I commented about having a longer doe season in Anderson. 4 days is better than nothing but I don't see why it can't be the whole season. If I could take a doe now, I would not shooting anything with antlers which is what is happening now across the whole area.

thanks for the link, some does need to be shot in van zandt, they are in the ditches dead everywhere

I commented on the the bag limit changes for the western rolling plains. I am all for them for the proposed counties, but I think they are shutting the barn door after the horses got out.

Why not impose those same bag limit changes to counties that have not yet shown habitat degredation??? I know for Borden county is in bad shape in terms of doe numbers.

Once over browsing occurs it takes a long time for the habitat to come back.

We are doing our part on our ranch but not all ranches have the ability to enroll into MLD...

TD - you are so right and those are the comments that need to be written in the comment section and sent to us. Every little bit helps.

One of the concepts that folks need to keep in mind when commenting on the proposals or thinking about commenting the proposals, is that in many cases, hunters have actually a better and more first hand idea of what is going on in their area then either the land owner or the TP&W biologists.

Unless a land owner ir really big into managing the deer on the property, they have a tendency to get somewhat uninterested sometimes.

They know they have deer on their property/using their property, and they know their hunters appear to be content with things the way they are, so they sometimes stop paying real close attention to the numbers and the make up of those numbers.

Some hunters do the same thing, they see deer everytime they go out, sometimes several deer each time in the stand, they have hundreds of picture of deer from their game cams, so for the most part they think things are okie dokie.

Biologists might do a survey in the general area every year or every other year.

But hunters are out there actually looking for deer, looking for deer sign, and putting out the game cams.

They are the ones that really need to start educating themselves on the types of native vegetation deer eat, not just the preferred items, like acorns, but the various brows and shrubs.

They need to learn the difference between good deer feed and poor feed and understand that when deer start browsing on some plants to any degree, things are not as good as they seem to be.

Hunters need to study the animals they are seeing everytime they are at the lease, and not just the bucks, but the does as well, and figure out ways to distinguish one from another.

That way they can figure out, that if they see five deer every time they are on the lease, are those five different deer each time, or the same five deer each time.

Everyone posts pictures of new bucks that show up at their feeders, but how many folks pay close attention till after season, that the new boy was only seen once?

Was he killed by a neighbor or just a traveling man.

The comment period is where actual hours in the field by the hunter and the observations they make, can be the best information TP&W gets.

It is like the counties that have been placed under the AR's. The folks pushing them and wanting to see them enacted have gathered their evidence and if they are the only one's making comments then guess what.

While it is actually too late this year to gather a lot of evidence, folks can start getting stuff together for the next time there are proposals about changes to deer regulations in your area.

Start keeping a log of every trip you make to the lease, time of day, weather conditions total number of deer seen, then break that number down into bucks/does/fawns/adult deer unknown sex.

Fix up a way to at least weigh the field dressed animal at camp before it leaves the property, if possible, take the animal back to camp before being field dressed and get its weight before being gutted.

Don't worry about B&C points of the rack, get a width measurement, both inside and outside.

Try to get a or both lower jaws from the skull and learn how to age, and don't just limit this to bucks, figure out the age of the does on the place.

With information like this, you can better present your comments from the stand point of, I have documentation of the make up of the herd in the area I hunt, both age structure/sex ratios/body quality,antler quality.

Be able to recognise when things are getting out of whack, whether it is food supply, sex ratios, whatever.

People talk about not wanting to turn deer into livestock, but over most of the state, with declining numbers of hunters, and increasing numbers of deer, we are looking at a possible scrapping of the AR's a few years down the road, simply because there willbe too many deer to be that selective in the harvest, just my opinion on that one.

But do take the time to make your comments known to Austin, because TP&W can not do the job all by its self, and hearing from the segment of the population that has the greatest interest in the deer herd, really helps.

I vote for Crazyhorse/Randall for our next Governor and President!!

Bud, that was one of the very best posts I have read in a long time especially what all to consider when it comes to 'what' each of us should do and comment on any proposal to TPWD.

I have 3 posts above here that I have no idea why they showed up on this thread, they were placed on 3 other threads commenting on photos, so CH I didn't comment on what you were discussing intentionally. Sorry, not sure how that happened.

That is okay, I was just confused as to where they came from and why.