger hunters get it but to many that don't. 1. we need to change the 15 days straight of slaughter during our rut called the gun season. It needs to be broke up like Illinois/ IA give them 3 days a Friday - Sunday say the third weekend of Nov the give it a break then another 3 day season and so on. The baiting they just reinstated should not have to many 1.5 year olds bucks which i think is the dumbest deer in the woods fall victim to bait.. We don't need EAB or antler restrictions forced on any of us, we just need to get on the same page.. But not here in Michigan because just for writing this i will get called a horn hunter and a horn porn guy because there logic is they are meat hunters and should be able to shoot what ever they want brown its down.. But when I ask them if a 10pt is standing at 15 yards and a spike is standing at 10 yards which buck will they shoot??? You guess the answer..You can still find the big boys on stateland you just have to work harder than everyone else..
User avatar
kenn1320
500 Club
Posts: 3474
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:19 am
Location: Shooting my bow (MI)
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby kenn1320 » Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:51 am

Most of us would like to maintain a higher population, not a reduction or the same.


Dan, hunters will always want more deer. The problem is there are others out there that dont want more deer. What happens when the non hunting public has had enough and deems deer nothing but pests? Dont think it can happen, look at rabbits in Australia. Im not saying I see deer bumping up to pests status anytime soon, but I wouldnt have imagined rabbits would be considered pests either.

http://www.rabbitfreeaustralia.org.au/rabbit_problem.html

I went over 30 days straight of hunting hard every day without seeing a single deer.


Reminds me of the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Not a single deer in 30 days eh Dan? Was this using beast style tactics where the only deer your likely to see is the buck your hunting, or were you trying hard to fill a doe tag to earn a buck? How about your shining surveys, werent seeing any deer in the fields either?

The real issue is where these "ideal" or "goal" numbers came from? We didn't have hundreds of deer just dying of starvation in winter kill, we didn't have an overpopulation problem...the insurance companies had a problem with car deer collisions


Backwoods, high deer/car collisions is a direct result of either to many deer, or to many people. Guess which one will get removed from the equation to lower the accident rate? You didnt have a severe winter kill? What are you basing that off of? My first search showed in 2009 you guys had a pretty hard winter. So hard in fact that the DNR put up additional stations to monitor the winter severity index. They said bad winter combined with a unseasonably cool spring really hurt recruitment rates. Just cause you didnt think the winter was bad, doesnt mean the deer werent impacted.

Ken I am from Michigan and I feel your pain, I believe deep down you are grasping for anything that will help Michigan become what others have.


Stickbow26, I made it very clear that I had enough of Michigan and that EAB was not the best choice, but "any step towards protecting a buck" was fine by me. I hear from guys on the michigan sites saying the same thing as you hear. Dont tell me what to shoot, as long as its a legal buck dont worry about it. Then they complain about all the doe shooting. lol The doe's are being tagged, hence they are legal deer, so dont tell me what I can or cant shoot. Funny we dont see eye to eye eh? Then they tell me the big bucks are there, you just have to hunt harder. Then they complain there are no deer and its so hard hunting. I tell em, the deer are there, you just have to hunt harder and for some reason they dont like that either. lol They think its tough finding a 1.5yr old buck, or in Dans case finding any deer in 30 days of hunting, they ought to try finding a mature buck that is likely less then 2% of the total deer population.
"Its about taking the right shot at the right time with good equipment." Dan Infalt
dan
Site Owner
Posts: 41553
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:11 am
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuntingBeast/?ref=bookmarks
Location: S.E. Wisconsin
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby dan » Fri Jun 17, 2011 12:32 pm

Reminds me of the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Not a single deer in 30 days eh Dan? Was this using beast style tactics where the only deer your likely to see is the buck your hunting, or were you trying hard to fill a doe tag to earn a buck? How about your shining surveys, werent seeing any deer in the fields either?

Yes, thats BEAST style... And don't get me wrong, I take a two hour drive and I am surrounded by bucks on public, but the portion behind my house gets hunted a lot because I can go weekdays after work. Some of those spot generated a buck every year the 1st couple times they were hunted... Lot tougher after the reduction. Now late season you can walk the 3300 acres in a week old snow and never cut a track...
Shining went from seeing 1 or two booners a night and a couple dozen of P&Y along with 50 or more deer total, to now I see about 10 deer on a good night and I am lucky to see one big one...
However, this is a CWD area and people were allowed to shoot more than one buck. But up in northern Wisconsin the EAB did the same kind of damage... Not saying EAB is worthless, just saying if your DNR abuses it, it will be worse than before you started... There are much better ways to manage the herd...
User avatar
magicman54494
500 Club
Posts: 4188
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:05 pm
Location: central and northern WI
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby magicman54494 » Fri Jun 17, 2011 1:18 pm

One real negative effect of EAB is the way public land gets slaughtered off and public land is vertually untouched. I said this would happen and it has. I also said the DNR would come after the private land next. Now they want a winter hunt on private lands to kill those deer too. If the DNR set realistic goals and could regain faith from the average hunter they could work with all hunters public and private to keep the herd at goal levels. Who can blame the private land owners for protecting the deer when they see the slaughter taking place?
There are much better ways to manage the herd than EAB. Actually, EAB was brought about BY the DNR's poor management skills.
User avatar
BackWoodsHunter
500 Club
Posts: 3011
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:13 am
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Fri Jun 17, 2011 3:29 pm

Backwoods, high deer/car collisions is a direct result of either to many deer, or to many people. Guess which one will get removed from the equation to lower the accident rate? You didnt have a severe winter kill? What are you basing that off of? My first search showed in 2009 you guys had a pretty hard winter. So hard in fact that the DNR put up additional stations to monitor the winter severity index. They said bad winter combined with a unseasonably cool spring really hurt recruitment rates. Just cause you didnt think the winter was bad, doesnt mean the deer werent impacted.





Would love to see the results of your search. Also, Its great that 2009 was a hard winter but nowhere do I see any statisitics on a high deer kill as a result of the winter. Like I said though, there was no starvation or winter kill BUT on top of that, the info you gathered is from AFTER I believe 4yrs of EAB, in which case it is irrelevant to my arguement that BEFORE EAB was implemented we did not have too many deer. We did not have large numbers of deer dying of winter starvation or winter kill because there were too many of them and the enviroment couldn't support them. A cool/wet spring made fawn recruitment harder...fair enough it may have but wouldn't that be more of a reason that EAB is NOT necessary? All I am saying is we never had 1.8m deer and EAB destroyed the deer herd we had. Its great that the DNR has these goals that you are so willing to believe in, but they don't work for hunter recruitment, they don't work for management, and they sure to work to benefit anyone but the DNR. I hope for your sake EAB never makes its way to Michigan....


also in your post with the math about deer reporduction where we could shoot all the bucks and still have more deer the following year, you included no fawn mortality or loss due to predation, which I think it is pretty acceptable to believe atleast one or two would be lost after being born
"The history of the bow and arrow is the history of mankind." Fred Bear
User avatar
GRUD
500 Club
Posts: 973
Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:26 pm
Location: Hunting Beast: Become a Legend...
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby GRUD » Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:22 pm

Directly from INDNR,

Is the idea here to manage for trophy bucks?

The DNR has never promoted trophy deer management, and this proposal is meant to reduce the deer herd, not promote trophy deer management

Read the whole proposal here:

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/2362.htm

None of this has passed yet, I'm not sure what I think about it all but it seems to me that the public lands get hammered and on the private lands not enough does get taken. I have heard that Indiana wants to be aggressive because not enough guys shoot does and the next generation of hunters is very small because they are all just playing video games. Overall I think Indiana has done O.K.. The one buck rule had helped the older class of bucks, and the generous doe harvest quotas have helped keep populations in check. The problem I see is the cost, guys dont want to pay $30 for a doe tag, then butchering cost when they dont even like to eat the meat. I was fortunate to buy my lifetime license before they did away with them so I have over 300 tags a year to use at no cost. But for the guy without it? It gets expensive to hunt all the seasons.
76chevy
500 Club
Posts: 512
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2010 4:56 pm
Location: Southern IL
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby 76chevy » Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:30 pm

I have an LTL in indiana as well.

remember, the EAB proposal is ONLY for the urban zones in IN NOT the entire state.



GRUD wrote:Directly from INDNR,

Is the idea here to manage for trophy bucks?

The DNR has never promoted trophy deer management, and this proposal is meant to reduce the deer herd, not promote trophy deer management

Read the whole proposal here:

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/2362.htm

None of this has passed yet, I'm not sure what I think about it all but it seems to me that the public lands get hammered and on the private lands not enough does get taken. I have heard that Indiana wants to be aggressive because not enough guys shoot does and the next generation of hunters is very small because they are all just playing video games. Overall I think Indiana has done O.K.. The one buck rule had helped the older class of bucks, and the generous doe harvest quotas have helped keep populations in check. The problem I see is the cost, guys dont want to pay $30 for a doe tag, then butchering cost when they dont even like to eat the meat. I was fortunate to buy my lifetime license before they did away with them so I have over 300 tags a year to use at no cost. But for the guy without it? It gets expensive to hunt all the seasons.
". . . there's more fun in hunting with the handicap of the bow than there is in hunting with the sureness of the gun." --Fred Bear
User avatar
lungbuster
500 Club
Posts: 1655
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:18 am
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WFTF
Location: Mt. Horeb, Wi.
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby lungbuster » Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:51 am

True unlimited doe tags would accomplish the same result, but that was not the question, the question was EAB and I merely stated how it could help. As for the DNR forcing me as a private landowner to manage my lands how they see fit, No one told me I had to shoot 6 does one year or 10 the next. I determined how many does we would take each given year based on sightings of total numbers. The idea of EAB is to manage an out of control deer population, while it is flawed in the fact that it prevents kids and inexperienced huters from shooting whatever they wish for thier first deer, it also forces hunters that would not kill does to shoot at least one. If EAB is only used for 1 or 2 years I don't think it is a bad thing so long as it as used only to lower an overpopulated deer herd. But if the numbers are not closely watchd it can decimate a herd in short order. Yes there are much better ways you can control deer numbers w/o forcing hunters to kill does first before earning a buck tag, but remember there are still a good number of hunters that have the mentality that killing does is wrong, regardless of the fact the herd may have too many.
User avatar
Southern Man
500 Club
Posts: 3827
Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2010 7:04 am
Location: Extreme Western Kentucky
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby Southern Man » Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:36 am

lungbuster wrote:, but remember there are still a good number of hunters that have the mentality that killing does is wrong, regardless of the fact the herd may have too many.


We hadd that problem here at first. We didn't have a deer season until the mid seventies. For a long time no does were to be killed. When they finally allowed killing does, it took a while for hunters to catch on, but they did. There are still a few that won't do it. For an out of control deer herd, EAB sounds like it would be the ticket to force kill does. That is within reason.....
You Can't Argue With A Sick Mind
Autumn Ninja
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby Autumn Ninja » Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:57 pm

dan wrote: I personally had opertunitys at pope and young class deer almost weekly. Now I get about 1 or 2 chances a year if I am lucky on that same ground.

I know it was much better before, but WOW!!!! I would think the good Lord that my public is still that awesome.

1 or 2 chances at a P&Y each year on public land, that's the mark of awesome public land right? Or even private land for that matter, LOL!!! I'm amazed at what it use to be.....never seen private land that would even come close to being that good. :shock: I cant imagine what the private land must be like up there.
dan
Site Owner
Posts: 41553
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:11 am
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuntingBeast/?ref=bookmarks
Location: S.E. Wisconsin
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: thoughts on Earn a Buck??

Unread postby dan » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:04 am

Autumn Ninja wrote:
dan wrote: I personally had opertunitys at pope and young class deer almost weekly. Now I get about 1 or 2 chances a year if I am lucky on that same ground.

I know it was much better before, but WOW!!!! I would think the good Lord that my public is still that awesome.

1 or 2 chances at a P&Y each year on public land, that's the mark of awesome public land right? Or even private land for that matter, LOL!!! I'm amazed at what it use to be.....never seen private land that would even come close to being that good. :shock: I cant imagine what the private land must be like up there.


LOL... It was not that good for most people ;)
I used to guide here on that same land and did about 33% success on P&Y class buck shot opertunitys on a 3 day hunt. Really it was 2 1/2 days cause they started there hunt on Friday afternoon and left sunday night. So about 1 out of every 8 hunts would result in a P&Y opertunity. Compare that to the average outfitter in Illinois. The State claims that the average outfitter on Private managed land in Illinois does about 11% in a 5 day hunt.

And really, I have seen much better land... Especially private. But there is still some really good public land in South central, & South Western Wisconsin where a guy who scouted correctly could have simalar results. I took Chad, Dave Docstader & myself to a public property
last year in South central Wisconsin that I had only been on once to scout and in two days each of us had P&Y bucks in range... Chad hit one we couldn't find, Dave missed a big buck, and I had two come thru that I could not shoot, one cause my bow was not up the tree yet, the other spooked as it was coming into range...


  • Advertisement

Return to “Deer Hunting”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Dpoole90, Google Adsense [Bot] and 32 guests