2017 Bear Draw is done
Wisconsin
Zone B applied with 10 points
My wife did not draw with 10 points in Zone B!
I drew for zone A. Looking for a youth to transfer it to.
so this is showing up today, your points went to zero
I drew in zone A with 8 points.
9 points in B is a no tag for us
We are taking a Purple Heart Veteran on a bear hunt up north of Mercer. It's going to be an awesome adventure!
I drew in C and two of my buddies drew in A
Unlike Wildlife Posse I drew a Zone C tag with 1 preference point. Maybe we should change how Wisconsin handles the bear draw?
At the end of the season most Zone C hunters still have there tag in there pocket. For many, the excitement fades fast and the frustration sets in. Patients and a long wait in the other Zones will most likely be rewarded.
MF- You are correct. Zone C has a lot of hunters. A lot of people wnat to give it a try in their own and only end in disappointment. All you have to do is look at the harvest rates over the years. Zone C has a lot of area, and not as many bears as the other zones.
No need to change the way tags are drawn for. If you want to hunt zone C every other year, or zone A every 5 or 6 years, and so on. It's your choice. Hope you learn something and have a great time hunting!
MF & Mike F - Evidently you both missed the sarcasm? I know exactly what I am getting into with a Zone C tag. I do better then the 19% Zone C average & if I can draw 5 to 7 tags in 11 years as opposed to 1 tag in Zone B, & harest 2 or 3 "trophy" bears in that time, who is ahead of the game?
MF & Mike F - Evidently you both missed the sarcasm? I know exactly what I am getting into with a Zone C tag. I do better then the 19% Zone C average & if I can draw 5 to 7 tags in 11 years as opposed to 1 tag in Zone B, & harest 2 or 3 "trophy" bears in that time, who is ahead of the game?
Sorry for the double post.
Hearing guys now drawing C back to back years!
With the big ramp up of tag numbers it become a circus out there on some of the public lands. Bait stations everywhere and baiter activity all summer long, the bears got so many choices and with so much human activity during day time the bear quickly learn to fill up on there smorgasbord bait station route at night and loaf in the cool shade and digest during the day. The increasing of tag numbers has become counter productive (overall kill succes ratios dropping) for the majority.
Zone C could tweaked to provide a better hunt opportunity.
I think the answer is simple the government should just make more Bears. Just like printing more money.
Stoney-
We average better than 19% in zone C also, as far as "trophy bears" That depends on the hunter. We have a 60% success rate and have taken numerous book bears. The average hunter drawing a tag in zone C has a very slim chance of tagging out. The sad thing is that I bet 50% of the people drawing a kill tag do it with intentions of doing it themselves and killing a bear and of those 50% people probably don't spend more than 5 sits in the stand during the season.....
I understand where you are coming from and understand all to well the mentality of the person drawing the kill tag and not having success at baiting, let alone hunting by the number of calls I get 3 to 4 days into the season.
Zone C is not perfect by any means & I don't think managing to a kill of 1300 by raising the tags based on a 19% success rate is the way to go either but I just play by the way the rules are set. I aslo probably hunt as far south in the state where there are bears & I doubt that there are ever any bears shot farther south then me unless it is an outlier like the one shot in Dodge County a few years back.
We've been preaching that to the powers that be for years! But their plan is to keep the population from growing and moving farther south. To hell with hunter satisfaction!!
I firmly believe changing the structure for zone C will increase the harvest and provide a better quality hunt.
Zone C is not for everyone & realistically not for the inexperienced. It's nice to want to bait on your own 40 & shoot a bear but that usually doesn't happen in the other zones either. I am willing to hunt the whole month possibly seeing only 2 to 5 bear but targeting one bear for possibly multiple seasons. The upside to C is if you try it yourself and it doesn't work out you've only burned 1 or 2 preference points.
Best of luck to those of you that hunt Zone C. I've also read where the overall harvest success ratios dropping and the kill hasn't been what the dept wants. They blame it on hunter saturation, so what do, they do they raise the tags by hundreds upon hundreds the past few years. Sometimes I can't figure their reasoning when they know what the problem is.
