Michigan Eyes Creative Deer Hunt Regulations

[Dan Schmidt]

Six-point rule and aggressive antlerless harvests eyed for counties facing threats to deer herd from bovine tuberculosis.



http://tinyurl.com/26jedqs

The DNRE wants the Natural Resources Commission to change the rules in those counties, letting hunters kill antlerless deer with their firearms tags and limiting buck kills to deer with at least three antler points on one side.

[Ben Sobieck]

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[Ben Sobieck]

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[Sailfish]

Just offhand, how does a 6-pt rule help the deer against TB???

[berudd]

I would assume that it is an attempt to decrease the buck harvest and increase the doe harvest and therefore control the sive of the heard. It is not that only taking 6+ pt deer has any impact on desease but just that it will refocus the harvest more towards does.

[Bryan78]

ORIGINAL: Sailfish

Just offhand, how does a 6-pt rule help the deer against TB???

It doesn't, however it will increase the size of the bucks harvested and potentially decrease the number of hunters in certain counties.

[scottflesher]

Why not just require each hunter to harvest a doe before a buck tag will be sold to that license holder?

[motorbreaker]

I hunted DMU 452 from 1988 to 2004. In the Huron
National forest. 26,000 acres of it. I have to admit
that there were way to many deer in DMU 452.
Throw out a corn pile one night, And kill deer there
the next night. Drive 2 miles down a road and see
200 deer.
Until the TB scare. Then it was $5.00 a doe tag. Kill as many as you want. It was'nt long, And the deer were gone.
You could no longer bait. Coverd miles and many days
to kill a deer in the end. A bunch of guys and a giant
cedar swamp you farm belt guys couldnt imangine. The
push was on, And we killed deer, But if you werent willing
to work for it, You wouldnt kill a deer.
When I started hunting northern Mi with the older guys
alot of them didnt believe in taking does, And it didnt matter how small the buck was, It was good job, Well done.
And more often then not, The older generation is more
apt to doing the bitching. Most young guys wont call
the politations.
We killed dozens of deer in DMU 452, Not one with tb.
Huntin tis area now isnt worth it.   Jake

[IsitInTREES]

There's a big problem in that corner of the state.  Some guys says there's no deer, some guys won't waste their time hunting there because of the "so-called" lack of big bucks.
 
No bait may have caused the problem in the DNR's eyes but without baiting, I don't feel that the harvest goal will be reached.
 
Two problems -
1.  No one wants to eat the venison from a deer that may have TB.
2.  It is not a largely populated part of the state with the numbers of hunters.
 
How do you fix that?  How do you get hunters to shoot does to reduce the deer numbers... what is the "buy in"?