WOW!!!

Gotta admit.....you and I have sat down and thoroughly discussed why I backed 1.0 and 2.0 in the end...........NOT!!

Keeping smearing, lying, obfuscating, and twisting about myself and my good intentions hoping that the IDNR and Hunters BOTH got a big piece of what they wanted.

Just Flat Out Lie Some More Brew.

You're stuck with having to own and explain now why you backed this disaster of Prop 2.0 on other deer hunters:....and only thought of yourself......

Others like myself did not take that route.....and now have nothing to twist and lie about now in the wake of what we backed.

Swallowing just fine......

Swallowing just fine here also....

I think it would be good for a few of us, probably me included, to spend a little time out in a snow drift and let the others return the conversations to a little more lite heartedness and general debate. BUT, I still love you all in my best liberal manner!

I'll agree with you about eliminating the second gun season.... It is pointless and unwarranted,
and I have never participated in it and probably never will either...

As far as moving the gun season... This is my absolute biggest gripe with the bow hunting community... Why should the gun season be moved for? Bow hunters get from Oct 1st. till the end of the year to kill a buck so why should gun hunters be forced to give up something... Do you think bow hunters should give up something...

Every big time bow hunter I've poised that question to told me that wouldn't be fair and it just tells me how self-centered and selfish many in the bow community are... I bow hunt every year and I have killed deer a with a gun and bow and I didn't feel any difference in the two and it sure as heck didn't make me fell more "manly" either...
If I'm going out to kill me something to eat then I sure as heck don't want to make it a bigger challenge then it already is...

Now I will say this... I have always advocated moving M/L season up and doing away with it's own season because I feel if they can be used in firearms season then they should be treated as such... To go from 32 gun days down to 16 makes alot of sense...

To address the county bonus quota... That is pretty irrelevant... How many hunters do you know that has killed 8 deer from LaPorte or Porter Counties.... My guess would be none... Even if they dropped it down to two it is still irrelevant because you still will have hunters killing multiple deer a year... In order to make a impact DNR would have to change it to 0 or an "A" county, otherwise you won't see deer numbers driving back up anytime soon...

Do you primarily hunt LaPorte County? If so, then try hunting somewhere else... You got Kankakee FWA in Starke County, Jasper-Pulaski and Winimac FWA's in Pulaski County, Manitou Wetlands/Judy Burton Nature Preserve in Fulton County (Can't use a bonus tag there and I've seen lots of deer there) so you've got lots of places to hunt up there...

Bryan, It has been leased land in Porter co for the last 17 years....7 miles from my house.....I did kill some nice deer off of JP back in the day....been hunting there since '81...it isnt what it used to be either...both Kingsbury and JP have had some of their worst seasons in the last several years...same as some private lands....The two Bucks I killed this year were off of special draw hunts.....I killed the largest buck to come out of the Dunes State Park this year(see State Park hunt thread).... I'm done with the Dunes hunt however, I dont like the idea of being crowded in a place with guys set up 100-150 yds from me with firearms.....kinda like "blood alley" at Kingsbury....I lease so I dont have to put up with other hunters....that is why I stopped hunting JP, not that I dont like JP For state F&W areas it is still my fav. ....

i Buck is one buck , no need to shorten the seasons that I can see No need to force any one to rush the decision to shoot a deer , Leave the seasons alone

BREW and Scarlett Dew:

Take notice, the name calling stops NOW!

I am well aware of the history between you two as well as the involvement of others (including myself) in the debates.

No more pushing the lines, first one who bumps up against it will set out a few months. Try to push the other guy and the result will be the same.

Now to show I wont be partcial.......... Delaney has the call.

So, act like adults and be treated as such.

Joe Bacon

Pres IDHA

Where have I named called in this thread..

Dew, it's nice to read posts of people's opinions who I see eye to eye with. I don't see how people don't get it really...it's soo simple.

Of course there are some people that get it but refuse to do what it takes to make it happen. Give me 2, one thousand acre tracts where one has our regs and where one has a shortened gun season that starts in December. Which one is going to be better in 5 years? It is obvious. Nobody in their right mind could get this wrong. So, I understand if u just don't wanna make a sacrifice but don't act like a change in the gun season an our regs in General would not have a positive impact on our deer.

A red hearing argument... If you are the only one hunting it, and since you can only take one buck, the results would be the same regardless of season length.... Also you failed to account for habitat, genetics, weather conditions from year to year, and deer density since no two tracts are the same....

Remember, DNR doesn't force you pull the trigger and I have seen deer on other state hunting forums and their deer were no more impressive than deer here except for a few and we have that exception here as well...

No Problem with that Joe......

You are right....it's Sooooo simple. The ones that complicate it with distortion are the ones in my sights. And they don't like it one bit.....

BINGO...+1
But beware there a few trying to keep the people on this forum from reading any other opinions/data that doesn't serve there "I want the guns out of November" agenda. That's all they wanted from day one!!!

Without being argumentative, please define "better" and "positive impact".

Doesn't moving gun seasons into December mean that only bow hunters will be able to hunt bucks during the prime rut?

Its not the length of the season... its the timing of the rut with the gun season. They go nocturnal pretty quick. The damage is done in the 1st few days of firearms season. Lets make everyone happy, keep it 2 weeks long and move it out of the rut.
Keep it at 2 weeks and gun hunters don't give up anything.

Move it iut of the rut and the bowhunters quit complaining.

I'd LOVE to see what the result would be of 2 weeks of guns starting december 1st

Don't gun hunters give up hunting during the rut?

Yes they do. But all I ever see here is complaining about "opportunity". Gun hunters would have the same number of days afield...I'm a gun hunter. I see it as twice as many days than the surrounding states have.

No matter what you do, someone will be unhappy.

(And I'm full aware in my 1st post I said "lets make everyone happy")

I believe Indiana could be cutting edge by doing this and proving it isn't the reduced days of gun hunting but rather no guns in the rut, that seperates us from the success in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa.

With the new regs only in year 2, I'd be surprised if any changes are made to season dates/length before 2017.

The only "season" I can see that might be "changed" is the bonus antlerless season. And that's only because that season is valid only in counties with a 4 or higher bonus antlerless quota permits available. So if deer numbers drop too much, the DNR could just drop counties to a 3 (or less) and the season doesn't happen.

No muss, no fuss. No having to go through the mess they did just a few years back.

So they give up something? A pretty big something for most.

Yes. They will be giving up something.
AND
You're never gonna make everyone happy.

I would wager that moving the gun season out of the rut would result in much more unhappiness than happiness. Evidence enough resides in the result of the efforts a couple years ago.

I'm not gonna argue with ya. Waste of time. People hated the OBR too, Me included, HATED IT... but I can admit it changed me as a hunter. I realized that often times Mature bucks use younger bucks for decoys. MANY TIMES. Thanks to the OBR I realized there are a ton more mature bucks out there than I ever realized because I always took the 1st legal buck I saw.

Moving gun season out of the rut would no doubt be painful to many. But keeping it 2 consecutive weeks should take some of the sting out of it.
This is my opinion, and it isn't going to change until we or another state tries it.

Better yet, I'd be a huge advocate of picking a couple military or public land areas and trying out some different regulations. I'd be willing to bet the average gun hunter who wants to keep the season the way it is, would be dying to get drawn for an area that limited guns till after the rut

I'm not really arguing. I was simply pointing out that gun hunters do give up something with the move.

And the attempts to do so met with the opposition that gave us the season structure we have today.

I have also asserted elsewhere that this path was known and that it was a backdoor way to get the current season structure implemented.

Not if they pick up a crossbow and keep hunting the rut.

Bowhunters fought crossbow liberalization for years. Gun hunters were quick to jump on the crossbow wagon to avoid changes to gun season.
That very well could come back and bite them.

How long before the crossbow industry comes back to push this full circle? Afterall, it seems like the next logical financial move for them. They stand to sell ALOT more crossbows if general firearm season gets shortened and moved out of the rut. That's why crossbow hunting is so popular in Ohio....a short general firearms season that opens after Thanksgiving.

If/when it happens....pass the popcorn!

Even a good crossbow is limited to maybe 50 yards. Guns have a much greater range and ability to rapidly fire multiple times. So it's not really an apple-to-apple tradeoff. But I get your point and am sure that would happen.

Thank you HS for simplifying this even more. I really didnt think id have to butttt people still dont get it. It is the TIMING of the gun season that is the biggest issue. Bryan, the results would absolutely not be the same. sorry i didnt state the obvious that everything else would remain constant. it is much easier to kill a buck with a gun and is it much easier to kill a buck during the rut, typically. move gun season outside of the rut into december and less bucks get taken, thus more bucks live to the next year, thus more mature bucks. feel like i'm talking to a brick wall.

+1. My excalibur shoots baseball sized groups using a rest at 50 yds. using my climber stand shooting rail as a rest.

It is a great tool to harvest deer, but not even close to equivalent to a rifle or rifled shotgun.

Without being argumentative, please define "better" and "positive impact".

Guess that was too much to ask. Everybody gets it. I just want to hear you say it.

So "better" and "positive impact" means more mature bucks to you. I am sure you understand that your goals for hunting and other's goals might be a little different.

Uh Parke if you are the only one hunting those tracts then your argument is pointless because you can only take ONE buck per YEAR regardless of what tract you take it from....

And there is so many variables that come into play that your whole argument is just dumb...

This again is one angle to the deer discussions. A lot of the posts on other threads have been about not having enough deer and what to do about that. Then there is always the discussion about trying to apparently produce more older bucks. When the discussion comes to moving guns out of the rut, the logic reasonably goes to one of favoring the bow to the gun. To remove, seemingly, favoring the bow over the gun, then the logical next thought would be to close the rut to all weapons. Simply shut it down to all weapons If this were done, then there would be a harder argument that one weapon was being favored over the other. But, when this has been briefly discussed before, the bow guys have quickly spoken up and said that they don't make that much of an affect so they shouldn't be shut down. That immediately brings an appearance of favoritism be it real or not. If I were the DNR, considering the gun hunters do the heavy lifting of controlling deer numbers through harvest, I'd simply have a hard time agreeing, even though many other states have moved to that. Now, if the DNR were to decide to move more so to trophy management, then that creates a different scenario. But, regardless, where does it end?

I agree Delany... I have asked bow guys that very question and they all came back "That wouldn't be fair"

I told one guy that bow hunters have never giving up anything which he said "We gave up a buck" but I told him you can still take one just like the gun hunters get so we are all on equal footing now to which he wouldn't accept...

Bow hunters will not give any rut days up cause like they say "We are not that much of an impact" but they are regardless of how they feel... If it was all about growing bigger deer, then you would think they would be all for it but at the end of the day it is all about keeping other hunters out of the woods... I remember one guy who owns a sports store was talking to my buddy and I and I made a comment about Indiana having a "Buck Season" that the crossbows and bow guys got the first 15 days of November and gun a muzzy guys got the last 15 days and he was totally against since he was a primarily a bow hunter... But like I said we would all be on equal footing and have something at stake but to him it wasn't....

Camp Atterbury has instituted and "Antler Point Restriction" last year and being only in the second year it's still too early to tell its impact on bucks but I do know that only bucks I saw were 7 pointers and I heard that nothing that was "show stopping" was taking out...

I personally think that if they wanted to make bigger bucks, then they should ban buck hunting for a few years because that would make a bigger impact than APR ever could...

Uh Bryan my argument is that taking gun season out of the rut would make it more difficult to kill a mature buck. So, even if i was the only person hunting i may not even kill a mature buck because it has become harder due to the gun season being taken out of the rut. add in 10 guys to each tract. i seriously doubt that the guys hunting the tract with a gun season in december will harvest as many bucks as the guys who hunt during the rut.
John, yes "better" and "positive impact" to me means more mature bucks and more deer. i understand that my opinion of "quality hunting" may differ than some. However, i seriously doubt that im in the minority.

Delaney +1.

Parke, I don't think you are in the minority of wanting bigger bucks and more deer. The problem becomes how to get there. I think, at least for now, it seems to appear that shortening and/or moving the gun season isn't acceptable to the gun hunters at large. Even taking a mature buck with a bow during the rut is probably easier then taking one outside the rut with a bow. So from an easy standpoint and vulnerability standpoint, would you shut the rut to all weapons? Just curious.

Parke,

I'm getting a little mixed up here. How does moving the gun hunt out of the rut equate to more deer? I get how it will eventually result in more big deer and therefore making it easier to kill a big deer but the more deer puzzles me. I might be missing something though.

If you throw other hunters in the mix then yeah you might have different results but then again with all the variables that come into play you will never know... But just hunting it by yourself, no you won't and your chances of harvesting a mature buck probably will be no harder because they won't have the hunting pressure to deal with...

Shorting the season will kill more Buck because many, Myself included will not pass smaller bucks. with the luxury of waiting on what I want does and no bucks gone. I will shoot bucks and not wait . Big mistake IMO

People wont be happy if you take gun season outta the rut simply because, and I may tick some people off, any moron sitting on a ridge w a shotgun can kill a big buck during the rut. It takes no effort or preperation because all it takes is a hot doe coming by. Thats plain and simple, Im not faulting anyone for that, but we are a society now of people wanting the most with minimal effort.