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1. High populations of deer in Zones 11 & 12

2. Lack of access for hunters to private property

As we wrapped up the 2016 hunting season it has become apparent to some that neither of those reasons may be applicable today. Deer populations have been decreasing over the past 10 years and when you examine the difference in deer harvested per square mile in Zones 11 & 12 as compared to the other 10 zones the increased take is negligible. Zones 11&12 makeup 24.1% of Connecticut, the other hunting zones (1-10) makeup the remaining 75.9%. Only zones 11&12 allow baiting of deer and have done so for the past 14 years. In 2016 zones 1-10 harvested approximately 7,659 deer or (2.08) deer per square mile, zones 11&12 harvested approximately 2,666 deer or (2.29) deer per square mile. If we only look at zone 12 the numbers are (2.13) deer per square mile. Lack of access is not a problem; between landowners opening up property and large blocks of private land being opened up by Aquarion and other entities hunters have the access to get to the deer. It can be argued that the increase in access has become detrimental to the health of the herd as former "reserve" areas have been drastically thinned out over the past few years.

Are there other reasons to consider ending baiting ?

1. Baiting has been linked to chronic wasting disease (CWD)

2. A 10 year downward trend in harvest numbers along with the negligible harvest per square mile increase in Zones 11 & 12 suggests that baiting has run its course and no longer facilitates sound management.

3. Hunting is about fair chase; baiting does not promote this concept.

4. Hunters who place bait on the boundaries of properties not open to hunting are increasing and in addition to the legal/ethical aspect of this practice are further depleting reserve areas.

I love the fact that certain hunters in this state take control of managing the deer herd by having these kinds of conversations. It's been said before on this site, we can control how many deer we take, and therefore how many deer are left.

Each of us hunt for different reasons. I love big woods, always have and always will. I like the idea of being further away from houses and others hunters, more than I like being into lots of deer. I use the chase as means of experiencing nature, so every day in the woods is my adventure. I can't get that on a 2 acre lot or someone's backyard. And hunting elk in the vast, open spaces out west is my dream. I love walking for miles and looking over the next ridge, anticipating I'll find that big bull bedded down.

I am curious about the logic behind its justification though. Landowners of small parcels want the deer off their property. Hunters use bait to bring the deer on their property. Doesn't seem consistent. If the deer are already a nuisance on the property, why the need for bait?

I don't know the population data or biologist reports but I am all ears.

1.- I hunt a lot of small parcels of land. Some as small as 2 acres. These small parcels back to other parcels I have no access to. I can not move my stand 100 yards where the deer are traveling and need them to come to me.

2.- some times, I need the deer to stand in a safe direction so I don't shoot towards homes, sheds or anything I wouldn't want to shoot. I know I'm shooting on a downward angle but you can never be to safe + I always tell land owners I will never shoot towards their home.

I forgot... cuz I can and it is legal.

Zone 6, approximately 283.47 square miles had a deer harvest (2016) of 550 deer or 1.94 deer per square mile; just under zones 1-10 average of 2.08 dpsm. Seeing 18 deer in a field would not necessarily equal an out of control deer population; deer often congregate from several square miles of area to feed in fields.

When my wife kills more deer with her car than I do when I am hunting then the population is too high.

The link to that baiting article is more for places like Texas and down south where they bait deer using huge volumes and you wait and pick out which deer you want to shoot. Baiting here in CT is used as a management tool to pull deer onto smaller acreages to safely harvest deer as Silverado, JDR, and Crow have mentioned usually using small volumes of bait.

SWK. Where are you in CT that has 6 deer/square mile?

Does NOT leave you with a lot of options, and if that parcel is strictly a travel corridor, then you have to at least get them to shift their primary trail to someplace where you can shoot safely and be as sure as possible that they won't make it off the property on a death run. I can see how that might limit you to an area about the size of a pool table....

Down here, we have a lot of water company property that's not yet open, as well as some parks (and a cemetery, for that matter) where the deer are overrunning the place... If the DEEP could get those areas opened up - and maybe the wooded right-of-way along the Merritt... Then I think we'd be getting somewhere...

Ethical concerns dominate debates among hunters. Pre-baiting an area and excluding other hunters on public land didn’t seem fair. Attracting deer onto private land where they were not accessible by other hunters seemed unethical. Hunters who claimed that bait was necessary to position deer for a “clean shot” seemed to lack patience to wait for an appropriate shot. Some bait users were tempted to exceed quantity limits, while others illegally shot over lighted baits at night. Some justified baiting by saying simply that it was legal. Many non-hunters questioned the practice as being unfair to deer. But, all of these arguments paled in comparison to the biological and ecological issues that were largely overlooked by those favoring baiting and feeding.

Disease Transmission

The repeated placement of food to a location, as occurs during baiting and feeding, distinguishes these practices from any other natural foraging by deer. These sites become progressively contaminated with feces, urine, saliva, nasal droppings, and pathogens. There are about a dozen communicable diseases of deer and we should not foster conditions favorable for the transmission of any of them.

Ecological Impacts

If 200 archers and 200 gunhunters bait, imagine the quantity of bait placed in the deer woods. This can easily be tons of artificial energy being dumped into the natural system. Add to that the quantities of food placed by recreational and supplemental feeding. This energy changes productivity, survival, distribution and behavior of deer. Carrying capacity is artificially elevated causing undesirable impacts on plants. Deer are attracted into or near residential clusters or onto private land where firearm discharge is unwelcome or access is restricted. Deer distribution becomes increasingly uneven. Highly productive herds require special hunting seasons (e.g., earn-a-buck, unlimited doe replacement tags, Sundays, extended seasons and implements used to contain herd growth. All of this greatly complicates proper harvest management of the public’s deer.

Confounding Issues

Some think that baiting and feeding are a private landowner’s right. They forget that wild deer (all wildlife) are a public trust to be managed by the States for the benefit of all citizens. To the extent that landowners post their lands against hunting, they de facto privatize any deer that might be present. Baiting and feeding (and foodplots) may exacerbate this by attracting, concentrating and holding public deer in a privatized situation. Other hunters do not have access to these deer. Hunting opportunity suffers and very often community-established deer population goals are unattainable or are ignored by the hunter. Deer distribution becomes increasingly patchy (boom or bust). Yet, we selfishly chose not to ban baiting and feeding of deer, despite disease transmission risks. Some hunters seem addicted to baiting, plus there is an industry that has grown to support baiting and feeding practices.

Important Problem Remains

There are only a few known actions that can be taken to proactively combat the establishment and spread of CWD. A bait-feed ban was a primary part of those actions. Controlling the movement of carcasses from infected areas is another necessary action in containing and eradicating CWD?

Conclusion

The repeated replacement of foods to a location distinguishes baiting and feeding from any other foraging by wild deer. A small quantity is all that is necessary to habituate deer to return to a site. Two gallons is plenty enough to attract multiple family groups of deer, especially where other bait-feed piles might be nearby. Feed-bait sites become incubators for disease transmission as they become progressively contaminated. Hunters and fisherman have a history of enforcing ethics on themselves for the sake of the resource (bag limits, catch-and-release) and their own well being (gun safety). It is time for a new ethic in hunting to emerge. Hunters and citizens should ostracize those that continue to bait and feed. I’m convinced that baiting and feeding remains a problem primarily because hunters, especially, have not gotten themselves informed. Thus, baiting and feeding remains a problem because hunters have allowed it to remain a problem.

Keith R. McCaffery

To me baiting does not improve the success rate over time, based upon the information I've read. It's something I would never use because the chase is more important to me than the kill, and I would rather walk into the big woods and FIND the deer.

Until someone can provide factual info concerning the exact number of deer in CT, all of this discussion is just food for fodder. As hunters, our concerns are around a simple premise "Are we seeing more or less deer than last season?" Is the herd increasing or decreasing in the areas we hunt?" DPSM are guesses and mean little when you come right down to it. DPHA = Deer Per Hunting Area,.......that's what matters when hunting.

BTW - cops know the law, but ask them if crime is up or down in their areas and I'll bet you they have a firm answer.

Saying there must be lots of deer because 157 were killed in a town is the same as saying - most hunters are seeing less deer, therefore there are less deer this season than last. Same process, same guesses, not factual. At least the hunters are the ones actually in the woods trying to find deer and not using conjecture and assumptions. Less deer in my area = less deer in my area. Unless they learned how to fly and not leave tracks in the snow, then all bets are off.

Seems like we go in circle on this site at times,... and I know I'm one of the people pushing the merry-go-around :)

Bob, if you are killing 157 deer in a town, there are a lot of deer in that town. In 2015 in Minnesota, where the deer hunting tradition is alive and well and there is a lot of room for hunting to take place, an estimated 15% of the herd was harvested by hunters (https://www.minnpost.com/data/2015/11/how-many-deer-do-minnesota-hunters-harvest-each-year-and-where-do-they-find-them). Here in urban CT, the hunting tradition is not as prevalent as it is in MN and human population density is higher, and there is not a lot of room to hunt, let’s say that hunters harvest 11% of the deer herd annually. Fair? Let’s apply that figure to Ashford for 2016. If 157 deer taken by hunters represents 11% of Ashford’s deer population, that means 100% of Ashford’s deer population is 1,427 (157 / 0.11 = 1427). And if there were a 1,427 deer in Ashford before September 15, 2016, that equates to 37 deer/square mile (1427 deer / 38.8 square miles = 36.8 deer/square mile). Much more believable than 6.

I try to keep a pretty open mind on this, but sometimes the stuff you say is just crazy. I have hunted in several regions of Minnesota for deer, turkey and pheasants. I have lots of friends there, including suburban hunters and farmers. To try to apply any data from MN to CT is complete nonsense. The incredibly diverse habitat, game laws, traditions, etc. are not in any way comparable to CT.

I know avid deer hunters who haven't killed a deer in years in MN due restrictive tags, no doe permits, wolves, etc. In other regions deer are all over the place but those same restrictive tag rules don't allow hunters to shoot any number of them. It is literally a different world.

If you want to extrapolate numbers for CT, at least try to make an apples to apples comparison and use other small states with similar habitat, and game laws (if there are any).

Doc - " lets go with 44 deer/square mile, Revising to 38 deer/square mile, (314 dead deer/38.8 square miles) died in 2016?, If 157 deer taken by hunters represents 11% of Ashford’s deer population, that means 100% of Ashford’s deer population is 1,427 (157 / 0.11 = 1427). And if there were a 1,427 deer in Ashford before September 15, 2016, that equates to 37 deer/square mile (1427 deer / 38.8 square miles = 36.8 deer/square mile). "

Maybe we should just divide Docs` last number 1,427 by 2.44 for 585 deer in Ashford, CT or 15 dpsm......and be done.

That said, I think a fundamental flaw in this discussion is forgetting that as hunters, we base our population estimates either on old numbers "the state" gave us, or that we guesstimated some how. So, say 20 years ago in Ashford (I have hunted there relatively recently, enjoy it, and look forward to spending some time on public land there next fall) there were suggested to be say 30 / sq mi. We are framing our POV of what 30 deer per square mile looks like off that estimate. If that estimate was off, then our calibration is off. If our calibration was off, then our view of what deer density "looks like" is probably still off.

Say that 30 number was really 45 or was really 10 - we dont really know for certain... But you can see how our view of what a given population range would look like may change, right.

It totally bias's our view of the numbers.

There is no way to perfectly count every single deer in a given area. All you can do is apply modeling methods which are studied and determined to be valid by a preponderance of the evidence. Science is messy at times. It's not always X + Y = Z. It's ok for it to be messy! It's about learning and developing a greater understanding - and always evolving as the pool of evidence grows - or changes.

I do think there are fewer deer than years ago. For sure. I do think the numbers are solidly lower. At this point though, the more I read these deer pop threads, the less accurate I think any counting method is. Regardless of who did the counting.

As for baiting. It's not my thing. When I day dream about my perfect hunt, I've never seen a bait pile :). But, I can see how in some situations it makes sense. And people I know who are FAR better at deer hunting than I, many on this forum, have experienced it and feel in situations it can work well. Ill take their word for it.

It does seem, from the consistent input from all of you still hunting a lot in those SW zones that the numbers are way lower than 10 years ago... That would make me think that restricting it to very specific situations could make sense. Say areas with the highest human density that hunting is still possible...

It's a good question to ponder for sure. Gets me thinking outside my comfort zone!

I only use bait when I'm fishing, unless I'm using lures :)

So if I see four deer walk by my stand and I kill one of them.......you are assuming that the other three get killed by something else???

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination."

Look, deer numbers are down. Baiting sucks a$$. Great for trail cams.....but who the F wants to hunt over a pile of corn and sit down at the end of the day, look in the mirror and say, "Yup, I'm the man!"? C'mon.

And don't for a second think baiting is only going on in the legal zones.....it's happening all over the state. Ridiculous.

I can't make my popcorn fast enough to keep up with this entertainment. Munch munch munch.

Toonces. Just did a quick Google search to see what % of the herd hunters harvest annually for comparison. See below for justification.

Gotcha Notme. We, well I, am using hypotheticals here to show how impossible single digit densities are in a town where you are taking 4 deer/sm, the 7th highest take in the state. Can I guess absolutely how many deer are in Ashford from harvest data? Of course not. My point in using mortality data from WI is to show what % of mortality hunting accounts for. Because hunters and poachers kill 50% of deer annually in WI does that mean it’s the same in CT? Of course not, but it puts us in the ballpark. As you pointed out, non-hunting mortality in CT is likely higher than in WI but that only helps to prove my point further. The only absolute number we know for any town is hunter harvest, and if that number accounts for a lesser % of overall mortality, that means lots more deer died and there has to be a boatload remaining to sustain the population. The reason I used the MN number too was to get us in the ballpark of what % of the population of deer are harvested annually. It is 15% in CT too? Probably not but what that number shows me is that it’s on the low end so I used 11% as a statewide average. If we are using 11% as a statewide average, for illustrative purposes, we use that 11% for every town. Is every town harvesting 11% of their population? Of course not, but these are the numbers we are working with. Town harvest could range between 5 and say 20% of the herd harvested, but it ain’t 75% annually is my point.

Will. Thanks. Guys here want to believe the herd is decimated and want 60 deer/SM again. That is not going to happen and while harvest is down from what it used to be, it is still pretty good deer hunting in CT, and a more reasonable number of animals. And yes, estimating deer abundances is messy and we deal in ballpark and not absolute numbers. I have seen densities ranging all over the place and have done density estimations at all different densities so kind of have a feel for it.

The "guessing" scenario holds true for Doc as well. He's a biologist! He's not the DEEP who, by his own words, is responsible for managing the deer herd, they should know how many deer there are, and they were the ones with the 20k in 1975. There's no doubt in mind Doc knows wildlife biology, but that doesn't make him an expert in herd densities, any more than any of us. Both sides are guessing based upon our personal experience and trying correlate that data with what the state says. There is no right or wrong, only personal perception.

And when Doc says "The only absolute number we know for any town is hunter harvest, " that just shows he's not a hunter. If he thinks ALL kills are being reported then my guess is he followed the rabbit down the hole to Wonderland.

Is deer hunting pretty good in CT, hell yeah. But it was better years ago, that's the only point I'm trying to make. So when people say we're whining or spoiled, that's not the case. We're scratching our heads wondering what happened? Why is the state saying the herd is increasing? Why did they tell me the NW corner had plenty of deer only to find out the herd was in trouble?

As for your comment about animosity - I find it difficult to respect or trust a state official who enters into a contract with a personal friend and uses taxpayer's money for his failed study. To me it's unethical and borders on illegal, but that's just way I was taught in the private sector. So anything that comes out of his mouth automatically is scrutinized.

It's dinner time, so I'm going to eat some bait now.

Attached is the group of 5 deer that are hanging out my office window in the back yard in East Haddam, They have been out here almost everyday since last summer. 3 does and two button horn fawns

Introduction of the Japanese bayberry bush. Ticks love it. Deer don't eat the bush. Increase of ticks, then...Mice run around transmitting these bugers. Creating an epidemic of lyme disease. Never met anyone who was diagnosed with Lyme that said "awesome I got Lyme disease." Im sure there's much more to it but that's why we have the doc to figure it out. As far as deer density. Life cycles. Seen it with fish in the river, fish in the ocean and on a small scale we watched geese this year move almost on a daily basis. A few days in one town then 7 miles away the next. Normally geese would love fresh cut corn, not this year. Grass only. Talking about fish in the ocean, wait till all the charter boats fish em out.

The challenge I was getting at with numbers, was that say in the 60's or 70's... whatever system of estimation was in place, was rougher than what there is now. Hopefully. I'm assuming as research has evolved so has the understanding of how to estimate deer numbers. (most other sciences are more evolved now than say 10, 20, 30 years ago, so I'm assuming wildlife biology is as well) So, while the state may have said 20K. Maybe it was 15... Or maybe it was 40. We have certainly seen in all these threads that even with super modern methods, counting deer is a real rough skill set at this point. Plenty of room for error.

So if you were calibrated by the best information at the time... Meaning your belief is that there were 20K, and you were seeing 15-20, that's not congruous with what you are seeing now, so things don't compute. It's not you, it's the science. it's evolved and improved (assumption I'm making given most other sciences have improved and reflecting on the threads the past couple years here - wow - IR herd counts and what not - WOW!)... So if we could go back and use today's strategies, then, perhaps the calibration you have would be different.

Look, I'm not saying you implying this is only your issue. I do this too! We all do it - not just in hunting, in everything.

I'm in full agreement with you on the numbers - for sure they are lower. And I'm a lover of watching deer, not just shooting and eating them... so I'd be happy with more. Really happy. My broader point was just that I think part of the problem with understanding what density looks like, is that we assume old numbers were accurate in the first place, when it's quite likely they were less accurate than they are now.

That's not a bust on science. It's just a reality - knowledge evolves and grows as new methods are explored and validated, likely at higher levels of accuracy.

On an aside - how's the prep going for the fall? I'm really excited for you to be going west again, and look forward to hear how that elk hunt this year goes!

1.- I hunt a lot of small parcels of land. Some as small as 2 acres. These small parcels back to other parcels I have no access to. I can not move my stand 100 yards where the deer are traveling and need them to come to me.

2.- some times, I need the deer to stand in a safe direction so I don't shoot towards homes, sheds or anything I wouldn't want to shoot. I know I'm shooting on a downward angle but you can never be to safe + I always tell land owners I will never shoot towards their home.

I forgot... cuz I can and it is legal.

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but sometimes on those 2-5 acres pieces the deer could be simply 200yds away and nothing you can do but bait and try.... Pre 03 deer population was so high you could be in any tree and kill deer plain and simple...

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Here are two examples of why baiting in Connecticut should be stopped. A hunter is using a small parcel of land to hunt a large parcel he is not allowed to hunt. He positions his stand on the edge of the property he does not have permission to hunt, with his stand facing the (reserve, wildlife preserve or land trust, etc.) he hopes by baiting he can draw deer 100-200 yards off the area he is not allowed to hunt. By shooting a deer on the edge of a wildlife preserve the deer will more than likely will die on the preserve were the hunter is not allowed to hunt. The hunter must then contact the managers of the preserve property to legally recover the deer. If the hunter does not get permission to recover the deer he is done; unless he chooses to enter the property illegally to recover the deer. This same scenario is playing out dozens of times a year in zones 11&12 in Connecticut. The situation has become so pervasive, Land Trust organizations in Connecticut are currently lobbying to have both baiting stopped and yardage setbacks for hunting legislated this year.

Regarding the reserves, what is the criteria that allows the general public to access the reserve? We have several around me and to my knowledge all you have to do to access is to park your car and walk onto the property. If I kill a deer and it runs onto the property and dies, why can't I access the property as everyone else does and remove the deer? If I hit a raccoon with my car and it makes it onto reserve property and dies, I can't walk onto the property that all other people can access and pick up the raccoon and leave? I'm not seeing why I would need to go through the antics to remove a deer. Assuming you're not going onto the property with a weapon. Granted it may not be the smartest thing to sit on the property line to shoot a deer where there is a good chance the animal can die on the property easily. But banning baiting isn't going to change that possibility. If you're hunting that close to a property that you don't want a deer to die on, that's a real possibility regardless of baiting.

And I agree with your points about science and it was exactly what I was trying say. The science of today is not absolute, it's dynamic and changing daily! They must use assumptions and extrapolate all of the data to come out with the numbers on the herd size.

My point is hunters do the same thing. Neither set of numbers are correct, but to hunters we know for a fact that the deer we are seeing is either better or worse than previous years.

I don't care if the state says we have 10 deer in the entire state if I'm seeing one or two every time out. That would be exceptional! And if the state says we have a million deer but I'm not seeing any sign of deer anywhere, then I'm saying my season is worse than last year. That's when I research the kill by other towns, talk with hunters about their areas, do a lot scouting, etc. To me, how many deer in the state is a secondary issue to how many deer am I seeing in the areas where I hunt.

“If he thinks ALL kills are being reported then my guess is he followed the rabbit down the hole to Wonderland.” I know this not to be the case. I will say it again, the only absolute number we know for any town is hunter harvest. Do we know how many deer were not reported? No. Do we know how many deer were poached? No. Do we know how many deer are in that town? No. Do we know how many deer are in CT? No. What we do know is a minimum number of deer harvested and reported. So if we know that a minimum of 157 were killed and reported, then we need to account for poached deer, deer that were killed and not reported. See Bob, you are only helping to further prove my point that there are crapload of live deer remaining. Now Bob is yelling at me that I am not a hunter (funny thing is in the last 18 years, I have killed more than 25 times the number of deer he has and countless ducks, geese, turkeys, grouse, woodcock, and pheasants) and I am not including poached deer and non-reported deer. How many deer are poached and not reported? I don’t know, but I think Bob does. I am basing my 11% annual CT hunter take from the MN article in which is stated “For the 2015 season, the DNR expects a total harvest of between 140,000 and 155,000 deer — which is about 15% of the state’s total estimated white-tail deer population of 1 million.” It is hunter take, it said nothing about poaching.

Glenn your “math” doesn’t make sense. I can and did justify mine. Can you? What is the justification for taking the number of deer I derived for the town of Ashford from 2016 reported harvest and dividing by 2016 statewide harvest density? That is completely nonsensical and only serves to give you a number that you seek. Also your "justification" for stopping baiting is exactly why it exists in 11 and 12 in the first place, to pull deer onto smaller parcels where they can be harvested safely and legally. You really can’t use the purpose of a management tool to justify its removal. That too doesn’t make sense. I'm curious which land trusts are lobbying against this.

Doc - Is that hole you're digging in Wisconsin or Minnesota ?

Hunter harvest can't possibly be known when you also agree that not all deer harvested by hunters are reported. The only absolute you know is the number of deer harvested that are reported, not at all the same.

And let's see, I killed one mature buck in 17 years, and passed on countless others, but I know how many are poached? Are you trying to say because I forgot to tag that buck I got in 2014 immediately after the kill I was poaching? You know, the one where I admitted to my mistake openly on this site for all to see? I'm sure you would also mention that I was wrapped up with showing a new hunter how to field dress the deer and my mind was on him at the time,.....but I offer no excuses, still my mistake, but it's certainly not poaching.

BTW - I didn't see any tags on the two deer in your backyard that you shared with us on the site Doc?! Looks like they were there for a while, so were those just rotting away? I think you said they were management kills, so who cares if the meat was wasted, right? Hunter? Really?

Airrow - he's got holes all over the USA it appears, from Redding to Staten Island to WI to MN. This is the guy who claims he's a "Scientist" however his science is to use numbers from other states and apply math to the numbers to develop the deer herd density in CT. What's makes this really crazy? He thinks we should believe him!!

I think we should start calling him "Dartboard"

Glen where exactly did either of those examples say that they had stands on the edge of a wildlife preserve facing into a wildlife preserve???? Grasping at straws.

Realistically if your are hunting a two acre parcel (one of the acres being a house and yard) backing up to a nature preserve your options are going to be pretty limited which way the stand faces.

I do agree however that if you shoot deer on private property and it runs onto public property and dies, I don't see anything that would prohibit you from going to get the deer (leaving your bow behind of course).

The whole baiting thing still feels illogical. Baiting is allowed where the deer population is highest and is used by hunters on private land where the land owner wants the deer gone. If the deer are already nuisance on the property there really shouldn't be a need to bait them in. If your hunting on a property where there are no deer to begin with, then they are not a nuisance and you should find somewhere else to hunt.

What am I missing?

I agree. I am just trying to understand the utility of it, that is all. The proponents seem pretty adamant that they want to keep it, just trying to understand why it is so important to have.

If you shoot a deer (or any other game animal) that goes on to an adjoining piece of property, you need permission from the property owner to access their property and retrieve the animal. If the property owner says NO, then you are done. Even if it's a deer and it's dead on the other property, without permission you can not be there.

If you have private property permission, shoot an animal which then goes on to state (DEP owned) land and dies, give our dispatch center a call and an officer can standby or give you permission to retrieve the dead animal.

Connecticut is not like some of the northern New England states...in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont if the land is not posted you can hunt it....Connecticut does not allow this. You must have permission from the property owner to hunt on their property (or even access their property) even if the property is not posted.

Notice in his response the DEEP captain did not say it was a crime to do it, only that the hunter should contact the DEEP for "permission" (whatever that means). I assume what he means by "permission" is notice to the DEEP so the hunter is not arrested for a non crime.

Bob. Jeez. I am not calling you a poacher. Merely suggesting you might be clairvoyant with numbers that the rest of us can’t know. Touchy are we with your 0.06 deer/year harvest tally the past 17 years? You call me out, I’m going to fire back. A good hunter usually has some meat in the freezer to show for his efforts. No? You going to dispute that too?

CAES determined uncorrected deer density on 4 Redding square miles to be 29 deer/square mile. Davis Aviation determined it to be between 29-30 deer/square mile over 6.5 square miles. DEEP on March 8 counted 31 deer/square mile on Transect 5 (which includes Redding and Ridgefield).

Anyone else seeing a trend here?

I would need to come up with a percent for the "hunter reported harvest" plus the WB harvest that would take the 121 deer taken to my agenda goal of 1,100 deer in the herd. So 121 divided by X = 1100, so X = 11%. GOT IT!

Doc - you're not even trying to hide your spins now, you're getting lazy!! If you want to play you'll have to do better than that.

BTW - WB could only take 11 deer over bait at night with high powered rifles and hunters, you know, the guys you said couldn't reduce deer herd density, took 110!! That's 10X what your boys working for Tony D could do and they didn't get paid $128k, they did it for sport and paid for the pleasure.

Fraud is bad math and tossing numbers together that have no reason to be together to come up with a result you seek. From Glen “Maybe we should just divide Docs` last number 1,427 by 2.48 for 585 deer in Ashford, CT or 15 dpsm......and be done.” Where did 2.48 come from? And actually 1427 / 2.48 = 575 and not 585 as Glen reported here. So phantom numbers and bad math. And I am the fraud?

Back to statewide population estimates, the attached is the last report from when DEP used to survey all zones every third winter. From CT Wildlife, Volume 27, Number 3, May/June 2007, Page 3. “The survey technique is most useful as a long-term trend index to assess whether the deer population is increasing, stable, or decreasing on a regional and statewide basis.” Point being, is it was never meant to be a count of the entire deer herd in CT….

I should have started a side bet with notme on the over/under for this thread (I was going for over 100 posts, under 200 for the record.)

On a more serious note there has been one excellent observation and one point it seems no ones really taken notice of yet.

Point#1-Toonces hits the 10 ring-if a landowner wants a hunter to take deer off his property it should go without saying that the deer are coming onto that property well before a hunter arrives and starts baiting.

As Toonces asks, why bait if the deer are already hitting a food source? Treat it the same as you would a dropping oak in the woods, finding the best position to place your stand in .

Now it should go without saying that if the rationale is safety-related that trumps everything else but I've only seen 1 poster so far who suggested this as a rationale.

Point#2-the one I'm surprised no one else has latched onto yet.

The posts relating to having a property without deer and the need to bait to pull deer onto that property from 100-200 yards away.

I think it's probably a safe bet that a hunter isn't going to get a call from a landowner to kill deer on a property when there aren't any deer on that property. This one should be a given.

So, the $64,000 question is why would a landowner grant permission for a hunter to bait problem deer from areas that have that problem to their property where they don't have that problem?

That's the question people here should be asking.......

Ex: toyland..every property in that area are 2-3 acres..most likely 3/4-1 acre of huntable land not including front/back yard..some big tracks of woods tossed in (town land,water co)..i know of at least 4 deffinet hunters in the same 3 mile area,probably most likely more if I really look for stands..i share pictures and sightings with 2..are they the same deer,don't know don't care..my goal is to pull as many deer into my property as a can for a clean shot..before I started baiting there some deer knew the school bus schedule or the sound of a garage door,bait just brings them and keeps them longer

Sorry for yelling, but it didn't seem like you heard me before. Your math is just a guess just like my math, or Glen's or anyone else on this site. My math is bit simpler though because it boils down to "less deer this season = bad", or "more deer this season = good". Can't get much simpler than that.

You accuse Glen of pulling the 2.48 from out of the blue, but then you state - "Then I applied the 11% figure I derived separately for kicks". Ahhh, ok, so kick yourself in the butt because that's where that number was pulled from. You see Doc, both sides use applied math that is questionable, I don't care how many links you document because those are guesses as well.

And why did you say the DEEP doesn't know exactly how many deer there are in one of your previous posts and now you're quoting them like this is the end all of the discussion? You see, you flip/flop back and forth so none of it makes sense. I've been consistent - there are no accurate counts, just guesses.

Music??? What music?? All I hear is this ringing noise in my head. Please make it stop. Oh wait, someone is at the door. Bye

Glen's 2.48 number is a deer harvest density for 2016 for some zone or statewide or something. It is a meaningless number particularly when you use it to divide by the estimated number of deer in Ashford. The resulting quotient is nonsensical and tells us nothing. My 11% figure was an educated guess yes based on the Minnesota article whose link I provided above in which it estimated 15% of the herd was harvested annually. And when I asked a DEEP biologist what % of the herd is harvested annually, he guessed between 10-15%.

Not flip flopping on DEP estimates either. I said "DEEP on March 8 counted 31 deer/square mile on Transect 5 (which includes Redding and Ridgefield)." That is a fact and was stated as such. Not extrapolating it out to the Town or State. Get it? Or do you need me to type slower? Bob just because my math tells a different story from what you "know" or the fact that you don't understand it doesn't make it fraudulent.

1. The harvest per square mile is an interesting metric when properly applied; If you use the DEEP harvest report and have the square miles in a zone it's fairly simple to derive that zones harvest/square mile. In this scope it can be a useful barometer of zonal success rate when one is analyzing harvest data to consider potential hunting spots.

While it's interesting to put zone-by-zone comparisons up the value of that information is subject to debate; factors such as habitat variation from zone-to-zone, predator numbers, hunter numbers, vehicle traffic aren't universal so that has to be taken into account before drawing any conclusions.

It's interesting to look at that data, estimated fawn recruitment and try to ballpark a zonal herd estimate but again, the key word here is "estimate."

Let's leave that last thought aside for a moment.

2. I've seen a wide range of estimates for Zone 5's deer population and I'm not seeing it on either the low or high end of the spectrum. 6/dpsm or 38/dpsm don't seem reasonable based don a few facts I'll get to shortly. I'll preface them by saying I'd take the average (22 dpsm +/- 10%) and feel pretty comfortable about that number.

OK, the facts as to why I feel better about that number; If you look at the DEEP DMZ map you'll see Ashford sits right on the eastern border of Zone 4A. Zone 4A, along with Zones 2 & 3 were the 3 DMZ's not included in the private land Sunday hunting bill and the rationale was the DEEP established a cut-off of deer densities of 20/dpsm or greater as a requirement for Sunday hunting.

Obviously this seems to indicate the DEEP placed the dpsm in these 3 zones at less than 20/dpsm. With the proximity of Ashford to Zone 4A along with the similarities in terms of habitat, terrain, population, etc it seems much more likely that the numbers in Ashford would be close to those in Zone 4A than significantly higher or lower.

Again, as with the other numbers this is an estimate, not an absolute.

Glen. Why are you dividing the number i came up with assuming 11% harvest of the herd by 2.44? And why did you change that number? A few posts up it was 2.48. And I came up with 1427 not 1431. You just change numbers willy nilly now? And again, to be clear, it is you calling me a fraud. See, you can edit your own posts by you can't edit mine. And you still can't get it that I didn't review the Davis flight. We paid Davis Aviation to do it. I mean, you have his report.

Can you smart guys good with numbers calculate the total deer population in Bridgeport?

How can there be 10 in westport if you can't hunt there?

The topic of this thread was baiting so let's get back to that; let's start with an honest summary of our positions-mine is conservation; protecting a resource for this generation and those to come after-period. FCMDMA's and the Be Safe organizations position is counter to mine and as you serve on the advisory board it's more likely your position is theirs; kill as many deer as possible. Removing baiting would not adversely impact conservation (what most posters on this forum want) but it would put a major dent in the objective of FCMDMA wouldn't it ?

It would certainly end the practice of baiting deer off of preserves and that is the only reason for getting permission to hunt on nearby properties where there are no deer.

They would first have to argue for 4 month to decide what parking lot to use, is it paved or not, etc etc.

Happy to go to the parking lot. I'm 6' 8" and 290 pounds. Let's do this.

I've also said that I know you very knowledge when it comes to wildlife biology, but that doesn't make your guesses any better than Mike's, Glen's or mine, so get off your high horse when it comes to your education because it means little in this discussion. And where has the DEEP commented on this thread? I'd love to have someone from the dept come on the site and education about the herd and what their thoughts and plans are, but that's not you Doc. The only divide on this site is between most of us and you, but it seems you just don't realize that for some reason.

And who's acting like a 13 year old? Me, saying I don't care about guesses from either side, or is it you saying I'll meet you in the parking lot Mr 6'8" 190 lbs??? How many different ways can we say that we just don't care what you have to say?

When a hunter on this site says there are so few deer in Redding now that I'm only seeing 5-6 a season where I once saw that many a day,....what he doesn't want to hear is that seeing 5-6 all year is GREAT. That means there are 33 DPSM, or some other guess. All that hunter is saying is the herd is below last year's level. You know, like the DEEP survey where they ask "In your opinion, is the herd increasing, decreasing or stable?" They don't ask tell us how many you KNOW are in your hunting area.

On the original point of baiting, the fact is it makes it easier to get an ethical and humane kill on a deer, and in small parcels is virtually a requirement to have any effective chance of taking one.

If deer numbers actually do plummet, I imagine they will stop or restrict its use. But if numbers are reasonably stable and still higher than ideal such as in much of zone 11, it makes sense to allow its use.

Bob, a guess is one thing. Using science and known numbers and survey techniques puts you much more in the ballpark than a guess. Read what Bleydon wrote. He nailed it.

As there is a cost associated with this process it seems intuitive that they (DEEP) must see a value in the practice. Aside from the generic questions about mast crop, dollars spent, time spent, harvest, and herd size (increasing, stable, decreasing) they also have sections for comments (feedback).

It should be fairly obvious that this feedback is solicited as the DEEP simply does not have the man-power to actively canvas the woods to the extent that hunters (boots on the ground) do and it offers them a cost-effective means to gather information about the habitat and the deer herd.

It seems to be a partnership arrangement without preconceptions on the merits of the feedback on either a group level (all hunter respondents) or an individual level. I think when an agency acknowledges the value of hunter input it is counterproductive to attempt to miscast that feedback or to disparage the motives behind that feedback.

From almost 20 years on this forum (in addition to having had long interactions with many here) I think the posters share a common interest in promoting a healthy deer herd that ensures not just their opportunities but opportunities for their kids and grandchildren.

Whatever our differences on numbers I would hope the latter sentiment is universally accepted.

Also , all of these educated guesses/calculations mean little if the land the deer are on isn't hunt-able, whether it's a refuge, park, private no permission, Staten Island, etc. So let's talk about the areas where we hunt and tell us how many deer are in Housatonic forest in the area of Bradford Mtn for example? The only correct answer is - No data available. EXCEPT - my first hand knowledge of the area by hiking before, during and after the hunting season which documents very little deer sign and even fewer deer. This is no different than Glen or others that hunt in FF county saying the areas they hunt have far fewer deer. You can say there are plenty, but unless they're on Glen's property, how does that help him?

That's the only point I'm trying to make.

Doc is definitely too big for me to call a pansy, so that's not going to happen. I know where to draw the line.