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More good publicity and ink for WV!

https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/2017/10/11/2017s-best-states-for-whitetail/

The percent gain was based on the dismal harvest of 2014 followed by the much better harvest of 2015 due to numerous bucks being left for harvest. Of course, when you harvest 23,000 less bucks than the year before in 2014, due to weather and mast, you will have a great year in 2015. I correlate it to the ability to have a great year with just ONE year of lower harvests.

Based on the same info gathered for the article, we also harvest 3.4 bucks per sq mile but only 2.4 doe's per sq mile. We lead the nation in bucks harvested per square mile. I'm not sure harvesting more bucks than does is a good thing when we lead the nation in deer auto accidents.

Things are getting better. I still advocate a two buck limit with aprs on one or both bucks, with a change in license structure, and an emphasis on education.

Sunday my main point was just to say WV is getting some good publicity - we can look at the numbers and interpret the way we see it and that is fine and dandy. At one point I was like you and thought a two buck limit with APRS was a good option. I no longer feel that way about limits. Far as I am concern I have not seen any good research that shows much approvement from dropping a limit of 3 or 2 bucks down to a 2 or 1 buck limit. Matter of fact - the more I research and read over it - I think this buck limit ploy is just that - a ploy to have hunters have to go to other states to continue hunting to create more revenue for the DNR’s in each state. That’s my personal opinion and you have the right to disagree with it. You can tell me that KY, OH and IN have done all these great things - then I can come back and say well just a one buck limit for PA didn’t do squat for 30 some years until they finally added APRS and that there are other big buck states that have high buck limits that are just as good as KY and OH - and the banter and debating continues and continues. LOL I will say it again one buck limits are just an avenue to get hunters to go away from home to continue their hunting and to spend more money.

As to APRS - I still think there could be some use for it - if it were made simple to follow. Such as a buck needs to have 5 or more points total period. None of this points to a side or so many inches nonsense. I think it would help to protect some of our younger bucks and we all know that another year of education for them will mean a better chance at avoiding hunters the next year - relating to more 2.5 yer olds surviving and it continues down the age bracket. And unless your our dealing with a fenced property the high grading factor is nonsense as well - a 1.5 year old 8 point gets shot no matter what the buck limit is - by some hunter unless you are following APRS with inch restrictions - and then he may just be found laying somewhere because he didn’t meet the inch requirement and some low life let him lay in the woods.

I also like the earn a buck for any buck after your first of the year. It use to be like that here in Berkeley County but it changed several years ago. I need to check regs and make sure it hasn’t change back though for this year.

I still think the biggest change for our WV Buck population will be through continued education and better Land/Timber management. Things are changing towards the positive with this but let’s face it - here in WV a bag of corn is still the most popular food plot!

Sunday - I would agree would like to see more does harvested - the doe season is just about the only thing I disagree with the way our DNR set things up.

I hate the early seasons for many reasons and most of the guys I know tend to side with me here. I also know there are quite a few others who disagree with me here and love the early seasons.

My reasons are: I think it makes it much tougher on the fawns. I know studies show fawns can handle losing their mother and maybe they can but my mind tells me different. Back when they had the September bow and muzzleloading seasons for does - I watch a buddy kill a doe with his muzzleloader - she had two fawns - after she fell they came back to her and nursed off of their dead mother. Sicken my and my friend’s stomachs just a bit. Needless to say - neither one of hunt the early season now. I am sure that is not the norm but it happened that day and I have heard similar stories. Of course the heat and bugs influence me as well to just go golfing instead! LOL Next and i know they say less does make for a better rut - but the 3 day does season there at the end of October - well those guns cracking sure do seem to make the bucks around here to go in hiding a little quicker for some reason. Guess they are more cowardly here than what they are lovers. So here in about a 2500 acres area - i know of no one who hunts does then because the talk between me and my neighbors we all pretty much don’t want to add pressure to the deer then except for bowhunting.

And the list goes on - now how to combat : I have my own opinion - I would prefer number one - shoot a doe before second or third buck requirement. Later doe season and even extend it into January some. (I do get the hey some bucks have dropped by then arguement as well. If you shoot a buck then make count towards the persons limit then for the next year.) I would also like to see a longer muzzleloading season - in which I think more does would be killed. Make it at least two weeks - i never get the chance to take my muzzleloader out anymore because I am normally busy that week. I just think there are things that could be done to work on the doe numbers in the areas where it is needed.

JayD, you bring up some interesting opinions. But I don't understand the 1 buck limit is designed to make people travel to other states to keep hunting?

In my experience of hunting in 1 buck states, knowing and communicating with hunters in those states what it does is make people more selective in their home state and keeps them hunting for longer periods in their home state. I can't quote it of the top of my head but there are studies that show states with a 1 buck limit the "average" hunter hunts longer because they are more selective in what they do shoot.

I don't think OH, KY, and PA Game and Fish Departments planned their deer limit in order to help WV by pushing their successful hunters to WV to kill another deer.

As for PA, it is an outlier, and is difficult if not impossible to compare with any other state because it has the highest hunter density of any state. Double that of WV and is the reason a 1 buck limit didn't work there and they had to add in ARs to get any buck survival thru hunting season. Also, Ohio has a higher hunter density than WV but still produces high numbers of mature deer.

It always amazes me how we have to eliminate PA from the equation when it comes to the one buck limit (seems every supporter of the one buck limit always eliminates PA because there were just too many hunters there - for whatever reason the one buck limit did not work there - period) Gobbler I am here to tell you the Panhandle’s are much more similar to PA than what they are compare to KY. Maybe I should start saying it is difficult if not almost impossible to compare KY with WV because KY is twice the size and KY has about half the public land that WV has. Maybe its because KY is made up of I believe 53% agriculture land to 47% forest - where WV is about 78% forest. Seems to me it would be difficult to compare. Plus with so much of KY being private - i just think land restriction for hunters as a whole is so much better than having a orange army on the twice as much public land WV has over KY. Again we can read numbers and situations totally different. Plus - there are state with multiple buck limits that are just as successful as the one buck limit states - just saying success can be had without a one buck limit and a one buck limit has not been successful everywhere - am I wrong?

I find it funny that a one buck limit promotes hunters to spend so much time in their home state because they will be much more selective. But then I hear other hunters talk about how the hunter from OH, KY and PA come here to WV to get their 3 scrub bucks - all these studies saying they are staying in their own states. The one thing I have learned about studies - is they normally tend to lean towards favoring the writers opinion.

Gobbler I have also heard from one buck state that it has hurt the hunting retail economy. You know like I said in one of my other post - we can continue to debate because there are facts out there that I guess we can use to support each of our sides.

But I have yet to see one thing that supports the success some of these one buck limit state are having is solely because they have one buck limits. There are so many reasons but the fact of the matter is they more than likely would have still happened if they had a 2 buck limit. Again prove to me that in our BOW ONLY counties that some of the monsters coming from there is because its one buck limit and not that it is because it bow only. Do you think there would be a drastic change in those 4 counties if they increased the limit to 2 but they remained BOW ONLY?

And i will agree with you that some hunters may become more selective because of a one buck limit but there will still be quite a few who just want to be successful and kill any buck.

Gobbler I do have a question for you - do we have a confirmed number landowners who hunt in WV yet? I was wondering if its a confirmed number or just an educated guess. Last year the number of deer hunters that are in WV is around 330,000 and that didn’t count landowners - seems to me we start counting landowners like PA does and we inch closer towards them. Plus - I don’t see where you have trouble in seeing how a one buck limit does not force the successful hunter to go to other states to continue to buck hunt.

I agree that People are more selective in one buck only states.

This feels like the good old days. LOL

In my opinion it should be obvious that PA is an outlier in terms of hunter density. The 330,00 or so number that you refer to includes landowners because every hunter regardless of license buyer or landowner has to have a DNR ID # to check any game in so with this being the 3rd year of e-check it's probably the most accurate number of hunters than we have ever had.

In my honest opinion, considering we are kinda comparing apples to oranges in the case of the 4 bow counties, but after hunting all 4 counties over 26 years I do think it would be different down there with a multiple buck limit. Exactly how much of a difference it's impossible to know but most of the hunters that I know or have known while hunting there are selective because of 2 reasons. 1. They only have 1 buck tag and 2. They know the buck of a lifetime could walk by at anytime. But, there is no doubt that being bow only is a big factor also.

If you think about PAs average number at 20.5 hunters per square mile and a square mile is 640 acres that works out to 1 hunter for every 32 acres. At that pressure it's a wonder any buck survived hunting season, and most of them didn't before ARs were put in place. With WV average of 10.3 it's 1 hunter per 62 acres. PA has double the pressure on average that WV has.

I asked Chris Ryan if the 330K included Landowners and this was his response “We don’t have an estimate on landowners yet. There are just so few of us that can work on this type of information”. This numbers stuff is always so confusing.

Come to the panhandle and you will hear of similar numbers hunting as PA. There is one little farmette that I know of that is 45 acres and he allows 24 different people on it. Just here surrounding me i know of 230 acres that at least 11 hunters are on - heck 32 acres sounds pretty good to me!

LOL I was going to make the same comment about the good ole days - this site has been slow!

I can see this both ways. I often wonder it statewide regulations are the answer?

We cary the doe harvests across the state. I imagine bucks should be managed differently too. Never hunted a bow only county but I don't think it has the deer numbers to support a two buck limit. I think big changes would be seen in only a few years.

Again, I see both arguments about PA. For whatever reason the one buck deal didn't work but add in apr's and it has improved things. PA and some of your other better states have different zones with varying differences whether that is bag limits or hunter numbers.

Said all of that go basically say i don't see a statewide solution being the best option and no matter what it is impossible to satisfy all hunters when it comes to managing the deer herd.

Some people just want to fill tags. So if they have three buck tags they will kill three. If they only have one, then they will kill it and the other two live. Yes, someone else may kill them, but altogether there would be Bucks leftover that were normally killed.

That's interesting because Chris is the one that told me the numbers were more accurate. They should be able to click a button and get the total number of DNR ID #s. If not, the code wasn't written well, or wasn't ask for. With specific ID #s for each hunter any business should be able to pull that up easily.

Yes, those are just statewide averages. I'm sure in parts of the deep woods in both states there are areas with zero hunters per square mile.

Good debate buddy!! And good luck hunting this fall! BTW, I'll take any national recognition we can get

Jayd,

You claim people want to take Pennsylvania out of the equation, which I see no evidence of, so I want to discuss Pennsylvania from a different avenue.

How different would Pennsylvania be with a two buck or a three buck limit? You say you haven't seen any proof that a one buck limit is any better than a two buck so let's just hypothesize what would happen in Pennsylvania with a higher limit. One argument our DNR has is that so few kill a second or third buck that it doesn't matter so what would happen in Pennsylvania if they raised their limit?

Here's some info

Extra buck gun stamps(resident) 1999. 67,642 2015. 23,200. A 63% DECLINE!!!

Extra buck bow stamps (resident) 1999. 27,263 2015. 17,746. A 35% DECLINE!

License Revenue 1999. $15,493,693 2015. $14,948,081. LESS REVENUE THAN 16 years ago? How?

Love how you like to use those numbers: again like I said 8 states have decline in population with I think only 1 of them being more than WV. PA is included along with WV within 8 states with declining population. PA is one of the one buck states - and guess what they have decline drastically in license sales as well. Explain that? How ? And if I recall Little ole WV has more NR hunters than KY, OH and PA and we are so much smaller than those 3 states! And in OH they have had a population increase but their resident license sales has dropped? How is that possible?

And a majority of those 8 states that have seen a decline in population have seen a decline in license sales well. But oh yes the reason for license sale drop is because of quality of our deer. Sorry I just don’t buy it.

Maybe the drop in license sales could be that we had an over abundance of deer for years and now with dropping the size of our deer herd has had a little to do with NR sales but it sure has not hurt too much - because we still have higher NR sales than the surrounding states it looks like.

Oh I don't think our decline is due to just our quality of deer. Most nonresidents come here to kill small bucks and does and go back to their state where bucks are bigger and they can only kill one. The decline is because of technology. Kids and adults as well have more choices for entertainment. Our state is also getting so fat and out of shape that they don't want to or can't hunt. Lets face it. Hunting is hard work.

Wv did not have a net population decline until the last year or so.

That's true.

So southern counties have seen a sharp decline in population- wonder how many of them were hunters? Eastern Panhandle has had a boom in population - mostly from DC And Baltimore people moving in - wondering how many of them hunt? I think there is a big difference.

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