Dacotua- what counties are you hunting in and what part of each county? How many acres are you hunting and how many people? How are you seeing deer and a select few are not?

A 1 1/2 old buck is pretty darn tender.

It really doesn't matter what program you are in, if there are no deer left......

I hate the word "CULL" it denigrates what we are all supposed to be about.

I always see deer, don't know why, but I would have to look into factors around the other peoples leases/land.

DO they have HOGS? If YES - You got to get their numbers down. I always put out cattle panels in a circle with a falling door. I would throw out corn inside the pen, and outside the pen. In the morning, I would go out and shoot every hog that was trapped in the pen. I did this from August to October. I must have killed 300+ Hogs the first year I did this. After doing this for 3-4 years, I would only get up to 20-25 max near the end. The hogs just avoided our lands. Once the hogs were under control the Deer came in and stayed on the land.

Construction Projects? - How much construction do you have around the land you hunt? If farmers sold off their land and companies have come in putting in homes and business's close to you, that would explain why you see a great decrease.

Food Plots and Cover. You can't expect deer to stay on the land if the landowner cleared the land. Deer in East Texas LOVE thick cover.

Safe Zones - You got to give Deer a area where they are protected. Find out where they like to bed down and make it against the rules to hunt that area. If they feel safe on your land, they will stay there. Sooner or later they have to eat, and they will branch out to your hunting zones.

Hunter to Acre Ratio : I only hunted land in East Texas where the Ratio of Hunter to Acre Ratio was 1 Hunter Per 320+ acre. Any less than that, there is too much movement in the woods and the deer run like the wind and disappear.

Last year I decided to leave East Texas and went to the Hill County. One of the land owners I was leasing 2000 acres from, decided that she thought the Ratio for hunters to acre should be 1 hunter to 100 acres. So she put 20 hunters on 2000 acres that previously we would only put 6 hunters on. (One of my friends stayed) and guess what happened? They didn't see deer except during the very beginning of bow season and on game camera's at night. Deer aren't stupid in East Texas, if there are a lot of changes (movement) they hide and go nocturnal fast.

Per my Previous Response:

I've hunted Lamar County (Eastern), Delta County(Northern), Hopkin County(Northern), and Franklin County (Western) . All four of them have GREATLY IMPROVED with Antler Restrictions.

I've hunted those counties over 10 years. Like I said before, 10-12 years ago, you were LUCKY to see a deer, now you see lots of them. I'm so glad they put Antler Restrictions on and OUTLAWED deer hunting with DOGS. (I liked East Texas because it was easy to get to). Over 10 years ago, I swear people just shot whatever they saw. It also didn't help there was a bunch of poachers out there also.

Over the past 2004-2009, I've tagged out in those counties (I didn't hunt the same county each year). Usually I got my Buck within the first 3 weeks. Only in 2009 I didn't tag out, I passed on a buck that I thought would get better, and I didn't have a opportunity to get another.

Why did I move? I do not agree with the Doe rules in those counties. It really sucks to have to go Thanksgiving Day to Sunday to shoot your does. I would have MUCH preferred the state to Reduce the number of does from 2 to 1 and allow you to shoot the doe anytime you wanted than over 4 days. Plus I felt it was time to hunt a different part of the state (I went to Hill Country). BIG difference.

Like what you say on most things but have lived in hopkins co. for 23yrs now and the hunting got better every year till ar went into effect. Hunting has not got BETTER by any means since ar went in effect. But like your idea on does.

1 deer tag, buck or doe...that's it, one and done...you choose...are you a true meat hunter, a true trophy hunter, a true management hunter, or a true cull hunter. I like it!

One and done, love it!

yea hill country is a big differnce. its great huntin there. ive gotta like 450 acres in hico that in 2009 i got two bucks and one down in less than 24hrs. its great huntin i cant wait till this season.

Are you referring to size of antlers when your on a management program or overall herd size?

nevermind sig he pretty much said what i was going to. Good post. I think the older does fawns also have a much better survival rate because they are more experienced. They are no longer using nutrients for body and skeletal growth and can put more towards milk production and ect. IMO

Has everyone taken a look at this? It is very interesting that
there has been a decimation of the deer herds in areas of Pennsylvania where they have had AR's and heavy doe harvests. This program not only reduced deer numbers, the reduction in hunting opportunities has also reduced the number of folks participating in the sport.....

Thanks, Postoak, for posting this site.

http://www.acsl-pa.org/PACrossfire.htm

Imagine that! Good post indeed.
Take note Texas.........

LOVE IT !!

Sounds like what is going on in TX.

Another prime example that ar dont work. Have a buddy in n.y. state that tells me pretty much the same altho they dont have antler restrictions, they pretty much gave away so many doe tags they reduced the population by 50%. He read that the big insurance co. were lobbying to increase the tags because of all the deer,car collisions.

That sure makes ya wonder whats driving TPW measures dont it!

I found it quite interesting that hunter numbers are way off. The video interview rightly claimed that the reduction of hunter numbers has vast consequences for keeping gun freedoms in the future. I believe that, also. This is why it is so important to take our young people hunting and shooting.

I have also been an active supporter of NRA and TSRA and have seen various gun grabbing programs foisted on culturally similar countries that are honed and polished and tried here.

How convenient for the Left that hunter numbers are being reduced.

You can not underestimate the fixation on American firearms freedoms among socialist Europeans, etc. Interestingly, when I read a review of the new American Czars, I noted that every one of them had been involved in anti-gun campaigns.

I think that the Left is quite concerned about firearms because they realize that Americans do not favor socialism. They follow the advice of Lenin who wrote:
"Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretextwith the view of confiscating them and leaving the population defenseless." ~Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

I recently read that the combined hunters of Wisconsin, Michigan. Pennsylvania and West Virginia would comprise the largest standing army in the world in numbers. This is among the reasons that neither the Japanese or the Germans ever invaded the US. http://federalistpaupers.com/index.php/2010/12/02/why-the-terrorists-can-never-win/

23 pages

If you read a little farther, I agreed too. I clarified that while older does make better mothers, that from today, a 5 year old doe will have fewer fawns in the future than a 2 year old doe. OVer the course of the life from any given point, the younger of the two does will have more offspring (overall, obviously none of us know these does personally).

But it's ok, you would have disagreed no matter what I said!!! LOL

Both, if you are/have been managing for antler size/stature, then the younger does SHOULD have a higher incidence of "desirable" traits (assuming your management is working). If you are trying to grow the numbers of a herd, then you need the younger does left in the herd as they will have more babies over time.

I will say this, I hunt in Wood county on several smaller to mid size tracts of land. All are very different terrain and locations, some remote, some very close to urban areas. Over the last 11 years the number of deer that I have seen has dramatically increased. In the begining if I saw a deer in a weekend I was excited, now if I don't see 5-10 in a sitting I start getting worried. Back when there were no antler restrictions we were with the "if it's brown it's down east TX crowd" in other words if you see a buck you'd better shoot it or you may not see another one the rest of the season. With the implementation of the AR's and the in turn increase in deer numbers we've made a complete 180. We have a strict management program and have started feeding protein year round. Since the implementation of the AR's we (3 lease members) Have taken a buck of over 130" each year, and furthermore have regular trail cam pics of bucks well above 140". I believe this is due mainly to the fact that my neighbors as well as myself are not allowed to shoot the first buck we see of the year.

Just had a few minutes to read and think about my last post. It was hard to follow due to the fact that I did it while I worked on something else. My apologies.

The points I wanted to make were:

1. Familiarity with firearms and love of hunting has been political capital that enabled freedom loving Americans to resist efforts to take away 2nd Amendment rights.

2. The Left in America and Internationally has been focused on efforts to disarm the average American citizen. The effort is international and quite visable in UN efforts, though the common denominator among all strains of Leftism is anti-gun efforts. (see Lenin quote from my earlier post)

3. Hunters should be working together to make it easier for their fellow Americans to hunt.

4. Unreasonable AR's do dampen enthusiasm for hunting. They dampen my enthusiasm and I don't even care about shooting a buck and have not shot a buck in many years, though I have many opportunities.

5. It is possible to decimate a doe herd. This is something I have seen in the field but had not considered could be widespread. I have posted what I saw happening at a friend's place that is part of a large management unit. Now, there is considerable evidence that the same thing has happened in areas of PA and interestingly enough, one motivation seems to be a "Green Certification" for their lumber. The green certification process originates in Germany. In fact, the "gate keepers" of the approval are not American and one of the stipulations that has to be met is a reduction of deer herds on green certified forest land. Hmmmn.


A LAST WORD ON AR's

I still believe that it was good for TPW to protect the 18 MOS old bucks that had made up 60% of the harvest in times past. Older bucks generally sport larger antlers. This can be proven with field data.

But I believe that the 13" limit was decided socially and politically instead of scientifically. If the goal was to protect the yearling bucks, it is possible to do that with an 11"-12" AR. (Look at the Mississippi data)Instead, TPW chose an inside spread that protects almost all 18 MOS bucks, many 2.5 yr old bucks , some 3.5 year old bucks and some bucks for life. Why couldn't they have been satisfied with the huge improvement of protecting the 18 MOS deer? Was it the case of bureaucrats being given an inch and taking a mile? I think so. I think that it was also the case of favoring larger landowners by making the restriction so onerous that the small holders were "shut down" (actually heard this one) on their own properties. (And maybe had the does shot out all around them as the larger holder did large doe harvests).

I think opponents of AR's would do well to push for reasonable AR's. They would win that one.

Wish it was that way in my little neck of Wood County.

Vote for "One And Done"!

Sighn me up curly!