This is an article from Bill Winke, owner of Midwest Whitetail. I respect Bill’s ability to kill big bucks. He’s often answered questions I’ve sent him via email. Seems like one of us.
Anyway this article seems to fit in with the other off season conversations we are having. I find it an ironic coincidence that Mn, Wi and Ia are all having deer density issues. Makes me think we have find a way to stand together and be heard. All deer hunters!
Thanks for the post!
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Thanks for the post!
Bill has a great show and sure seems to know what he is talking about. What I read into this is some of the discussions of moving mn gun seasons out of rut, etc. is mute for management purposes. There are many more underlying issues involved.
I keep hoping for some new thinking or ideas, but the bottom line remains the same. Wildlife management departments everywhere are caving in under intense political pressure brought by meat hunters that see it as their constitutional right to shoot any deer they want AND to get a deer each and every year.
The peak harvest years only deepened and ingrained that whack/stack mentality. There were so many deer, for so long, that many hunters forgot or never even knew what it was like in times where the herd size was just average.
There is no “pull the band aid off slow” option. Any reduction in the allowable kill of any sex and size of deer is going to be a shock to a vast number of hunters out there and they are going to squeal like pigs. There is no way around this fact.
The DNR MUST find ways to resist the political pressure AND the pressure from meat hunters who only care about easy kills every year. In the long term, this will actually be a good thing for those who want to take deer, but you will NEVER convince them in the short term that a doe in the woods is better than a doe in the freezer.
Either way, in MN we are headed for a 1970s style Deer Drought. How long it lasts depends on how quickly the DNR chooses to bite the bullet and reduce the doe kill and it must be accepted that even the taking of bucks may need to be harshly curtailed in some areas.
Those who like to hunt deer (as opposed to those who simply like to kill deer) need to get together and we need to make our voices heard. If the DNR in MN does not slash doe permits across a huge portion of the state, even seeing a deer during deer season will become a challenge in many areas.
As the article points out, that “tipping point” moment is easy to see only in hindsight. And then, everyone is going to wish we’d did the right thing back then, rather than dealing with a much worse problem later on.
Grouse
Good read. We have already seen a great reduction in deer and hunters here. Still, the DNR continues to offer doe tags by the thousands. I did not see one deer during rifle season, but did not spend a ton of time in the woods. I hope the hunter reduction will give deer a chance to rebound. I can say that I will be giving a pass on the does for the next several years. Wish more would to the same!
Nut
I don’t like how he associates APR with herd expansion. Two different topics IMHO. Lets get the body count up first.
Another person’s theory on what’s going on, and a good read.
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Another person’s theory on what’s going on, and a good read.
So the deer are really there but thousands of hunters just aren’t seeing them because there are so many acorns? 
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Another person’s theory on what’s going on, and a good read.
This guy is a goof ball… LOL 
Don’t forget the overkill due too insurance companies pressure from auto accidents.
Ive been against the extra doe seasons for years especially the late season . Were not only the does are taken but many shad bucks “bucks that have sheded there rack” . Group hunting is huge here Iowa . Where I personally have seen 20 to 30 does taken . During the Iowa gun season in one group. Its a mass sloughter makes me sick. Im not against deer drives or those who do it . But there multiple groups here with 20 + hunters . That pound everything that moves . I have wrote letters to the Iowa Legislature about the doe harvest an extra seasons . Remember hunters we are outdoorsmen stuards to the land. We cant always take from it . One has to give something back also.
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