Wow!

Curiosity got the best of me….and I just had to check on the direction of this thread. My mistake!

Last thing I intended was for this to turn into a weapons clash. People are going to be submitting feedback…and I didn’t like the fact some are publically dismissing a significant disparity between 1.0 and 2.0.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I’m going to try …one more approach.

First, and this is KEY to what I’m about to say, a rising antlered harvest is an indicator of a rising deer population. Declining antlered harvest is an indicator of a deer herd in decline.

I’ll say it again…. a rising antlered harvest is an indicator of a rising deer population. Declining antlered harvest is an indicator of a deer herd in decline.

Killing bucks has minimal effect on actual deer reduction. The does are going to get bred and fawn…even if they have to cycle two, three or even four times to achieve pregnancy. Because of this, the reduction target ratio of doe harvest to buck harvest used by most states….Indiana included…. is 60/40.

Proposal 1.0 lowered the number of potential antlered deer hunting days using long range weapons. Logic would indicate….less days to kill bucks with long range weapons should equate into a lower percentage of antlered harvest….a deer reduction indicator. The other side of that equation is…a lower antlered harvest percentage means it doesn’t take as many dead does to close the gap on that 60/40 ratio. There was confidence these two targets would get the lawmakers off the DNR’s back…and by reducing the overall number of days to kill deer using long range weapons….would reduce the potential of over harvest in lower deer density regions.

Proposal 2.0 threw caution to the wind. The number of antlered deer hunting days with long range weapons was not allowed to move or decrease. Because of that, a significant number of additional long range weapons days, and a lot more dead does, are needed in order to have any chance of closing the 60/40 gap. Long range weapon days increased somewhere between 40-50% compared to 1.0…depending on the calendar. The lower deer density regions have been left to the mercy of a broken quota system. This proposal, compared to the first, is simply much more aggressive.

I’m purposefully leaving crossbows out of the equation….primarily because crossbow liberalization was coming with 1.0. It was just going to take another annual window of opportunity….to create the license…before that happened. I probably violated more than one confidence by saying that publically, but I’m tired of every discussion on this subject going down that same road.

Deer hunters got what they asked for. Yes, the lawmakers made the initial push…but it was deer hunters that that convinced the NRC to throw a lower impact DNR proposal out the window and then supported a much more aggressive alternative…..all for the sake of “opportunity”. Yeah, we had/have 3+ months of opportunity….for anyone who chooses to use it.

Indications are….2.0 is NOT working….at least not as hoped. Lots of complaints are coming in from folks in low deer density regions that have been hammered. The pockets of high deer density that created this fiasco in the first place are apparently still a problem? I’m basing that on the new proposals for baiting, increasing the bag limit and increasing the size of urban deer zones.

The wheels on the bus go round and round……