WI DNR Poll

[Goose]

How do you honestly feel the DNR and the higher ups are doing with the herd compare to other states.
Please keep it clean.

[gunther89]

I feel that they are trying to do there best with the deer herd and to make sure that everyone is seeing deer.  The only thing wrong is the EAB and t-zones.  They should every 5 years and then not have them for 5 years or something like that.  Also it would seem like a good idea if they could send out surveys after the hunting season to everyone who purchased a hunting license and have questions like how many deer did you see, how many hours they hunted and so on.  That would be a good indicator of how many deer were in that county. 

[ReflexHunter]

The DNR needs to use hunter observations to help with estimates and other things.  Also, all the regulations on baiting, and now possibly on food plots?  I feel that you can't stop CWD, naturally it's going to run it's course, take out the weak deer, and go away again.  It's nature!  First I can't bait, I can deal with it, then tell me all the work I have done on food plots which are no different than deer eating from a farmers field, may soon be regulated?  The DNR needs to be a bit more understanding that we hunters are trying to cooperate but it is getting hard.  Not to mention the wolf ordeal.  They have lots of work to do.

[Goose]

I wonder if the reason they do not do hunter surveys is because of money?

[Fish]

HA HA HA .....I expected a buck pole with DNR guys hanging..[:D][:D][:D]

[wack]

Maybe it's just me, but in 2000 I harvest 6 deer with gun. 2001, my 1st bow season, I harvest 6 deer with bow. 2002 I harvested 5 deer with bow 2 with gun. 2003 I harvested 4 with bow, 2 with gun. 2004 , 4 with bow 3 with gun. 2005 3 with bow, 3 with gun. 2006 2 with bow 2 with gun. 2007, first year ever that I got skunked. 0 Deer with bow, 0 deer with gun. 2008, 0 with bow 1 60 pound doe with gun. 2001 I didn't even gun hunt, 02 I only gun hunted opening weekend, 2006 7 and 8 I gun hunted almost every day. 2007 I did miss the rut due to having my bow and a lot of my hunting equiptment stolen and replaced just before gun season, but prior to the theft I wasn't seeing any deer which was mind boggling, they just weren't there. Maybe I just forgot how to hunt? It can't be the DNR's fault, they say the deer are still there and are still over goal. Who's goal? Anti hunters? Dept of Ag's? Insurance companies goal? I wonder if the DNR reached it's soybean goal? Did they make enough money growing soybeans on public hunting grounds last year? I'd hate to think they lost money while starving the wildlife to death over winter. I'd sure hate to think the deer ate too many soybeans before they could harvest them last fall and turn a profit!  

[gunther89]

Ok wack not to be rude or anything but you are complaining about how there are no deer around where you hunt but yet in the last 9 years you have harvested 43 deer, yet you wonder why there are no deer around.  When you take that many deer out in 9 years and assume there are other hunters in the area that are shooting deer you will have lower deer numbers.  Deer aren't gonna be able to repopulate when there getting shot at a rate like that. 

[Fish]

Ever find a great fishing hole that holds big brown trout?  Well, it doesn't take long to fish them out.

I'd have to agree with gunther89, Wack.  To quote a biologist your not too fond of, " you guys shot them".  This is one reason public land sucks and landowners who were managing their herd have deer.  I'm not saing the system isn't broken, but hunters played a bigger role in where we are at than we tend to think.  One thing is to give tons of free tags, the end decision lies with the one pulling the trigger.  Another quote, "what to see more deer, stop shooting them".

Hey this fish is out of "water", anyone have any on their tailgate?

[buckhunter21]

To be perfectly honest, I think it needs a lot of improvement.  In my area (west-central), things have been going downhill every year for the past 5...And this isn't just me.  Four out of five hunters I talk to say the same thing.  I think most of this started when EAB came around in our area and they handed out doe tags like it was no big thing.  We need to go back to the days of no EAB or have higher qualifications for it, and not hand out 10 doe tags to every hunter.  From my standpoint, when hunters get these many tags, they think it's OK to go and shoot that many animals even though their area may have minimal animals.  More education needs to be done on this too obviously as you can see.

[Fish]

It's fairly simple, when you have the numbers you want around your land, for every buck you shoot, 1.5 antlerless need to be shot.  If no fawn,mainly nubs is shot, one doe to each buck.  Your herd number will stay close to the same.  Of course, it does take a large hunting party to work together as everyone wants a buck. 
 
Practice good self management, with neighbors help, DNR can issue 100 tags per hunter and it will not make a difference. 
 
Your trigger, your finger, your choice......Fish