I live in east central IN, Wayne county. We have an 80 acre farm. 40 acres of woods and cover 36 tillable. We do NOT have the deer around here like we did even 5 yrs ago.

I also am a mail carrier and have access to several hundred acres of prime hunting ground in the county. The deer are sparse! I speak to my customers on a regular basis and they are not seeing deer either.

You hit the nail on the head Yaz it's not the guy killing the 8 bonus or whatever it's the 30 killing the 2 one archery and one Mzl Lowering the bonus does nothing to the annual harvest NOTHING !'

I wish we had more recent data but according to the 2010 Deer Hunter Survey :

43.5% of hunters killed 0 deer
30.0% killed 1 deer
12.2% killed 2 deer
5.6% killed 3 deer
4.6% killed 4+
.6% killed 8+

Extrapolated out to 30 given hunters, that's 5 deer killed.

Since Rush and Wayne counties came up in the discussion, I took the time to look @ the harvest data for the seasons 2009-2015.


For Rush County the average # of antlered deer harvested was 171. The high was 193 in 2014.

The average # of antlerless deer harvested was 190. The high was 217 in 2014.

The average # of deer harvested was 369. The highest was 410 in 2014.

This season the allotted bonus antlerless permits available was 1 per hunter.


For Wayne County the average # of antlered deer harvested was 458. The high was 508 in 2010.

The average # of antlerless deer harvested was 652. The high was 700 in 2012.

The average # of deer harvested was 1111. The highest was 1143 in 2010.

This season the allotted bonus antlerless permits available was 3 per hunter.

So for that year, there were 134004 deer killed. That means that the hunters that killed 4 or more deer accounted for more than 31,000 of the deer killed.

If those hunters were restricted to only killing 3 deer, nearly 13,000 deer would not have been killed.

That's 4.6% of licence sold I believe ,not deer harvested

Here's the table straight from the survey...specifically says "Deer Harvest Per Hunter" and then breaks it down per season and total.

You and I both know to keep the data skewed and harvest numbers up one of three options will be played.

Sadly I can only think of two; what am I missing?
1.) early weekend ML season
2.) earn a buck
3.) ?

3.) Exploding broadheads. Duh!

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/bow-mag-38-357-magnum-arrowhead-6-pk?a=1692605

If you draw water from a well at a rate of 20 gallons/day, but that well is only capable of replenishing 15/gallons per day....you will eventually run the well dry.

If you have no means of monitoring the water level, you won't even know the well is going dry until it is too late.

Amen!

Now some of you guys know how I feel. I know years back some thought I was a big cry baby because I would hunt days on end a few hundred hours a year and would see less deer in that time than some seen in 1 day. It is frustrating to hardly ever see any deer. Now you know where I am coming from. The public land I hunt gets hammered so hard that the deer left are sooo skittish they won't move until after dark. More and more people are getting pushed to public land because of leasing and not allowing others to hunt their land anymore. People are more possessive about their land then years back and if they have land they can make a few bucks leasing it. And then this year we went from a 3 to a 4 county with the extra late antler less season. Why???

I didn't think you were being a crybaby but a hypocrite and I called you out on that... Like Brew told Jeff Valovich earlier in this thread, "Your either part of the problem or part of the solution...you cant or shouldn't be both!"

You go out shoot two Does and then proceed to tell everyone not to shoot Does the following year like it was going to make some impact on your hunting area (which it wouldn't)... What makes the impact in your area is you and your neighbors playing the brown and down game which equating to what Pav said about the well running dry is he is right, IT WILL RUN DRY, just like you will run out of deer... And if and when you do, it will take many years to recover...

For the most part, MOST families and can get by on a deer or two a year... But if you continue to go out and shoot deer after that then you are pretty much going out just to shoot deer... I work with a guy who boasted about he and his family killing 8 deer last year and only getting three this year (last I heard) and he was griping to me about it... He blamed it on everything but himself and his family for the slaughter they did last year... They are part of the problem, but are too darn stupid to see it...


But I the thing that aggravated me the most about that exchange is the fact you dragged your daughter into the discussion which was totally uncalled for... You shot those two Does because you wanted to and it had NOTHING to do with your daughter...

and I'm done for the year like I stated .... I tore up my 2nd archery tag ...... only the 8 pt this year...no Does...

Yes we know. I was simply using Brew's quote...

its time to kill some 'yotes and bunnies.... the best thing for this state would be for hunters to boycott and not use any bonus tags some have left or not to buy any more for that darn late "kill all the Does you can" gun season... I wish they'd put all the counties a 3 or less bonus so that season isnt viable, or do away with it for good and put a state wide limit on a hunter on how many deer one person can kill, one Buck/two Does (or even just one Doe) IMO ;0) .... just back off the Does darn it !!

While I don't want to get in the middle of two people's discussion, I have to say that Bryan78's post about hypocrisy rings true in a general sense.

I can't tell you how many posts I've read about "save the does" and then see where some of the very same people have posted pics of dead does or brag about filling their freezer with does. It reminds me of when people constantly complain about the start date and length of the firearms season in their "I hate gun season" posts and then post hero pics of a buck they killed with their favorite firearm during the very season they've been b*tching about for years....

IMO, the whole "do as I say, not as I do" thing tends to undermine these folks credibility....

That would be the best thing state could do but unless you set it up that you could not kill more than one Doe per county than even this would not have that much impact...

The fix ... 2 deer per hunter state wide, only one of which can be a buck. Buy your two deer tags and a MANDATORY hunting license. Hunt your deer during the seasons that are open using legal weapons. End this madness of bonus antlerless or a special antlerless season or weapon specific tags. Then let the hunter decide if he wants to limit his hunting to one deer as his area herd suggests or if he feels he can take two. This nonsense of taking 3 or more deer has to stop though.

But that plan cuts into State revenue and this is what our system here in Indiana is really all about ... money. It never really has been about the deer or the health of the herd. It has always been about the hunter's wallet.

Shortening and pushing back gun season would help too ... but that is a whole different debate.

Deer herd is fine every farm that I hunt. The bag limit has been discussed before and just because I can kill 8 in one county doesn't mean I do. My family kills what we can use for the year and that's it. I know a lot of deer hunters and not one of them reach their bag limit. I'm sure if you average the number of deer taken vs the number of hunters it would be below 2 per person.

So let me get this straight...........

Someone that does not like Indiana's gun season LENGTH, or TIMING of it ONLY....Must mean they hate guns ......and /or is hypocrite if they shoot a deer with a gun in Indiana?

What????

Does this mean that those that wish archery seasons dates were different.......hate bows and are a hypocrite if they take a deer with a bow?

Really?????

Or do you mean that people that don't like the hunting regs you do....... are seen as hypocrites/problems by you

In 2015, almost 162,000 licenses were sold (not including youth - 195,000 including youth). With 123,664 deer killed, less than 1 deer is killed per license sold. According to the 2010 deer hunter survey, 73.5% of hunters kill 0 or 1 deer.

Also keep in mind that 19% (23,255 deer) of deer were killed by lifetime license holders which are not included in the licenses sold number.

[2015 Deer Harvest Summary - p. 15 - http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-2015-Deer-Harvest-Report.pdf)

Nowhere in my post did I say anything about someone hating guns.

You apparently saw an example of "Dew as I say, not as I Dew"...and didn't care for it.

I was just asking...... and you cleared that up after editing your response post to me about 4-5 times... LOL!!

I know....... I know........ that knot in your tail is kinda obvious...... takes awhile to repeatedly edit your post/play on words till you think it looks believable.... at least to you. LOL!!

Pumkin' Flavored Truth Serum..... tastes wonderful doesn't it....

I think the simple solution would be for all the people that gripe about Indiana's deer regulations to sit out a few seasons and see if the deer herd grows to the numbers they think it should be. I think it's funny that people gripe about low numbers of deer but still hunt. The truth is the deer herd is fine. Just because a few people struggle to kill or even see deer doesn't mean the deer aren't there.

How would you limit Urban areas and draw hunts for state wide limits?

Dew,

I'm finished with your foolishness. You were gone from this forum for months and things were peaceful.

Now the garbage has started again, but I'm not going to waste any more of my time on a hypocrite like you...

All for it. Killed one in gun season and my son killed one in youth season. Plenty of meat for the family.

Gun season is way to long now. Make it a couple weeks tops. 3-4 days (Like Ohio and Illinois) would be better. Start it the end of November...

API, why dont you tell everyone here how its done ?? SMH ...

Yep...... You and Trapperdave just were running around in here spewing "the usual"...... and nobody was calling you out on it. "Peaceful" for you....doesn't mean it was "Peaceful" for others. All the sudden it becomes "Garbage" when you don't like being pinned to the carpet on your own twisted logic..... selfish views...... and giving others insight into what you don't want them to realize. All of the sudden...... "hypocrite/Charlie Brown/Great Pumkin/ and "have a good evening, I'm outta here" is all you have left to say.

You'll be back........ you can't help yourself.

Bottom line......... this thread is now 10 pages long not because people are happy with what you stand for and try to justify..... More weapons, More Liberal Tags, 30+ Days of Gun Season with no end in sight.

Lovely little bed you have to yourself and a few of your "Mini-Me's" still for a little while jjas.....

I agree completely. But not only will that not happen, some of these people are more than happy to talk out of both sides of their mouths and b*tch and moan about season lengths and dates, yet they are more than happy to take advantage of those seasons, if it means killing a buck they can post hero pics of, so as to try and feed their giant egos.

I find them to be hypocrites and that's all they will ever be....

How would you limit Urban areas and draw hunts for state wide limits? [/QUOTE]

Special draw hunts like State Park or other places I would make no different than how they are now. These are properties that are unique given there lack of regular hunting pressure. So IDNR and the property managers should make the call on what type of limits for each draw in a given year.

As to Urban ... IMO it is a joke the way it is now. Make it fall just the same as the rest of the state unless a state biologist saw a need for an emergency rule change for a target area.

Emergency rules could always be used if a specific area needed additional herd control.

It really doesn't have to be complicated.

Jeff, I believe I already did. My family harvested what we can use and called it a season. The people that struggle to kill or see deer need to quit killing deer until the herd gets to the numbers they think it should be. There will never be a time when all hunters are satisfied. I've had seasons that I struggled but continued to hunt and eventually it all came together. I've had seasons where the freezer was full by the end of October. If it weren't for the options that Indiana allows there are times I wouldn't have filled the freezer. I meat hunt first antler hunt second.

I had cameras out most of the season and got pics of a lot of does and small bucks. Never got a pic of any good bucks however a 165 inch deer and my sons 148 inch 8 pointer was killed on this farm which goes back to the other point I made. Just because you don't see deer doesn't mean they aren't there.

Yeah it does, it's the Indiana way of doing things...

Special draw hunts like State Park or other places I would make no different than how they are now. These are properties that are unique given there lack of regular hunting pressure. So IDNR and the property managers should make the call on what type of limits for each draw in a given year.

As to Urban ... IMO it is a joke the way it is now. Make it fall just the same as the rest of the state unless a state biologist saw a need for an emergency rule change for a target area.

Emergency rules could always be used if a specific area needed additional herd control.

It really doesn't have to be complicated. [/b][/QUOTE]


If the state did something along the lines you are proposing, how would you make up the revenue lost?

If the state did something along the lines you are proposing, how would you make up the revenue lost? [/b][/QUOTE]

Up non-resident fees and poaching fines. Need to do that anyway.

DEC has a point. I could go with that.

bean Perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't imagine that being anywhere near enough to offset the revenue loss.

I'd love to see some numbers on the subject.

Don't worry someone will come up with a Idea to shoot 2 Bucks to gain loss money and save does!

Well……I guess If me griping about the lack of deer, not killing a single doe in the last 15 years (when i seen it coming) and only taking a buck every three to four years as I need meat, makes me a hypocrite, then so be it. But I'm **** sure not going to sit out a "few seasons" and continue to watch it decline from the couch…..its going to decline whether I'm hunting or not, because I have ZERO impact on our local herd with the way I hunt.

Yaz,

I certainly wasn't talking about you. We discussed your situation the other day.

I'm talking about people who complain constantly about the pressure on the herd (and certain seasons/equipment) yet turn around and hunt those seasons, post pics of their booty and then go back to complaining about the pressure on the herd.