The title of this thread should be self-explanatory; I'm not looking for comments, I don't need anyone to tell me "I'm nuts" (the responses to the survey threads covered that ground well). I'm putting it out there for you to do a screen shot of, print off, or somehow save in an envelope marked "Open 3 years from now". I'm telling you all if we do nothing, if we continue on our present course when you open that envelope you'll wake up-too late.
1 deer per hunter per year; that's where we're headed. It's your call if you want to stay on the train or not.
Can you expain what you mean?
One Tag will be issued to each hunter per year. The single deer may be taken by whatever implement the hunter chooses. Simply put it will be One and Done!
It appears to me that we are sealing our own fate in taking excessive numbers of deer and basing the justification to do so on the exaggerated deer numbers. Not if but hen we reach the point at which the population collapses the DEEP will then say "It wasn't us, you guys shot all the deer"
Think about it.
Just look at the responses I get when I post that no one should shoot young bucks, or 6 doe each year! Some guys don't believe I see bucks that have 6-8 points at all. Why? Because they don't see them where they hunt. That tells me there are guys in there shooting skippers and doe all season long.
Or the guys that say they need 6-12 deer each year for food. Not saying it's wrong, but several guys on this site justify killing several deer each year for one reason or another, and it's legal.
I've said this for years - if we don't become more selective in what we harvest all areas of the state will continue to decline, and if you use the state's numbers as a guide you'll be opening that envelop in 3 years and saying "Why didn't I listen to guys like airrow?"
If that happens then the deer herd should skyrocket once they implement 1 deer per year. Right?
I do that in PA now and a lot of states do the same. Unfortunately that will never work with the current tagging system that we have. Also, this is just not the state where they will manage their deer herd like the midwest. Cant do it with the loss of habitat and population density in this state.
We have been spoiled in this state for a long time now. Seasons have been made longer (can now archery hunt straight through from mid Sept to Jan), bag limits have increased, weapons have modified (new bows, crossbows, in-line muzzleloaders, etc.) and now we are seeing the outcome.
I personally know hunters who are not reporting their deer kills. Makes me angry, but it's happening. The deep kill reports are WAY off. This will hurt deer herd
I like venison too much for that. Not that I kill a lot, 2-4 a year, but one just isn't enough venison to keep me happy.
Can one of the MA guys explain why? If you say CT has lots of private land closed to hunting then how do you explain the Redding/Newtown/Etc issue going on now, where the FLIR documented that we're down to 7-8 dpsm and white buffalo is still out there shooting more?
Under good conditions (good habitat, few predators) a deer herd left un-hunted can easily double in just a few years. I think it is fully up to hunters to decide how many deer they want where they hunt by utilizing self imposed limits. Pretty simple, if you want to see more deer, then shoot less deer for a few years and talk to any other hunters in the area and try to get them on board.
If we have learned anything over the last few years with these discussions it is that government intervention is the last thing we want to rely on to "fix" anything. Forget about trying to get DEEP to do anything that makes sense, I feel it's more important to get hunters informed and on board about herd dynamics and management.
perfectly stated!!
Mike in CT's Link
Link provided would beg to differ. Let me know how many other examples you'd like.....
It seems you're trying awfully hard to work both sides of the argument.
what does it matter if you have 100 deer in the rail yard if you can't hunt there? What we're talking about is the number of deer in the areas we hunt, not at Walmart, the rail yard, or the lumber yard.
Go to the state land where the large majority of CT hunter go, and tell me how many deer you see. You'll think you're back in MA.
I've hunted the Colebrook River Lake area for years, and most of the Housatonic State Forest, Tunxiz State Forest, Meshomasic, Salmon River, etc and in every one of these areas I've seen the deer herd drop to very low levels.
jrdeerslayer - where did I say your deer density is the same as CT? Never did! What I said was the deer harvest in MA has steadily increased to 10k-11k per year. and has remained at that number since 2002, so 12 years of steady kill, no decline in the numbers like I hear you guys talking about. These are the facts, not my opinion, so your arugements would be better placed with your state DEEP, not me.
MA guys - do you hunt state land in CT or private?? Where do I hunt? State land and state land ONLY. Others on this site are complaining about the decline of deer on specific tracts of private land and I'm agreeing that the state is mis-managing the deer herd in general because I've seen the same problem on state land.
so MA at one time had LOTS of deer and now they have a lot less (notice I didn't use any numbers, they just seem to get in the way).
CT at one time had lots of deer and now we have a lot less.
CT hunters are trying to stop the bleeding and the MA hunters want to keep coming here to shoot CT deer and they don't understand why Mike, Glen, myself and others are concerned about the deer herd in CT.
The picture is pretty clear to me.
You seem to think we have to many deer here in Connecticut ! Just because you shoot 3 does in a single day here; don`t expect to do the same everywhere else. I have read the link to the MA deer overpopulation problems in your state and can only conclude the MA hunters have been hiding something from the Connecticut hunters. I think Connecticut hunters should now consider hunting in Ma were your numbers are much higher than in most of Connecticut. It would seem the only good reason the Ma hunters are hunting Zone 11 & 12 is because they can currently take as many as they want.
In MA Eastern zones 10-12 the deer population is high. Probably as high as ffld county (25-30dpsm) from the most recent numbers I remember reading. Unfortunately many of the areas are very residential and houses are built on .25 acre lots with no habitat to support hunting. Then you will have a piece of town forest or conservation land or open space where hunting is not allowed and that is where you find those big pockets of deer (see Mike CT link in previous post) Blue Hills Reservation is a perfect example of this. The MAJOR DIFFERENCE from ffld county is in the size of the parcels of land. Many of the properties in Redding, Newtown etc are 2-4+ acres in size and there is no set back law for bowhunting. In MA you have to be 500ft from a house to bowhunt. I invite any CT resident to come up to Eastern MA to hunt...the problem you will run into is finding a place to hunt that 1) has deer 2) is not overrun with hunters or 3) is not owned by a RABID anti-hunter. We have been fortunate to have a lot of landowners stop by our vehicles or talk to us at the local diner about coming to hunt their property...this just would not happen in Eastern MA. I'm not sure why the landowners in ffld county are more open to bowhunters, but they definitely are (naturally with exceptions). Towns and landowners in Eastern MA are STARTING to come around to the idea of bowhunting. If you look at a breakdown of the numbers you will see that there is a very high archery kill from zone 10-12 for the reasons stated above.
Basically...If you want to compare hunting and deer numbers in MA and CT (for whatever reason) you really need to compare MA zones 10-12 to CT zones 11&12. Comparing N Central MA to ffld county or NW CT to Eastern MA just doesnt make sense, there are no similarities.
Also pronounced "Poaching", if I'm not mistaken...
JMO, one deer per year on public land would be about right, based on the (admittedly) little that I've seen… Hunted ML one year and I saw more tree stands than deer tracks; I honestly believe I was not out of sight of at least one tree stand at any time all day long, and I could usually pick out at least 3 or 4 within comfortable range of a scoped & rifled slug gun... Figured it wasn't the best use of my time, but maybe if CT were to adopt the Colorado model and limit hunters to not just one animal, but one season/method per year, the reduced pressure would see more deer passing back and forth between public and private land during daylight hours and over a longer period of time… fewer deer killed per day, but over a lot more days… Higher total, maybe??
But trying to control this herd by hunting public land is like putting a cast on the scratched arm of a patient who has lost a leg in a chain-saw mishap.
And part of the trouble is that the guys who are using the feeders can’t/won't take enough deer to meet the management goals even if they wanted to, because - let’s face it – killing a deer turns into work. The meat hunters can only process and eat just so many and I’d expect most of the horn hunters will only take as many does as they have to in order to keep a buck tag in their pocket. Meanwhile, those without access to good private land and/or who just can’t bring themselves to put out a feeder are getting discouraged and dropping out… or are bound to be headed that way…
I'm thinkin' some of the private land-owners who don’t allow hunting might reconsider if they were feeling a little more pain from the overpopulation, but I have a hunch that the widespread baiting has taken the edge off of that. And not because the deer are gone, but just because they’re less visible… I'm told (not surprisingly) that if you hunt a feeder regularly, it doesn't take those deer long to wise up and go nocturnal just like the public-land deer do after the shotgun opener... or maybe sooner. But my semi-educated guess is that if one guy is maintaining a good number of feeders, then the supplemental feeding probably off-sets whatever deer are taken, especially if that guy is not on a deer eradication mission. 'Cuz if you think about it... How many does per year will benefit enough from a feeder to be able to drop one more fawn? And how many deer will be taken at/around each feeder? I don't know, to be honest, but the vibe I'm getting from the DEEP side is that after 15 years of baiting, they're still not getting where they want to go....
Of course, I also wonder how many Antis are feeding deer on their own property just to keep them out of harm's way??? Makes me wonder if getting rid of all the feeders would get the deer up and moving a lot more so that small properties which contain travel routes (but not food sources) could become productive hunting areas again...
the only guys comparing MA to CT is the MA guys. They keep saying how great CT is compared to what you have in MA. I said along, I really don't care what MA has, I only care about the deer management issues here in CT.
It sounds to me like MA is exactly like CT. There are areas that hold lots of deer and then there are others that hold few deer. Sounds like FF county and the NW corner in CT. If state land in NE corner is/was so good, why are you hunting the SW corner now?
Spike
I've hunted CT for 46 seasons, not just 2; and not 4 or 5 years ago but every year since 1975, and I can tell you I know what has happended in this state, and where it's headed. Even the DEEP is now concerned and doing studies on fawn mortality in the NW corner.
Some hunters in CT put their money where their mouth is and paid to verify how many deer we actual have in certain areas, so it doesn't matter what we see in someone's yard in one specific location, it only matters what the total deer herd is and where it's headed.
I guess we're giving the MA guys a hard time because you have a very limit picture of what is happening in CT as non-residents. We've been trying to get the DEEP to listen to us for years now, and people like Glen have finally gotten their attention with the FLIR he paid for.
So when you come on the CT site and say we have plenty of deer, why are we complaining, etc, etc it's upsetting because we see where we're headed while you only see the current picture. We want to change the future, not roll over and accept it.
The guys on this site are fighting you and everyone else to have a great hunt this year, next year, and years to come, and I for one appreciate their work.
This would allow us to take approximately 20% of our fall population and still maintain a stable population. Current harvest rates are exceeding these ( fawn recruitment ) figures and we have a seriously declining herd.
The CT DEEP tells us we are currently at 30 dpsm and they will only remove the unlimited doe tags when we reach 20 dpsm; unfortunately we are currently way under the 20 dpsm figure with many of the towns in FF County at approximate 10 dpsm. Hunters will have to take the initiative and take less does / deer in order to sustain the resource we all care about.
This is unless White Buffalo; shoots any more deer in Redding, CT this year.
Problem is that so many important species of vegetation have disappeared that there's nothing left even for seed stock....
I'm thinking things were so "good" (or bad, depending on your POV) for so long that there's going to have to be a painful adjustment somewhere along the line...
You just gotta hunt more than one state if that happens..
What we have to consider is the "health" of the forest first and foremost. While the CT DEEP has begun clearcutting state forest we are still way behind on reaching the status of healthy forests in this state.
Clear-cutting creates regrowth areas and diversity and provides much more food for deer than an old, overgrown forest habitat ever will.
Forests may be a moot point anyway; aren't we all being told the problems are in the suburban settings?
don't forget to pry the tree huggers off the trees before you cut them down :)
;o)
I hope they get around to those; they started clear-cutting Roraback WMA a few years ago and it's already making a difference; definite new edge and fresh regrowth to pull in deer.
I've heard they really do want to get to work on improving habitat.
FWIW, I suppose the state isn't too concerned about increasing the size of the deer herd because if the habitat is there, the deer will show up soon enough. Might even pull some in off of the overpopulated private land. But I wouldn't expect them to discuss anything that might prove beneficial to deer for fear that they'll get the antis or the insurance companies or the politicians or all of the above inflamed about growing up more damn deer for those wicked hunters to kill and cars to hit. But hey, a few more rabbits and woodcock won't hurt anything.
Just seems that sometimes the fact that people won't talk about what you want them to talk about doing .. It doesn't always mean they aren't doing what you'd like them to do.. Just means everybody's not talking about it.
That's not news to me, I knew that was happening years ago, guess I just got numb to some of the abuses that local and state officials participate in.
If your friends get mad it only means you're correct in what you say and they didn't want it in the public's eye, so stand by your words, it's the truth.
