Carcuss Registration
Wisconsin
If its going to be that big of a issue as some speculate, lets bring back the old way, bag it, tag it, register it!
Who the heck is the author Jerry Davis? I am still stunned that the state made this change. But I guess it is all about the dollars saved. Is whatever dollars were saved really worth what was lost?
I've admittedly started butchering a few times before remembering to register a deer or turkey. I in fact called them in, but I was in a garage with closed doors, and I feel that I'm honest. How many might say screw it?
Quite frankly, I believe there are less deer registered, because there are less deer, less meat hunters, less does taken, and more trophy hunters who are more select. Even young kids who do hunt, are brought up thinking that their adult mentor's self imposed trophy limits are the standard, therefore less young hunters shooting those younger deer.
Turkeys? Well, there is weather to contend with, but because trapping isn't even paying for the gas money, you have far more egg eaters raiding nests, and coyotes are finding the large population of turkeys an easy target. This year alone I saw on 5 occasions 2 or more coyotes actively stalking either my decoys, or live birds. Unfortunately the one coyote that came close, came to my weak side, and turning on it, I was busted.
Of course less deer are going to be registered. The greedy human species has always wanted more than their share. Some of the lakes I've fished my whole life, have noticeably less panfish from everyone keeping their share.
I myself, like the phone in, or online registration, but it most certainly made it easier for those people who have a tendency to cheat. Does it matter? I'm sure there was a fudge-factor that was developed to take this into consideration. Likely a round number of 10%.
Seems like the resource is worth putting a small amount of money into it. Kill numbers used to be an important population tool metric. Registration used to be a deterrent to illegal harvesting and a way to verify illegal havesting. Did the rules of game management change or did we just become short sighted?
Why is registration so important to WI deer and turkeys yet many other states have no such requirements?
Because its a new system. I am sure all this has been discussed at the round table before the new system was initiated but because of all the buzz this story was created. Most concerns and gossip will die in a few years. I still like the old system!
If half the stories I hear when hunting other states about trespassing and illegal hunting are true all the states have problems . Thing is its getting easier and easier to get away with , and the guys that were border line have probably crossed the line . But face it a guy will sit in the woods for days or weeks really doing nothing but watching the birds but taking time to register a deer is a waist of time .
I liked the old system simply because I liked seeing deer that others had shot. I am sure it helped drive business for the local bars, gas stations and other registration stations. However, I like the ease of doing it remotely, without having to drive the opposite direction for the registration station, before headng home. Upnorth, there is a big difference between enjoying the time spent in the woods as compared to windshield time mandated for reasons unknown to me.
we got paid .35 a deer . So think how much time I spent tagging deer when they brought in over 500 in a season . Probably maybe 10 pct of them would buy something , and if they decided to do it again I probably would do it again . The last year I had it I only registered around 30 deer so when they stopped it really had no effect on my business , that was lost little by little when they restricted baiting . I built my corn business up to a little under 500,000 lb a year it dropped to 25,000 the year they stopped it and as stayed there since .
Wait until word gets out about new CWD transport rules. You cannot take a deer whole out of a CWD county unless it goes to certified butcher or taxidermist. You may not butcher your own at home if it came from a different county with CWD. This is Walker getting serious about CWD.
I highly doubt that Walker came up with this idea. Most likely, it was one point of a multi-faceted attempt to address CWD, made by a department within the state where Walker is Governor. Attempting to inject your political bias shows nothing but a blind ignorance. For the record, I do not like this rule.
As long as the DNR continues spending all their time, effort, and funds on making an issue over CWD (really a non-issue) more and more hunters are going to throw in the towel and quit deer hunting, it continues happening every day. It's almost as if the DNR has decided they'd prefer wolves to keep the deer population in check rather than hunters. Sure the feds have the DNR's hands tied with the wolves (or so we hear) but the DNR's practice of grossly under-estimating the wolf population is not helping and will not help in the future. Too bad they couldn't have gotten Dr Deer in here long before they did because at that point the DNR had the toilet almost completely flushed on deer hunting in Wisconsin. Enjoy deer hunting in Wisconsin while it is still available.
