Your reaction to the shortened doe seasons.

In spite of agreeing to stay the course until a four year study in some WMUs with a shortened antlerless season was complete, the commissioners gave preliminary approval to shortening the seasons in additional WMUs. Delaney doesn't believe that this will lower the antlerless kill in these WMUs (and I agree). Preliminary data indicate that harvest objectives are being met with the split season. In other words, hunters are killing as many antlerless deer in the one week limited season as they were on the two week concurrent seasons of the past. So, clearly, the commissioners realize that shortening the season will not reduce the kill, so why did they do it? What is to be gained by making it less convienent for hunters and reducing opportunity? If they wanted to lower the kill, why wouldn't they just lower the allocation of tags?

But it wont reduce the kill. The commissioners admitted as much. If you want the number of antlerless deer killed to decrease, this isn't helping at all.

Maybe they think folks will have a better chance at bagging one of those "older.wiser" bucks, if folks aren't blasting at does the 1st week?

No I am sure they are not counting on bad weather, like someone said before if they dont get the kill they want they will just increase tag sales next year so we might be worst off in the long run. I just like the idea of a shorter doe season. I still think the guys that need or really want to kill a doe will, and mabey instead of taking their vacation on the second day they take it the second monday. I am hoping for bad weather the second week.

IMHO, the reason for shortening the season, if it is not going to decrease the harvest (and they said it wouldn't) is to provide a little slight-of-hand.  Hunters during the first week will "see" more deer simply because less of them, all the does that would have been shot duirng that period for the last several years, will still be alive and running around.  This will provide the appearance of "more" deer and will get the hunters that are complaining about not seeing enough deer off the PGC's back.  Then, during the second week, hunters will start to kill those deer and get out of the woods more satisfied.
 
Its a win/win for the PGC.  It will lessen the complaints from those that say there aren't enough deer because those guys will be seeing more deer the first week and the PGC will still get the kill they want (because alottments haven't changed) to appease the other nonfunding stakeholders.
 
Unless the allocation change, the harvest, within an insignificant percentage difference, won't.

They are doing it just to appease the hunters that are complaining that there are no deer.  I disagree with their motives.  If you are only allowed 1 doe, then it doesn't matter if it is shot the first week or the second.  The same amount will be taken.  The only way to reduce the amount of doe taken is to reduce the amount of licenses sold.  

Harvest will decrease slightly I believe, not by much but some. My brother lives in an area where the split season has already been in effect and has noticed a difference in deer numbers on his property.

I agree with DarDys. That IS the reasoning!!!!!.....WF

With all the opinions on this (here and elsewhere), I'm curious why no one has looked at the existing data ? Shouldn't that answer the questions we have ?


I got out the pen and paper.

I could only use a year before and a year after. I hoped to compare 2 years before/after. The PGC site doesn't have a link to 2006-2007 harvest.

I chose WMU 2D and 2G and compared 2008-2009 to 2005-2006.

2D for 2008-2009 - 38% of the harvest is buck. For 2005-2006 buck harvest was 31% of the kill.
2G for 2008-2009 - 51% of the harvest was buck. For 2005-2006 buck harvest was 47% of the kill.


Really only two things one can conclude from that. A one week doe season will lower doe harvest and raise buck harvest.

Or..

Hunters in 2008-2009 were less likely to shoot a doe than in 2005-2006.

What does this mean for deer numbers ?

In 2D, it means about 650 more bucks are taken because of the season cut. It means about 1000 doe will be saved.
In 2G, it means about 300 more bucks are taken because of the season cut. It means about 275 doe will be saved.

I can't find embyro counts for these WMU's, so let's say every doe will have one surviving fawn into the following hunting season. So in 2D, we can expect 2000 more deer. Since 50% of fawns are bucks, we can expect 500 more bucks. In total because of the season change, we've lost a total of 150 bucks. Sounds like a younger buck herd too.

In 2G we can expect 500 more deer, 275 of them bucks. In total we've lost 25 bucks.

Comparing a single year to another isn't what I'd consider great data. Plus, I didn't consider the usual annual 22% button buck harvest. But with what I compared, I see a small lose in bucks, and a small rise in doe. A little bit less older bucks and more younger bucks.

The affect seems small DD, so I hope we don't end up there. Again, comparing one year to another doesn't produce many facts. The new PGC site doesn't provide the data it used to. It's more organized, but there's less of it.

In gun season my hunting group does some drives on public land on 2D and there definitely seemed to be an increase in young bucks this year compared to years past. we did drives on 5 days and we saw from 8-12 sub legal bucks every time. We were not putting up the same bucks, we had drives with 4 and 5 bucks coming out past the same people. In prior years we would be lucky to see 4 or 5 bucks a day in these places. Still way too many does in these places, so I am not sure this is the right thing to do everywhere.

Yep......  One of my concerns along with the apparent social trump.

Really makes no difference to me either way. I will say that it might be easier to keep kids interested if they were to see more deer, even with smaller bucks. Just got a doe two weeks ago, 45 mph in a VW Beetle... wanna guess the estimate?

Believe it or not, it's one of the least damaged vehicles I've ever had following a deer hit. Estimate is only $860. Broken lower grille, spider webbed paint on bumper cover and a scratch about 1.5 inches long on the hood. I fully expected the entire front end to be crushed.

"By shortening, I feel that a little "control" is lost considering factors such as weather etc. and feel a far better way to allow herd growth is to cut the allocation to reasonable levels (and not jack them straight back up the second the have a fee increase in hand). The absolute lowest deer density areas of the state might need further provisions to promote herd growth, but a simple reasonable allocation adjustment would be just what the doctor ordered for much of the state."


-YESSSS!!!