Trad Gang

Anybody seeing any deer ? So far this season has been a bust for my hunting camp. Looks like tag soup is on the menue.   :dunno:

I did all my hunting during the bow season, lots of deer seen. It was a good season for me.

Lots of corn still standing in my area so sightings are few since gun opener.

I think the early September guns seasons have taken their toll on seeing deer the last two years.  Start throwing lead at deer in September and it doesn't take long for them to come off the fields early and come out late.  The last two years of deer hunting have been our worst.

I was very fortunate to fill both buck tags during bow season so I haven't hunting since Nov 10.

My friends and family have reported lower than normal sightings since then though.  Worst gun season ever for my group of family members in Mason county, public land.  Same thing from a friend hunting private land in Isabella.  I did see that opening day of gun season was great for our neighbors in Huron County though.

I saw 26 different bucks from the stand with many, many more on the trail cams along with countless does and fawns.  Shot three deer with the recurve and have packed it in until December.

Looks like Fowlerville is the hot spot.  

I found it slow, but hunt Friday's and Saturdays most weeks.  There were a lot of warm days, rain, and the wind those days.  The wind seamed to know everyday I could hunt and show up.  The rut was very slow with only a couple days that were decent the week I had off.  I saw mostly does and fawns.  Very few bucks.  Gun opener Friday - Monday when I was out was very slow by the sounds of it, but then the wind was very high most of the time those days.   I am hoping that with some decent weather, the hunting will be better over the holiday.  Moon time should be better then.  I don't think the gun hunting in my area was very heavy from what i could tell.  I didn't get out this weekend do to work and I didn't feel like being in the wind again Saturday.

The Western U.P has been very slow the deer numbers are down from last winter big time. We saw more wolf sign than ever before and even seen 2 one morning. In 10 days of hunting my group seen one legal buck a six point witch I shot. By my house in the lower near Wellston the deer numbers have also declining. Its been a slow season for sure. But the number of hunters around here has increased especially during bow season.

QuoteOriginally posted by Jon Stewart:
I think the early September guns seasons have taken their toll on seeing deer the last two years.  Start throwing lead at deer in September and it doesn't take long for them to come off the fields early and come out late.  The last two years of deer hunting have been our worst.

X2.   Even on my cameras, most of the deer are just before light or after dark.   Seeing far fewer deer the last couple years.   The deer I do see are uncomfortable and in a hurry to get back to cover.

Pretty slow here in Lenawee Co. Managed to take a doe at the request of the land owner but it seams like the over all population is down.

My place in Antrim Co. however has been very active. On Nov. 14th I had six different bucks in bow range, missed a dandy 8pt mid day. The memory will live on and hopefully that buck!

How many hunts are there ? youth hunt (where an infant can pull the trigger and presto instant success) Then there are a couple more early gun seasons. Then bow season where it seems every one is using a crossbow. Then gun season again, followed by muzzle loader and bow. Now throw in thousands of doe permits , predators, poaching and car accidents. its amazing we still have any deer left.

Ehd as well.

You don't hear the insurance companies complaining anymore.

About 50,000 doe and youth hunters hunt for a few days in the "early season". About 650,000 hunt in October and November, that's where the pressure comes from. More bowhunters hang stands and dump bait in September than actually deer hunt in September. That's the human pressure that tamps deer movement. Don't forget the new scent pressure of trail cams.

After lots of habitat work love and turning my entire property from diminishing deer sightings, open older growth forest  to dense young 2nd growth that deer now flock to, I passed 6 bucks on opening day of firearms season and my land is in one of the heaviest pressured parts of northern Michigan.

I shot a buck yesterday, while sitting with my 6 year old daughter. She was a super trooper with air temps at 17, a 20mph wind dumping 3" of snow and in a hilltop blind (windy) we call "Weatherby Ridge".

I think the biggest confusion for some is they haunt old hunting grounds and familiar stand sites of old memories, instead of either managing private grounds, moving sites or moving towards public lands recently disturbed via timbering. Deer require edge and new growth. Find it or create it. If not, you're not going to see deer like in the days of a Michigan herd of 2,000,000 deer when anyone with 5 acres of sand had deer all over the place as long as they dumped a bag of corn out. Even if you have 5-10 acres, improve it or lose it. If you have 20 or 40, you can do a lot more improvement that you think, by just a chainsaw and sapling plantings.

Deer hunting is a lot like trout fishing. The river changes every year. One has options, they can fish a hole that trout no longer frequent due to habitat changes, they can move to another hole or they can improve the habitat of the stream.

I know the owner of a local auto repair shop. Deer/auto accidents are still very frequent. There is no conspiracy. The deer just moved from where many are used to sitting. While some area's have declines in accidents, there were still roughly 45,000-60,000 claimed deer auto accidents last year. And that's just the accidents that cause enough damage to make a claim.

A common fault is, if one hunts now fairly open, mature woods with a mix of mature hardwoods and little understory that held lots of deer 20 years ago, they're missing the point that the deer have moved to "younger" forest habitat that looks like those woods did 20 years ago.

It's kinda like going to Detroit and looking for a $25 an hour job. While they can still exist, they aren't due to turning a bolt, they exist by creating a web page or reading a CAT scan. Things and times always change. There's lots of great hunting in Michigan and it's only going to get better. The key is to understand what changes need to be made take advantage of that great hunting. If one isn't willing to make adjustments, the future may not be as bright.

I have a small property just outside of Ford River (Escanaba) in the UP. I have been slowly improving the property for deer and watching via trail cameras for the last three years and only actually started bowhunting it the last two seasons.  I have not dropped the string yet.  

Last year, I saw lots of smaller bucks with one big one lurking.  This year, three cameras yielded zero big bucks and only one that I would call a shooter, with two spikers hanging out.

Not sure what happened.

I have seen a bunch of coyote pix that I didn't get in the past.  Also a big bear. No wolves yet.

ChuckC

mojostick.  I have been doing just what you suggested. I have 35 acres between the farms and the swamp.  I had 42 semi's of pine trees chipped out of my land, pulled the stumps and planted various food plots on two 3 acre fields within my pine plantation.  My corner touches federal land and the land owner next to and behind me never hunting once in bow season. BUT they did hunt in the early youth/mentoring season and shot a couple of bucks.

At some point we are going to have more gun hunters in the woods with muzzle loading season and late doe season.

$ have fogged the minds of those in charge and they need to get back to the basics with hunting seasons.  They started an antler restriction in my area, Mason County.  Thats just find but a few days before the youth/mentoring season they verbally lifted it for that weekend for the kids.  You either need an antler restriction or you don't.

IMHO bow hunting in Michigan is on the way to disaster and the crossbow/gun hunters are very happy about it.  They have been trying to dip into our long bow season for a long time and slowly but surely they are nipping away at it.

no doubt michigan is a tough place to hunt sometimes. And crossbow hunters (as a sterio type) are becoming my most hated species of hunter.
But as Mojo said times change and we need to adapt to stay ahead of the game.
From what i hear from many michigan hunters is this is the wrost year they have seen. Even though i have seen less bucks this yar than most my freezer is filling and im seeing a bunch of deer. Hopefully the late season will be a nice quite peaceful time to be in the woods without the pressure from all the dingdongs.I got one tage left in my pocket!

My hunting property in Van Buren county was hammered by EHD last year. Fortunately, a fair number of deer must have either survived or relocated from a nearby area that was not affected by the disease. My son and I each took nice bucks in October and I have 6 different bucks on my trail cam. This is on 30 acres. Our problem in October was seeing does! If you can call that a problem. I also hunting the U.P. in November and the numbers up there were significantly lower than previous years. I only saw one deer but it was a beauty. I took him to the taxidermist today. I'm thankful. This was my best year ever.

Make that"I also hunted the U.P." I'm a grammar freak.

Hello my fellow Michiganders!! I have been without for a long time in my little shangrila I call home in Onsted Michigan!! Sadly I have a very small area I hunt and it was invaded this year by the land owner checking for oil or mineral rights. I had four wheelers running about checking their gadgets and changing batteries throughout the property. There was a good amount of standing corn on some of the neighboring properties also. I was seeing some activity earlier but when the four wheelers moved and ran through the scrapes I was seeing the buck activity screached to a halt. I need to get pretty fotunate or it will be another tag soup year for me. I hope all you guys are warm and safe while I get prepared to freeze.  Hunting after the guns have pounded the herd around here is tough duty. I figure my luck goes with the territory,being a Wolverine fan and a Lion fan I get used to plenty of let downs!!!ED

I hunt public land essentially one tank of gas north of the large metropolitan areas. I was seeing deer right along until 15 Nov. Nothing now. We had a camp of 8 guys move in the area we hunt, lots of loud trucks, woods stomping, sighting and re-sighting rifles. I have moved out trying to get somewhere where pressure is lower. I bowhunt my land but I let a small 8 a couple smaller 6's and forks go before gun season. I was hoping for a better buck or at least giving these guys an opportunity to breed. They have all been shot an accounted for except one.  Back elk hunting next year. After hunting the same general area in Michigan for fourty years, I am depressed.

Jon,

The youth hunt has little impact. Bowhunters scouting, hanging stands and baiting puts far more pressure on deer in September.

In the entire NLP over the past 2 years, a grand total of a whopping 5000 bucks were killed in the youth hunt. Compare that to roughly 150,000 bucks killed in the regular seasons in the same time period. Poachers take more early bucks than the kids. Although, I said when it started and still do, that the youth hunt always should have been antlerless only. My reasoning is not to protect bucks for adults, but to teach kids that killing does is a good thing and so that they don't have the bad hangup some older guys do about killing does.

You mention our "long" bow season. Actually, we have a short bow season. Many states around us have 2 months more or bowhunting than we do. Ohio hunts until early Feb. Kentucky starts in early Sept.

If anything, we Michigan bowhunters should be pushing for a Sept. 1-Jan.31 bow season. There's no reason we should have such a short bow season, with so many firearms/ML dates mixed in. December used to be nice, but now it's just a long front load rifle season, with ML's that are good out to 250 yards.

Amen MOJO - give us a true late season again that is limited to bow that you pull with your arms only.  I don't care if it has wheels but no x-guns for a month - J1-J31.  I would be giddy.  Loved the late season back in the day but anymore it is, as you said, "A long rifle season" with the blackpowder rifles.  

For the record, I have no problem with the powers that be setting it up the way they do and I completely understand the $$$ reasons - Michigan is broke!!  But if there was a bow only month that late it would account for less than 1% of the whole harvest while allowing us to get back out and sit in trees.

Mojo...   :clapper:

Well if I am not mistaken the early gun seasons have reduced quite a bit. I think we are down to one weekend total two days combination youth and early antlerless. That is a lot better than the four day antlerless we had one week and youth the following weekend we had back a couple years ago.

Youth hunters are spread out and antlerless is private land only. It is not that big of a deal anymore in most places.

Most people i know don't even hunt the early antlerless. It is to warm for most to want to deal with a deer.

I was not for The youth season it because of right of passage stuff. I think kids need to hunt some small game before killing deer. My kids are doing small game a couple years first but after years of the neighbor's grand kids killing off a good chunk of the early bucks in the area, I plan to have my kids do the same now that his grand kids are done with that.  Payback time don't you know and I can't wait.

Bottom line is deer populations are extremely low in many areas...

Habitat in the areas I hunt have NEVER been better, and pressure has never been higher. Crossbows HAVE taken over...it is a fact. I do not know ANYONE who still uses a compound...even if they don`t outwardly share it, they have switched to crossbows...it is just easier. AND it is making a difference. Just look at all the pictures of deer taken in archery season...I can show you dozens on facebook...and there is no bow in the picture. People are a bit embarrassed by it, because they know it is easier.

In all, my house had a great season, BUT we adapted and put in the effort and expense to travel around. Without the ability to spend money to travel, our season would be a BUST.

We had better get used to it.

In my area near Sparta not even seeing road kills .

Now I am sure some have neighbors with a pile of kids and the adults all go out and shot a dozen does each on this one weekend so wipe out your deer heard in September, but most of us likely have very little impact these days from this one weekend in September.  Other than maybe some kid shoots your buck you were planning to have 6 weeks to chase.

I never was for the early seasons but frankly other than being a little bit of a nuisance to "my" deer and "my" preferred hunting method, I'm am not sure it really amounts to a whole lot other than infringing on my slightly selfish wants and preferences. Now there are a few less deer I don't get first chance at like I did for over 35 years, but then some kid has a good hunt and maybe ends up a hunter vs a tree hugger. I guess I can live with that.

I don't know about this cross bow thing yet.  I would just as soon we didn't have them. I have not seen that many around.  Most people I know switched from compounds. Some got back in bow season that were out due to physical issues. i see a pile of the things for sale used now. I am sure there are plenty of gun hunters that jumped in, but I am thinking once most figure out the crossbow is not much different than a compound all things considered, and it is not a gun, you will end up with not a huge change to deer harvest. I could be wrong. All I know is piles of people got onto compounds thinking that was going to be an real easy to kill deer and they found out it was not gun hunting and so easy.  There area lot of hunters used to gun hunting maybe 6 days a year at most that get bored real quick not seeing much or shooting anything after a few weeks in October. That is when those compounds and crossbows collect dust. I know of some new crossbow hunters that were really going to get in on the early easy hunting in bow season and found out it wasn't gun season in October.  What they did was spook all the deer off and shot nothing in bow season and shut down their spots for gun. Didn't quite work out so well. Unfortunately this has and will impact us particularly on public land.

mojo, I agree with most of what you wrote except we have a 2 1/2 month long bow season with some gun seasons added (black powder and late doe).  Oct, 1/2 of Nov and all of Dec is the  designated bow season.

I also agree with the youth/mentoring seasons. Shouldn't happen but because they are there we allowed the grandkids to hunt  during that time frame.

I also think the crossbow has really out a hurt to the bow season.

I didn't put trail cams out this year but last year I did and has some really nice 130am bucks on them.

Brothers I enjoy this topic because I love to hear how my fellow Michiganders are doing!! I was fascinated by two things that surprised me.  My younger Brother T.J. was using a trail camera over a bait pile on our property in Newaygo. Plenty of does were on camera during day time hours but bucks would show up from three a.m. till around six. This was before the time change. I joked that the boys knew the poachers were in bed by then but up there you would hear a occasional "night light" shot. Also the cross bow issue is real, we have a Cabella's near us and they have a full two aisles dedicated to selling these things and almost everyone had a scope afixed to them. Plus they averaged between 1,000 to 2,000 dollars. I work with a couple of guys that are concistantly taking deer and big ones from over fifty yards. I can't begrudge them for using a weapon legally but the times are way different now!! I know as guys have said we have to adapt but we accept the limitations of our chosen equipment. Sheeze!!ED

Brothers I enjoy this topic because I love to hear how my fellow Michiganders are doing!! I was fascinated by two things that surprised me.  My younger Brother T.J. was using a trail camera over a bait pile on our property in Newaygo. Plenty of does were on camera during day time hours but bucks would show up from three a.m. till around six. This was before the time change. I joked that the boys knew the poachers were in bed by then but up there you would hear a occasional "night light" shot. Also the cross bow issue is real, we have a Cabella's near us and they have a full two aisles dedicated to selling these things and almost everyone had a scope afixed to them. Plus they averaged between 1,000 to 2,000 dollars. I work with a couple of guys that are concistantly taking deer and big ones from over fifty yards. I can't begrudge them for using a weapon legally but the times are way different now!! I know as guys have said we have to adapt but we accept the limitations of our chosen equipment. Sheeze!!ED

I guess I will add my  opinions:

1. The MI DNR does not manage the deer herd here. They use occasional "pellet" counts and "spotters" watching highway traffic.  They have NO idea how many deer are in the state nor how many deer are harvested. None.

I cannot recal the exact amount of Conservation Officers we have. I am fairly certain it is less than one per county. Enforcement of the game laws is almost non existent.  

2. The MI DNR has given out basically unlimited antlerless permits for over a decade. Public land deer herds have been DECIMATED. Michigan hunters are VERY efficient and will shoot anything that moves and there are (were) 750,000 licensed FIREARMS hunters whose season is Nov 15-30 right during the middle of the rut.

3.  If you have access to private land, you may or may not be in better shape...kinda depends on the "philosophy" of your neighbors. Not many folks own enough acreage to manage their own herd here.

I hunt very little for deer here any more. I won't go into all the trespassing and disrespect. There are too many places that DO manage their deer herd to waste a lot of time and energy trying to hunt this mess. For a long time I would go thru the motions for tradition and to visit with family, but lately even that is not enough.

  :(

I think it is really hard to know what the crossbow is doing with so few years to judge and EHD so bad last year on top of generally over hunting for years in a lot of areas.  I have been seeing numbers drop way ahead of the crossbow and early seasons.I would love to see some data on the the crossbow hunting, but don't see any yet. It is going to be hard to figure with the record keeping system we don't have.

What I do see and have seen so much of is blaming other hunters using other tools for lack of deer. It is not the hunting tools that is the big problem.

Most hunters shot stuff inside 30 yd with archery equipment and inside 100 with guns. Many hunters can't hit a deer with any gun past 100 yd from a treestand or on the ground in hunting conditions. If they could they wouldn't have to shoot 2-5 shots every time they see a deer. At least that is the way it goes on the shotgun zone.

I am sorry but blaming in-line muzzle loaders due to long range accuracy is not justified. Most of that is advertising. I have hunted deer in Michigan since I started hunting with a gun using muzzle loaders much of the time because I mostly bint in the shotgun zone. My 50 cal. Hawkins was far superior to any of my bird guns in the 70s.  I have done a lot of hobby shooting of MLs over the years with some of the top of the line in-lines with modified primer systems, all kinds of powders, and all kinds of bullets.  I have gotten some stuff to actually shot some good groups out to 200. Real deer accuracy at 250 in hunting conditions is quite an accomplishment very few are capable of with an ML of any kind. The majority of the time the average Joe gets whatever is on sale, tries a couple bullets, sites in and goes hunting with a gun that shots 4 inch groups at 100 yd.  They have no ideas what the hold over is at 250 let alone the wind drift. A in-line ML is not a high velocity rifle. It is more powerful, more accurate than the stuff we had 30 years ago, but worst of all puts more hunters in our season; which is the real issue isn't it?

We don't have anymore right to the deer or our way of hunting than any other hunters with other hunting tools. We get the best of the weather and rut as far as i am concerned.  We gain nothing by blaming compounds, crossbows and in-lines. We need all hunters banned together to keep hunting rights and improve things. Trad bow hunters don't stand a chance on our own doing much of anything to change stuff.  Sure a longer bow season and archery only late season sounds good to me but we will not get it unless we include all archery as it is now defined to gain support.

I think the real issues are coyotes in some areas, EHD, and the season bag limits / doe permits and time to use them. Take out the late antlerless season and cut doe permits down. Go to one buck tag if needed.  Then the early seasons, crossbows, and ML seasons wouldn't put a dent in the deer population we would have. Late seasons would be a lot more quiet again. More deer to go around to more hunters in some of the specialty seasons. We don't need people shooting a dozen does and two bucks a year just because they can.

Not to worry fellas, help is on the way.  

As soon as we get the entire state under some sort of APR, putting even more pressure on the does, that will fix everything.

This time next year we will be covered up in big bucks.   :laughing:

QuoteOriginally posted by Tooner:
Not to worry fellas, help is on the way.  

As soon as we get the entire state under some sort of APR, putting even more pressure on the does, that will fix everything.

This time next year we will be covered up in big bucks.    :laughing:  

Yep. Sitting on 4 Iowa points with Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Ohio properties waiting along with Kentucky and Nebraska on the list to explore. That is fine and dandy when I have the itch to hunt deer rather than something "bigger" but does not help my kids much at all.    :(

Fortunately my son is capable enough now we can do a lot more exploring and maybe next year will be the one where we will find a little pocket of deer here!

Some DMU's do have less deer than they did in the post timbering deer boom, but others have more deer. Most northern DMU's have less deer both because the habitat has aged and the biologists have tried to keep populations lower because of TB/CWD concerns and the large winter die off's/further habitat damage that would come if deer populations became too high for the habitat.

Michigan's deer history is easy to follow. In the late 1800's thru early 1900's, the northern part of the state was essentially clearcut. What followed was a deer boom due to that extreme timbering. However, many northern units have slowly been reverting back to what they were pre-timbering, that being fairly marginal deer habitat where Winter and habitat dictate more than in southern area's.

Many guys our age grew up going north and seeing lots of deer. But we simply caught the tail end of the timber/deer herd boom. Several top biologists have written that parts of northern Michigan can no longer get the herd size "boom" going, to get the boom/bust/boom/bust herds we all grew up with. Basically, in many area's, the forest has reverted back to the tipping point where an area will probably never have more than 25 deer per mile again, as opposed to the 50 plus deer per mile they may have had 30 years ago, with a younger forest and year round supplemental feeding.

Look, we can beat the finer points to death. But keep this in mind, because this is the seeing "the forest for the tree's" moment. On average, those private land hunters doing some habitat improvements and better "trigger management" and those public land hunters doing more research into finding recently timbered lands are pretty happy with their hunting and have a bright outlook for the future. Those who hunt private land where a chainsaw hasn't touched a tree since 1923 and those hunting unimproved, northern public lands with soils so poor that nobody wanted it 100 years ago are typically less happy with their deer hunting.

We started doing lots of changes at my place starting in 1999. Before then, we were the typical NLP deer camp. We shot a pile of spikes, thought clearcutting was bad and we thought feeding bloated herds all winter long was a good thing. Since then, we've essentially turned our entire forest over, with the expection of saving/managing about 50% of the mast trees, we've passed most yearling bucks, shot about 2 does for every buck and created quiet area sanctuary's, even though they are only some 3-5 acres in size. They work.

If you don't like how your hunting is going, defending the status quo policies that got you there doesn't make sense to me. In the north, it's the current regs that brought about a 30% decline in hunters and a skewed buck to doe ratio. I'm open to trying new regs that have worked elsewhere. We know what our liberal buck tag program will do for us.

Back to a January season, maybe the bow groups should get together and focus on running archery season thru Feb. 1. I personally talked to the Ohio DNR deer chief and he said he'd supply any data we may need and he said there's no reason not to give bowhunters all that extra opportunity. He also said that January archers who take a "dropped antler" buck account for something like .6% of the buck kill. That's a point in front of the 6. Cars kill more bucks in January. It's a no brainer for us. We should use the same reasoning/precedent set with the crossbow inclusion. A January bow season increases opportunity for hunters but doesn't have a large negative impact on the resource. Slam dunk.

I've found it to be slow.
So have 3 of my buddies that hunt in totally different areas.
We all have seen more coyote sign than normal.

It seems to me it seems to be a compilation of sorts, my county is not QDM . I saw alot of new faces this rifle season. The youth hunt kills and wounds alot of bucks that do not get the opportunity to breed. Trail cameras, more efficient equipment (not hunters), baiting, GPS, ( they stray farther from the road)tree stand legalization for rifles and ML's. It seems we have developed a real hatrid for the michigan whitetail. I ran in to a group today. Three young men 20's , 3 cameras out a piece, two trucks full of sugar beets. Where ever they see buck movement on the cameras, they pack in the beets. Mind you they walked right thru the bedding area where I am hunting. I have been west enough, not to think alot of Michigan rifle hunting. I used to love it though.

Hunt south central MI before moving to northern IN, I saw exactly 2button bucks, 2 fork horns, and one 6 point which is in my freezer. Does were more plentiful just after dark walking out as they came out of the swamps heading to the grain and hay fields. I would estimate 50 to 60 does come out at night. OUr cameras showed some larger bucks but always around midnight to 3 am. We found only one dead last year with the outbreak of EHD, so I don't think that had much effect on our area.

QuoteOriginally posted by Chain2:
It seems to me it seems to be a compilation of sorts,  my county is not QDM.  

This confuses me.  There are  no  counties in MI, that I am aware of, that are designated QDM.

Remember too, that in a normal situation.. MOST bucks do not get the opportunity to breed, only the Alpha bucks, unless of course there are none and the spikes do the deed.

ChuckC

There are antler restriction counties.

I was under the assumption that the NW counties adapted QDM. Emmet, Charlevoix, Antrim.... I think there were 13 counties in all

Mason county and north have antler restrictions. 3 points or more on one side and second license the deer has to have 4 points or more on one side.  Not sure if the DNR calls it QDM or not.

bad economy, lack of management, lack of education, QDM, habitat loss, and EHD are hurting my area.

With the bad economy and over abundance of tags the public land by me has taken a serious beating, this years fawns are lucky to make it to next season.

The private land around me is all QDM and has been for 10 years or so, and a complete joke. Does have been slaughtered for years, and then the EHD hit. Now everyone is crying where's the deer? The hype of "decent" bucks has led to more poaching in the area. Also the mentality of "claiming" the bucks which leads to almost mature bucks being shot before they reach their potential to avoid someone else possibly killing them. Of the mature bucks taken a majority were killed in the youth season, and the majority of those youths have stopped hunting after a few years...oddly most of the kids that killed smaller bucks or does are still hooked.

Habitat loss due to farming, more people burning wood, and housing are pushing deer into smaller concentrations and closer to the highway.

Before all of this i'd see deer every sit while hunting, now i'm down to seeing a handful of deer in a WHOLE season.


Yet, a few counties over on my Dad's place with zero QDM and no EHD...I still see quite a few does, some young bucks get shot, and occasionally a bruiser makes a mistake and is killed.

QuoteOriginally posted by Chain2:
I was under the assumption that the NW counties adapted QDM. Emmet, Charlevoix, Antrim.... I think there were 13 counties in all

There were 12 new counties that just had antler restrictions become effective this year but antler point restrictions are not QDM.  Not even close.

I don't mean to rude or anything, I just don't like people getting the false impression that an antler point restriction is the same thing as QDM.

On another site I go to someone said comparing antler point restrictions to QDM is like comparing having your temperature checked to a complete physical.  That about sums it up.

QDM is far more than mere antler point restrictions. Protecting a higher number of yearling bucks is only a small part of QDM. Plus, Michigan has had a 4pt on one side APR since 1998, for the 2nd tag. Despite that 4pt APR, Michigan still allows 2 bucks in any season, so the result is Michigan hunters kill a higher percentage of yearling bucks than in any other state in the union.

What Michigan has and has had is more Traditional Deer Management. We have the most liberal buck tag system in the Midwest, a peak rut firearms opener based on 1925 science and a long for the region 16 day firearms season followed up by a long muzzleloader season, with modern inlines allowed. Baiting is also common place. A good fix would be a later firearms opener in the LP, keep Nov.15 for the UP for snow concerns and shorten firearms season to either a week or two 3-4 day short seasons, like Illinois does.

My suggestion to the trail cam users is do what I did and sell them. When I used trail cams, I saw lots of after dark activity. When I ditched the cams and checking the cams, I saw much more daylight activity.

As far as QDM, my land is in what used to be the heaviest hunted DMU in the state. Our hunting was terrible in the early 2000's. But by doing the things like Pheasants Forever, Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited and QDMA do, we now have really great deer hunting now. It's good enough to where more guys want to go traditional at my place, because it's so easy to kill deer with a compound now.

If one is unhappy with what the regulations of the past 20 years have brought you, fight to change them. If you're totally happy with the current regulations and the results they've brought you, then fight changes and fight to keep exactly the hunting you have now. Judging by the favorite pastime of many Michigan deer hunters, meaning complaining, then one would expect a thirst for modernizing our outdated regulations. If one is unhappy with the by-product of the current regulations, I find it baffling that that person would also fight changes that have had good results and 70-75% approval elsewhere.

It also sounds like many are still confused about QDM. Here's a quick read...

"To ensure the future of white-tailed deer, wildlife habitat and our hunting heritage."

QDMA promotes sustainable, high quality white-tailed deer populations, wildlife habitats, and ethical hunting experiences through education, research, and management in partnership with hunters, landowners, natural resource professionals, and the public. Membership in the QDMA is open to anyone with an interest in the wise management of white-tailed deer. The time has come for all deer hunting enthusiasts, regardless of their choice of weapon or hunting technique, to unite and focus on the common thread that binds them all together – the love of deer hunting and the desire that future generations will be able to experience the great tradition of deer hunting.

What is Quality Deer Management?

Quality Deer Management (QDM) is a management philosophy/practice that unites landowners, hunters, and managers in a common goal of producing biologically and socially balanced deer herds within existing environmental, social, and legal constraints. This approach typically involves the protection of young bucks (yearlings and some 2.5 year-olds) combined with an adequate harvest of female deer to maintain a healthy population in balance with existing habitat conditions and landowner desires. This level of deer management involves the production of quality deer (bucks, does, and fawns), quality habitat, quality hunting experiences, and, most importantly, quality hunters.

A successful QDM program requires an increased knowledge of deer biology and active participation in management. This level of involvement extends the role of the hunter from mere consumer to manager. The progression from education to understanding, and finally, to respect; bestows an ethical obligation upon the hunter to practice sound deer management. Consequently, to an increasing number of landowners and hunters, QDM is a desirable alternative to traditional management, which allows the harvest of any legal buck and few, if any, does.

QDM guidelines are formulated according to property-specific objectives, goals, and limitations. Participating hunters enjoy both the tangible and intangible benefits of this approach. Pleasure can be derived from each hunting experience, regardless if a shot is fired. What is important is the chance to interact with a well-managed deer herd that is in balance with its habitat. A side benefit is the knowledge that mature bucks are present in the herd – something lacking on many areas under traditional deer management. When a quality buck is taken on a QDM area, the pride can be shared by all property hunters because it was they who produced it by allowing it to reach the older age classes which are necessary for large bodies and antlers.

The QDM Philosophy

Increasingly, landowners, hunters, and wildlife managers across North America are embracing the QDM philosophy. This is evidenced by the increasing voluntary and regulatory implementation of QDM practices on private and public lands. Hunters are rethinking what constitutes a "quality" hunt and how they can make a positive contribution to the future of the deer herds they hunt.

Another benefit of QDM is increased hunter safety. By taking the time to positively identify each deer by sex and age, the likelihood of accidental shootings is even more remote than under current management methods. Hunters participating in QDM enjoy both the tangible and intangible benefits of this approach. Pleasure can be derived from each hunting experience regardless if a shot is fired or an animal is harvested.

What is important is the chance to interact with a well-managed deer herd that is in balance with its habitat. A side benefit is the knowledge that mature bucks are present in the herd – something lacking on many areas under traditional deer management. When a quality buck is taken on a QDM area, all property hunters can share the pride because they helped produce it by allowing it to pass as a younger animal.

QDM Building Blocks

QDM guidelines must be tailored to each property, there are four cornerstones to all successful QDM programs: herd management, habitat management, hunter management, and herd monitoring.

Herd Management - Perhaps the most important part of QDM is herd management. Determining the appropriate number of deer to harvest by sex and age is essential. In many areas, deer populations are at or above optimum levels and herd stabilization or reduction is needed. [More]

Habitat Management - Improving available nutrition is another important cornerstone of QDM. The diet of a healthy herd should contain 12 to 18 percent protein and adequate levels of calcium, phosphorous, and other important nutrients. [More]

Hunter Management - Hunter management is a critical, yet often difficult aspect of QDM. Education is the key. Hunters must fully understand both the benefits and costs of QDM. [More ]

Herd Monitoring - Herd monitoring is the final cornerstone of QDM. Two types of data are commonly collected – harvest data and observation data. Harvest data should be collected from every deer taken or found dead on a property. Commonly collected harvest data include sex, age, weight, antler measurements, and reproductive information. [More]

Is QDM For All Hunters?

Not necessarily. But a growing number of hunters have progressed to a stage in their hunting that reflects a change in values and a desire for a "different" hunting experience. Involvement in QDM is simply an alternative to traditional deer management. Originally, only large properties (1,000 acres or more) were involved in QDM, but smaller properties are now participating through the formation of QDM cooperatives comprised of several smaller properties with similar objectives.

Is QDM For You?

Quality deer management is not a panacea and many things should be considered before implementing QDM practices on your hunting land. If you answer yes to the following questions, QDM may be right for you.
• Do you have enough acreage to manage your deer population without being severely affected by hunting pressure on adjacent properties? If not, will your neighbors join you and possibly others in forming a QDM cooperative?
• Is the habitat on your hunting property adequate to produce and maintain a healthy deer herd? If not, do you and your hunting companions have the funds, equipment, and commitment to manage and improve the habitat?
• Do the deer-hunting regulations in your state allow enough flexibility to manage your herd?
• Does your state wildlife agency encourage and assist landowners with management and allow adequate doe harvests?
• Are you and your hunting companions prepared to commit to a long-term (often five or more years) management program?
• Do you and your hunting companions understand the financial, time, and energy commitments and have realistic expectations regarding a QDM program?

When considering QDM, realistic expectations must be stressed. Management goals should be set with the potential of the local herd in mind. As a quality herd becomes established, it is important not to let expectations exceed the capabilities of the herd or habitat. Significant changes to deer herds and deer habitats do not happen overnight and often take several years to become obvious.

One other point, QDM isn't always about lowering deer herds. In some northern DMU's, the goal could be either sustaining herds at current levels until habitat improves or even allowing herds to grow a bit because the carry capacity can handle it.

The thing to keep in mind is, a bloated herd can do severe, long term damage to natural browse in a short time. Unless there's very proactive habitat improvements, it can take decades of low herd numbers for native browse to heal on it's own. The problem of northern Michigan is, we had decades of harmful overbrowsing, even if many hunters don't see it or understand it. A think forest of browse species deer won't touch, because the large herds ate all the preferred species, is not a healthy forest for game species.

The fix there is the chainsaw to cut old, scrub species and the planting bar to plant 1000's of saplings.

I've always maintained that the anti-hunting groups don't have to ban hunting, all they need to do is ban clear-cutting and forest management on public lands and eventually public lands wouldn't have enough game animals to warrant hunting anymore.

It turns out Gov. Snyder just signed a bill that cranks up fines for recreational trespass and we're doing like Ohio and cranking up fines on bucks with racks over 100". Since people who wouldn't poach a spike horn often do goofy things when a mature buck shows up, knowing you might get a huge fine for poaching a large buck has shown to cool those jets somewhat.

I agree with your sentiments, SteveO.

Snyder has seen the sportsman of this state as a huge source of revenue - continuing with unlimited tags, and really cranking up the tag prices for next season.  More tags, higher prices = more revenue for Lansing.

I don't think our DNR really has a clue as to deer numbers - especially in certain areas.

I'm going to make this sound really bad, but in my hunting this year in Ingham County (private land), I've seen a ton of deer, even with the corn on.  We seem to have reduced pressure, as one of our neighbors that really hammered the deer last year has really let up (only saw him once all season).  During the early doe season I saw 25+ deer while hunting with the recurve, and just last weekend I went out to fill a doe tag and saw close to 20 again.

The rut seemed to be very strange, slow and almost non-existant at times, which was incredibly frustrating.  Last Saturday I had four bucks chasing does around the fields like it was the heart of the rut!  They were all small (largest was a 2-1/2 year old basket rack), however.

Up north (Missaukee County), our deer numbers are solid, and we're in the APR zone.  We took a few does, and one solid 8pt, and I had a buck at 30 yards a few weeks ago that I think would break P&Y minimums (we've been in agreement with the neighbors on shooting small bucks for a while now).  He was the biggest buck I've seen up there in probably 20 years.

I've heard reliable reports from friends that they are hardly seeing anything, however, and lots of tags going unfilled this year.

Lots of problems in this state, that's for sure...

Adjusted for inflation, our tags are as cheap as ever. In todays dollars, a single buck tag in 1973 was $38. Our tags have been too inexpensive to fund the DNR. A better way to fund MDNR isn't by mainly tags. The animals belong to the state, right? So, everyone who buys a license plate for a vehicle should get a $10 charge to manage the natural resources that belong to all of us.

While Michigan deer hunters love to complain, it is a sport of it's own here, we still kill close to a half million deer every year. Last year we killed about a quarter million antlerless deer and a quarter million antlered bucks. That, as Nugent likes to say, is a stack.

Here's the last data from Ingham county...

WORKSHEET FOR ESTABLISHING DEER POPULATION GOALS - DMU_033
(Ingham County), 2006- 2010
Adjacent DMU(s) used in calculating goal: compared to all other adjacent DMU's, but treated separately
2006 - 2010 goal: 12,300 to 14,600 deer (22/sq mi to 26/sq mi)
Estimated 2005 population 24,700 deer
1996 - 2004 goal: 15,120 deer (27/sq mi):

Deer Herd Characteristics
The October 1 deer herd estimate for DMU 033 has ranged between 15,600 (28 deer per square mile in 2001) and 24,700 (44 deer per square mile in 2004) between 1994 and 2005. The herd could be classified as having above average deer density (44 deer per square mile-2005 SAK estimate-rank: 16th of 91 DMU's), above average intensity of buck harvest (75% of buck harvest is yearlings-2001-2004 deer check data-rank: 12th out of 40 southern Michigan DMU's), average doe:buck ratios (2.3 does/buck-2004 deer check data-rank: 61rd out of 91 DMU's), above average fawn:doe ratios in harvest (0.7 fawns/doe-2004 deer check data-rank: tied for 9th out of 40 south Michigan DMU's), and excellent health (22.8 mm average beam diameter of yearling bucks-2004 deer check data-rank: 2nd highest in state out of 93 DMU's).

I did mistakenly type QDM whenit is only antler restrictions. Whatever you call it though, a lot of new faces have shown up in an area we have hunted for almost 25 yrs. I like the idea of changing the season dates. Maybe have (3) one-week long seasons for firearms- all firearms. You would have to draw for your week. Let the bucks breed for a week or two. Let the people that hunt with ML that can shoot across a fourty rod field hunt with the '06 guys. Better management = Better deer herd. We need to get the mind set from killing to hunting.

Chain,
Firearms season was expected to have more hunters because it was a Friday opener, giving a 3 day weekend. At one time, MDNR mistakenly thought mid-week openers had the most hunters. They have since discovered that that data was flawed and the computer sales system shows weekend openers have far more participation. Prior to firearms opener, deer tag sales were up 6% from last year and likely up some 10% plus over the past few mid-week openers.

One must keep in mind, the Nov.15, 16 day firearms/rifle season was set in 1925. That's before an archery season even existed and when most of the LP was closed to deer hunting, because the market hunters and poaching just about wiped out the southern herd. Back then, people had to travel to the UP, which could take days. Now, some only 10% of Michigan deer hunters go to the UP. And even then, very few hunt the entire season there. It's a totally different hunting world now.

Given all the seasons we have now, weapons improvements, high tech gadgets, high tech clothing, ATV's, etc, it's my opinion that the archery season should be extended by a month or two to increase participation opportunity and the firearms season should be cut in half to a week and moved to a later date, when the rut is winding down, thus decreasing vulnerability of bucks during daylight hours, from the 20 hunters per mile with .300 mags and 200-250 yard shotguns and muzzleloaders.

Wow guys I just had time to check my post,and can't believe all the response. Things in michigan needs to change, for the better of all deer hunters regardless of what weapon one choose's to use. Just got home from work and getting ready to shower and de-sent myself. north west winds will put me and my zipper sxt  in a tree stand at the south end of our lease. have a great Thanks Giving. Don

QDM info that was posted may be good for private hunting ranches and  private property owners. It would be easier for them to control and regulate.  There is a lot of fancy information posted above about QDM. BUT with all that written, and  with most of the hunting property  owned by the State and Federal government, how are they going to regulate QDM on State and Federal lands . My thoughts are doe permits and antler restrictions.

So what I got out of what has been written about QDM is that it is for private property owners.

Jon,

A few things to consider. In Michigan, roughly 75% of all deer hunters hunt private land, as owners or guests. Only 17% hunt public land exclusively. So, just as the surveys show nearly 70% want changes, we're never going to make 100% of 650,000 of us happy.

QDM on public land is impossible if the habitat isn't improved. Habitat improvement in places like northern Michigan public land is an essential cornerstone of QDM.

That said, there's certainly room for improvement in herd management and hunter management on public lands.

While public land only hunters have to do some legwork to find better public lands, having over 7,000,000 of acres of public land to use for a $25 over the counter tag is about as good a bargain one can ever find.

I would ask, if you aren't happy with the regulations, since regulations produce the hunting you have, how would you change things?

Think of this, Michigan has the most public land east of the Mississippi, but when top deer states for the public land hunter are mentioned, Michigan is off the list. It's our regulations that are most responsible for this.

Here's a good list of best public land places to bow hunt...
  http://www.outdoorlife.com/node/45140  

Think of this, what is widely considered the best public land deer hunting in Michigan? Many would argue that it's the USFS Shiawassee Refuge. But what's funny about the Shiawassee is, it's the most regulated public land in the state. No baiting, one deer only, no driving deer, no motors, etc.

So what Michigan public land doesn't need is more lax management for over 100,000 deer hunters to make up for themselves. Michigan public land needs more management, not less. We've done the "I'll decide for myself on public land" deal in Michigan for the past 100 years. As they say, how's that working out for everyone?

What the majority of Michigan deer hunters are open to is trying some changes to rules some have thought to be etched in stone. Why can't we try a different firearms opener? Why can't we open bow season on Sept 1? If it's too warm, don't go. But southern hunters seem to manage in the heat. Why can't we bow hunt in January again? If we're going to have two buck tags, why not try APR's on both? Why not make hunter-choice statewide, where if a hunter wants to kill a spike he can, but he only gets one buck tag, not two? Why not try opening firearms season on the Friday before Thanksgiving? Why not limit baiting to corn only, if beets and carrots keep too much saliva on them, for TB transmission? If we have two buck tags, why not make it so you can only use one in bow season and one in firearms?

My point is, there's lots of room to try things other states have success with, even if for 3-5 year trial periods. If so many are unhappy, you'd think they'd be the first to want to try something different. We know what the current rules will do for the public land only deer hunter.

On the other side of the coin, one could argue than Michigan public land hunters have it pretty good. Here's a random look at the kill breakdown, from 2006. Keeping in mind that there's very little public land in the southern lower. If 17% hunt public land exclusively, making up 16% of the buck kill is an interesting factoid. Granted, some hunters hunt both, but the reality is, the majority hunt private land and private land only...

Private Land/Public Land Deer harvest, Antlered Deer, 2006

Area.....Public%...Private%
---------------------------
West UP....33%.......67%
East UP.....31%.......69%
NE LP........26%.......74%
NW LP.......23%.......77%
Sag Bay....10%........90%
SW LP........7%........93%
SC LP.........6%........94%
SE LP.........8%........92%

UP...........32%........68%
NLP..........23%.......77%
SLP............7%.......93%

Statewide..16%.......84%

One thing that you can control on private land is pressure. I think. to me, that makes all the difference. Pressured deer act alot different and my area has been pressured alot lately. I am going to try and find another area but work schedule makes it tough. I am 25 mins from work to home and then one hour to get on stand. I have bow areas closer but they get blasted in rifle season. I won't see a deer there until Christmas. Maybe that is why the Shiwassee area is so good. lack of pressure.

Guess I am confused?? Are there QDM management areas in Michigan?  And if so who and how are they regulated? I am not against QDM. We had antler restrictions at my place for years.  I just don't have the funds to properly manage my 35 acres but I am trying.

No, there are no QDM area's. If anything, about the best we can hope for is area's where the majority of the land, public and private, is being managed in a better way than we've had over the last 20 years. That will involve a mix of habitat management and hunter/trigger management. If one is a public land only hunter, I'd suggest you get active with USFS/MDNR and going to public meetings when they consider forest management plans. Public land hunters need to make their voices heard or the tree-huggers will do it for you. The tree-huggers will be at the meetings.  

Think of it, the Sierra Club held up all aspen cutting on all Huron-Manistee for nearly a decade with endless lawsuits. Stopping aspen cutting on public land is stopping all new growth of aspen and is a killer for hunting quality. Luckily, the Sierra Club is done with those suits, for the short term.

Try these links...
 http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-30301_30505---,00.html  

The NRC has public comments every month...
 http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-65134_65145---,00.html  

This is 2 years old, but a good starting place for fed land...
http://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsinternet/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gjAwhwtDDw9_AI8zPyhQoY6BdkOyoCAGixyPg!/?navtype=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&cid=STELPRDB5269056&navid=180000  000000000&pnavid=null&ss=110904&position=News&ttype=detail (http://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsinternet/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gjAwhwtDDw9_AI8zPyhQoY6BdkOyoCAGixyPg!/?navtype=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&cid=STELPRDB5269056&navid=180000000000000&pnavid=null&ss=110904&position=News&ttype=detail)

Mojo, you have a lot of great statistics. Unfortunately they are guess work from "surveys".

You know how many surveys I've been sent in 33 years of being a licensed Michigan deer hunter? ONE.

You know how many COs I've had check me in all that time, this including a decade if intense MI deer hunting from early Sept rifle in Menominee Co. thru early Jan in Lenawee? ONE

I don't know how many deer I have killed in MI. I stopped counting at 50 at least a decade ago. You know how many of those deer were seen by the "legions" of deer spotters at the bridge or on the overpasses? NONE.

Our DNR has NO CLUE how many deer are in the state. They also have NO CLUE how many deer are harvested. You know why Shiawassee is so good?  The OLD refuge manager knew EXACTLY how many deer he had on the property, how many hunters he had, and how many of his deer were killed. It was managed. It has fallen far in the past few years but still is better than most of MI.

I do not disagree with you at all on QDM or proper management. We just are not ever going to have it here. The DNR wants the insurance companies and farmers off their backs. I am glad I realized that years ago. It has allowed me to see some fantastic deer and habitat and not get so frustrated with what MI   could be.

All one has to do to see the potential MI deer have is look at a place like The Sanctuary. Those were MI bucks fed properly and allowed to mature...

Mojostick, you are going to have a hard time convincing some people, but I spent 20 years hunting in Germany and I participated in a Sanctuary inventory drive once. Both areas have a lot in common. They ARE heavily and carefully managed and both cost a lot to hunt. There is little hunting pressure in either Germany or the Sanctuary. Deer herds can be managed on public land, but the majority of hunters would not like the restrictions.

I think the DNR COULD successfully manage our herds a lot better, but they are revenue driven by license sales. The customer is always right, even when he isn't  :(

Steve O is correct....the Michigan DNRE has no clue about the deer population OR how many are killed each year...they ONLY know how much money the sale of licenses brings in...AND I for one, honestly believe that they do not reveal the true amount of money they take in from it.

THANK GOD...the wonderful Whitetail is as resilient as they are...only during the period of market hunting were they under more pressure than they are NOW!

Habitat is NOT an issue where I hunt...I can assure you of that!...it is OVERHARVEST...plain and simple. When there is THIS much money at stake, it will not change!

We the hunters manage the deer herd. The DNR/NRC can only setup the framework in which we release the arrow and squeeze the trigger. The onus is on us.
Anyhow, people have their minds made up. For me, my glass is half full and I have nothing but great hopes for the future. Have a happy turkey day and give thanks!

Where I live the general consensus is that the DNR manages the entire state like it was Kent co. We see very little habitat improvement other than timbering. I remember when I was a young man we timbered, cleared and seeded places. ( 70's & 80's) they made great areas to hunt. Happy Turkey Day everyone.

This is a fun thread to read!  Thanks for the input, most of it mirrors my sentiments in hunting here 25 years, and plenty on public land.

1)  DNR is clueless for deer numbers or harvest. The estimates are bull.
2)  Officers don't leave their heated trucks.
3)  In all the years of hunting in MI, I HAVE NEVER SEEN A HABITAT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT outside of tree cutting!!!!!!!!  EVER!!!!!!!!
I think clear cuts are great and important, but really are for revenue in the eyes of DNR and I don't qualify them as a project for deer or animals. It's secondary to $$. Only with waterfowl have I seen improvements, and rarely at that. Tree cutting alone isn't the answer, although I know it helps.

Also, 2 tracks open to vehicles are everywhere...absolutely everywhere.  You can barely work hard enough to find some solitude anymore, unless you go to the UP or other areas almost void of animals.

What's really frustrating is the lower opportunity for my kids to have a great experience like I had on public lands. When the permission I now have on private land goes away, I don't know what I'll do. Work really really hard I guess!

QuoteOriginally posted by Mojostick:
We the hunters manage the deer herd. The DNR/NRC can only setup the framework in which we release the arrow and squeeze the trigger. The onus is on us.

Couldn't agree more.  That is why the DNR/NRC should set up a framework based on what is healthy for the deer herd,  and then let each hunter make the decision on what to release and arrow and squeeze the trigger on.

I don't want to be the wet blanket on the bash the DNR fun, but somebody has to do it.    ;)  

I'll make this my post on this thread because these debates are often like discussing religion and politics. People have their minds made up and it's typically easier to look for a scapegoat than into the mirror.

Having worked in the Michigan sporting goods business for roughly 20 years and also worked with deer biologists, there are a few small facts that most bar stool conspiracy Michigan deer hunters don't want to hear.

The number one fact is most of our 650,000 deer hunters are ignorant about deer management or deer numbers other than the few hours they spend afield each season. The average Michigan deer hunter doesn't even know what carry capacity is, let alone the CC for the land they visit for a day or two in November. The truth is, the field biologists have forgotten more about deer than 95% of the recreationalists think they know. MDNR law enforcement officers are just that, law enforcement. CO's don't make regs anymore than policemen write the laws.

Also, DNR biologists don't write the rules, they only have some input of suggestion. In Michigan, the Natural Resources Commission makes most rules and the Michigan Legislature, not the DNR, raises license fee's. The DNR has the least power in Lansing, compared to the NRC and Legislature.

In a state of 650,000, the rules must be more defined. More and more deer hunters are asking that the rules be defined. In the last 3 surveys, a super majority has asked for rule changes so we're all working in the same direction. While the onus is on us, it's to do the right thing on the trigger, because we kill the deer, not the DNR. But the right thing means making decisions differently than have been made over the past 50 years. Game regulations help shape behavior and decisions.

In a state like Michigan, the rules aren't made for the hard core deer hunter. No, our rules are made for the near 60% of Michigan deer hunters who buy their tag the day before firearms opener and hunt only the first 2 days of the season. So, if we are to better manage the deer, we must make it so the average Joe can become a better management tool by simply following the rules, instead of blindly making a decision, often based on peer pressure and a complete misunderstanding of the biology of the herd. Think of all those guys who "cull" a scrubby yearling buck, all the while thinking they did the herd a good thing. Or those who won't shoot a doe because they "just killed 3 deer". Or those who think feeding an already overpopulated herd is a good thing.

Most Michigan deer hunters alive today started hunting in the 1980's and 90's, when the deer boom was at peak. They think those years were normal. Worse, they think those deer numbers were totally acceptable, as long as they could go to even the worst deer habitat and see deer. Those days are over, just as the housing boom is over.

From talking to biologists, you'll learn that daylight activity decreases in a more balanced herd because the deer don't have to work so hard for food. It's stressed herds where deer are seeking food at 1pm or that run into a bait pile at the sound of the tailgate closing. So, a 30% reduction in the deer herd could result in a 50% reduction in sightings. Also, with a 30% reduction in herd size, the 50% of land out there that is and always was marginal deer habitat may now have almost no daylight deer activity. In the past, it was large deer herds that pushed deer onto most marginal public land. And keep in mind why a lot of public land is public. It's because it was so poor that no settlers wanted it for farming or anything else. All the good soiled land was settled and the junk acidic sandy land was left.

Expecting 650,000 deer hunters to make up their own rules, when most are only afield a few days in a forest hours away from home is like saying that we're going to let drivers make up their own alcohol/drunk driving guidelines and they can also decide their own speed limit.

The majority of Michigan deer hunters never see the stress of the herd in the Winter or can tell the difference of how the northern forest is slowly converting from a landscape of browse species that can sustain a huntable deer herd for our children and a landscape slowing converting to shade tolerant and non-preferred plant species. If you want to end public land deer hunting for our kids, don't worry about PETA or HSUS, just keep doing what we're doing and the forest will eventually be mainly beech, scotch pine and autumn olive and we won't have to worry about many deer being there at all.

While many public land hunters sense something is wrong, they can't put the pieces together as to why and they wrongly blame MDNR. It's hunters demands that have done the most damage. It's the way things had been done is what got us here.

Something else many don't understand is, a main reason the state actively liberalized antlerless tags is the TB outbreak and the fear that TB would get established in the southern Michigan deer herds and impact the billion dollar livestock industry. But it was demands of hunters who were a cause of those herds and regulations in the 1990's.  

So, there is a well known cause and effect going on here. The state of public land hunting in Michigan didn't happen in a vacuum. What's maddening and frustrating is that the folks who complain the most are typically the same folks that demand more of the same rules that got them to their present situation.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I would agree with Mojostick on most everything he has said "IF"...

If I have EVER encountered a biologist ANYWHERE afield in Michigan during my 35 years hunting in Michigan.

If I was able to be shown that the herd reduction actually was only 30% or 40%, but again, actual deer densities are a complete myth or mystery to the DNRE, the biologists, OR the NRC.

If I didn`t know that the NRC was made up of APPOINTED individuals, and I as a citizen have never been shown their credentials to make said decisions.

I was at many meetings held by the DNR in the late nineties, regarding the TB problem and the proposed regulations used to stop the spread of it...in the end, the "Club Country" in the N.E. that CREATED the TB problem by SEVERE overpopulation STILL has an overpopulation of deer and the surrounding public land had been decimated. The attitude the members of the DNR had for the public who attended these meetings was VERY poor at best, and many of my friends who were there for those early meetings STILL talk about it. They basically set in stone a severe mistrust of the DNR and their motives.

Most of the areas I hunt in the N.E. lower penninsula are Federal lands...compare STATE land logging and replacement timber to FEDERAL and you will see...the STATE is managing forests as a cash crop, allowing the regrowth to be that of pulp wood...no select cut, just clear cut. Wildlife management is, at best, secondary on state lands.

The DNR, in my opinion, is BANKING on the adaptable whitetail as a cash crop...and the whitetail actually does a fantastic job. I will agree that deer numbers WERE too high, for many years...but I will NOW argue that the DNR is blatantly negligent in how they are managing numbers now. I will in fact argue, that the status and respect deer once had, has been damaged by the evident waste that I saw/see occur during the early and late antlerless seasons of the last several years.

It is indeed US hunters who have the ultimate control, but when the time comes, all I can do is NOT shoot a deer in order to protect a diminished herd?

This is a very interesting thread! Although I don't agree with everything that has been said, it has been insightful, and I enjoyed reading everyone's opinions. I would really love to sit down as a group and discuss this with everyone. It's nice reading posts, but it's not the same as having an intelligent conversation with immediate feedback.

Ps. Everyone that bow hunts in Michigan, should join the Michigan Bowhunters association, and the like minded clubs! It's a great way to unite for a common cause!

Here is a fact we all have to accept.

The folks in the agencies, the game and fish biologists, went to school, did internships, did a lot of background in order to be chosen.  There are many graduates in the wildlife management / game biology and related fields, and only a few jobs.  They know their field, much better than we do.

They know what they need to know.

Once they take a job with an agency, all bets are off on letting them actually do something meaningful.  They have some authorities and powers, but face it, the DNR (whatever your state calls it) is NOT run by the biologists.

Come on folks, if you are a welder by trade and I come up and say "your welding sucks,  I welded once in high school so I know"... does that hit home well ?

I read, somewhere, of a guy who called and ragged out the DNR biologist about the deer, says he has hunted for 50 years and he knows.  The DNR spokeswomen asked what he did for a living, "I run a water treatment facility" was his response.

She asked if she could come run it for a day for him and he laughed, and she said.. "hey, I've been drinking water all my life"....  

Sure, complain, the system isn't working, but instead of ONLY complaining we need to work on getting the situation changed so that they CAN do their jobs.  They want to.

We all win then

ChuckC

ChuckC what would you suggest we do in Michigan.

We have friends that have a hunting camp in north east Wisconsin near the Michigan border and has been a bow hunter for many years.  He considers his season a success if he sees more than 5 deer a season, in Wisconsin.

Gentlemen,

I am a wildlife biologist, but I am a private consultant and do not work for a state DNR.  However, if you want something to happen in your state then you need to contact your state representative.  The DNR is scientific in nature, but everything they do or don't do is politically driven.  On a lighter note, traditional archery lends itself to great fun in the woods and that is what we need to remain focused on.  The deer numbers will come back either naturally or man-induced.

I mentioned last week that I'd refrain from posting anymore on this thread because I was fearful that it could become a little hot, which these Michigan deer debates can become. But in true tradgang fashion, this thread has been very civil.

So, with that said, I think the endless tug of war between Michigan deer hunters and MDNR is that Michigan deer hunters see "more deer" as the gauge of DNR success. Meaning, if a hunter goes out and see's 40 deer on a sit, he thinks the DNR has done a great job. If that hunter goes out and see 2 deer in 3 days, the DNR biologists are bums. To many hunters, a DMU with 60 deer per mile is akin to Heaven.

Meanwhile, the DNR biologists are charged with managing the natural resources, yet having to use hunters as the tool to manage the most desired, yet most destructive game animal in the state. To them, a DMU with 60 deer per mile is a failure and a disaster waiting to happen.

Here's a good link from the last population goal plan. You can click on every county and learn a lot about what MDNR would like to see in each county...
  http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10363_10856_10905-129948--,00.html  

To illustrate how long the biologists have battled the masses of Michigan deer hunters, look at these cartoons from 1959. They were drawn by biologist Oscar "Oz" Warbach. What's funny is, even things have changed from the DNR standpoint since 1959. In 1959, the "deer managers/DNR" saw themselves as the managers and the hunters were the hunters. What we now know is, like it or not, we're all deer managers if we deer hunt. We all make some type of management decision whether we decide to shoot or not shoot, bait or not bait, pass or not pass, etc.

   (http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy30/jbrauker/Oscar2.png)

   (http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy30/jbrauker/Oscar3.png)

   (http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy30/jbrauker/Oscar1.png)

Every deer hunter in Michigan should read this link provided. It's written by Brent Rudolph, MDNR Deer and Elk Program Leader.

In fact, any deer hunter in any state who wonders why DNR's often make certain decisions should read the link, it's really good. It discusses the hard task of finding the middle ground between the hard reality of nature vs. the desires of hunters and economic factors.

Population Biology, Abundance, and Management History of Michigan White-tailed Deer

http://michigansaf.org/Tours/05Deer/02-Rudolph.pdf

My absolutely biggest complaint about MI revolves around the lack of habitat improvement for not only deer, but all critters.  We pay so much $$ in license fees alone, there has got to be some return.  It's not about numbers, animal numbers follow habitat as has been stated for all species of animals.  Habitat of our state lands is getting worse all the time.  Autumn olive plantings come to mind as a horrible attempt at "improvement".  Nice try. At this point it isn't unknown how to do it, just that nothing is being done. So 15% of the potential state lands actually is used by critters! and the rest is just pretty in the fall...

Matt,
The answer to the public land problem isn't a good one. Northern Michigan public land became a deer paradise due to the timber booms of 2-6 generations ago.

At one time, Grand Rapids, Michigan was the furniture making capital of the USA. That was all do to access to virgin timber via waterway.

Here's a little insight to the massive amounts of cutting done, which had the by-product of creating a small 50-70 year window of making traditionally marginal deer forest into a lush, younger deer Mecca. The northern woods is slowly reverting back to what it's been for many 1000's of years, more marginal deer habitat with lower deer densities than most 20th century Michigan deer hunters grew used to seeing...
  http://www.agilewriter.com/History/Mi_lumber.htm  

Logging companies often did not confine their cutting to the area they had purchased. There was the practice of "logging a round forty," which meant buying forty acres and then cutting the timber around it in all directions far beyond the boundaries of the area to which title had been secured. By 1900 most of the pine in the Lower Peninsula was gone. Pine logging in the Upper Peninsula began to assume greater importance in the 1880s, and the virgin stands lasted until about 1920. The peak of Michigan's great timber harvest was reached in 1889-1890 when mills cut a total of 5.5 billion board feet of lumber, mostly pine.

By the boom's end, logging had stripped 19.5 million acres, none of which was replanted, leaving vast tracts of barren wasteland. The lumber barons attempted to unload the now worthless land by setting up demonstration farms, using large amounts of fertilizer to convince unsuspecting buyers that the soil was suitable for farming. Many small plots were sold to people who put up their life savings, only to find out after a couple of unproductive growing seasons that they had been cheated. Most of the barren land couldn't be sold under any circumstances and it reverted to state ownership as the lumber barons abandoned it because they didn't want to continue paying taxes on it.

During the depression of the 1930s, one of the projects assigned to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), made up of out-of-work young men, was to repair the damage done to the nation's forests by clear-cutting. The CCC planted millions of seedlings and over time most of Michigan's barren areas were reforested. However, some areas known as "stump prairies" still exist, even though it has been over a century since they were stripped of trees.

Today, over half of Michigan's land mass is covered by forests. Logging, which never disappeared altogether, continues, especially in the state's northern counties, but it is being done very selectively, to preserve and protect the remaining old-growth forests. Tree farming began in 1941, and now accounts for the overwhelming majority of the nearly 675 million board-feet of lumber that Michigan produces annually. Michigan also produces over 15 million Christmas trees each year, representing approximately 15% of the nation's supply.

Here's another good read any Michigan deer hunter should find interesting...

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10363_10856_10905-28543--,00.html

ELIMINATION OF MARKET HUNTING  

Prior to settlement, Michigan had an abundant deer herd in the south. The mixture of hardwoods, wetlands, bogs and forest openings was perfect for deer. There were few deer in the virgin forests of the north, which were inhabited mostly by elk and moose. The mature trees were so dense that sunlight could not reach the forest floor. Little deer food was available in these virgin forests. As farmers and settlers moved into southern Michigan, deer were exterminated by removal of cover and by unregulated shooting. Deer were mostly gone by 1870. Logging of forests in the north produced an opposite effect--more openings, brush, and young forests. As the northern herd climbed to estimated 1 million deer in the 1880s, the abundance fostered a public attitude that this resource was inexhaustible.

Logging camps of 100 to 200 men used venison as the primary source of meat for months at a time. Railroads that had been developed to facilitate the timber market also provided transportation of game meat to Eastern markets. Railroads also provided access for hunters into the wilderness. Market hunters slaughtered hundreds of thousands of deer for the sale of venison. Usually, the hindquarters and legs (saddles) were shipped during the fall of the year with the rest of the deer discarded. In summer, market hunters sometimes killed deer for just the hides. Hunting methods commonly involved the use of dog packs, the killing of deer at night by shining (deer are momentarily blinded with lights), and the shooting of deer while they were swimming in the water.

Early measures to control market hunting were not very successful. The first deer law of 1859 eliminated year-round killing and set a seven-month season for taking deer. However, there was no bag limit or restriction of the method of take. Sporting clubs became outraged at the slaughter of game by the market hunting industry. They realized the need to form a statewide group with sufficient membership to lobby against commercial hunting interests. In 1875, the first meeting of the Michigan Sportsmen's Association (MSA) was held in Detroit.

The MSA lobbied for a bill to make it illegal to sell game out of state, as modeled after a bill in Illinois. Debate from commercial hunting interests was intense. The Legislature sided with industry against the "kid-gloved sportsmen." The formal legislative conclusion was that there was insufficient data on the extent of market hunting to document a need for legislation. Mr. Roney, Secretary of the MSA, spent the next three years collecting data from hunters, railroads, and restaurants. He reported in 1880 that 70,000 deer were killed in Michigan. Sportsmen took a reported 4,000, compared to 66,000 by market hunters. About half of the venison (an estimated 5 million pounds) was shipped out of state. As a result of this analysis, a bill restricting sale of Michigan game meat in other states became law in 1881.

The MSA had other successes in affecting game policies and laws by working with state government. The length of the hunting season was shortened to five months in 1881, at which time it was also made illegal to kill deer in the red or spotted coat or while in water. It was also unlawful to use pits, pitfalls, or traps in the taking of deer. In 1887, a law was passed making it illegal to use dogs or lights for taking deer. Also, the state's first game warden was hired in 1887.

Legislative activity to control market hunting culminated with an 1895 law, which really marked the beginning of deer management in Michigan. The open deer hunting season was established to be November 1 through 25. A bag limit of five deer was set. A license was also required to hunt deer.

Probably more important than the law itself was the public demand for regulation and conservation of deer. Public compliance with regulation was enhanced with better laws and better prosecution of game violators. The attitude that people could work through their state government to conserve deer led to many rule changes decreasing the bag limit and indiscriminate hunting methods. Ultimately, though, it took a federal law (the Lacey Act of 1900) to put an end to the market hunting industry by making it a federal violation to ship game across state lines.


PROTECTION  

An early approach to deer regulation was complete closure of specific counties to deer hunting for a period of three to ten years. This extreme method of increasing deer numbers was common in the late 1890s until the early 1920s, at which time deer hunting was illegal in almost 1/3 of Michigan counties. One can imagine the legislative debates about closing of a county to deer hunting for several years.

There was also a reduction in the number of days that hunters could take deer. Season dates were changed several times until 1925, when November 15 through 30 was determined to be the best time for hunting deer. It is interesting to note that except for failed experiments with Saturday openers and split seasons between 1962 and 1967, the firearm season of November 15 through 30 has remained the same for more than half a century.

Although there were few deer hunters at the turn of the century (from 14,499 licenses sold in 1895 to 21,239 in 1915 ), many of these hunters were very efficient at taking deer. The deer harvest during these years averaged about 12,000. Thus, there was interest in reducing the bag limit of successful hunters as a method to manage deer. The Legislature reduced the bag limit from five deer in 1895 to three in 1901, two in 1905, and to one deer in 1915. But then, there was a serious debate over the Department recommendation that hunters should be allowed to take only one buck. Game Commissioner William R. Oates argued that a "buck law" was needed because the deer herd was not increasing even with the elimination of market hunting The Commissioner estimated that there were only 45,000 deer in Michigan in 1914. Rather than provide for complete county closures to deer hunting for up to ten years, it was recommended that regulations be changed so that only antlered deer could be taken by hunters.

Mr. George Shiras III, a wildlife expert of the times, wrote an article supporting the "buck law" which appeared in the Marquette Mining Journal. Regardless of the opinions of Commissioner Oates or Deer Biologist Shiras, the Legislature did not, at first, accept the recommendation for a "buck law." The decade-long debate continued until the "buck law" became effective in 1921. As we shall see, the Department sold the "buck law" so well that it would result in the destruction of deer range and create serious deer population and public education problems for many years to come.

ADVENT OF SCIENTIFIC DEER MANAGEMENT  

Hunters in Michigan had also lobbied for discretionary authority to be provided to the Public Domain Commission (precursor to the DNR) by the Legislature. The lack of a timely response to the serious drop in ruffed grouse in the Upper Peninsula was used as a case study to show the need for discretionary authority. The Michigan Legislature did even more than provide discretionary authority. Act 17, P.A. 1921, created a State Department of Conservation to include the former Michigan State Parks Commission, Board of Geological Survey, State Board of Fish Commissioners, State Game, Fish, and Forest Fire Commission, and the Public Domain Commission.

In 1928, the Game Division was established within the Department of Conservation. With technical personnel in a special organization, scientific data began to form much of the basis for decision-making. Our basic knowledge of the white-tailed deer and its habitat expanded as Michigan made a major contribution to the scientific literature on deer.

Studies were begun on conducting drives to census deer. Sighting rates of bucks, does, and fawns seen per 100 hours were recorded by conservation officers while on patrol in deer territory. Studies were completed to correlate skull and antler characteristics with age of deer. Browse surveys were done in deeryards to estimate winter food and cover. Diseases and parasitism were researched to monitor herd health. Hunter surveys were started to obtain better data on the annual harvest.

Scientific game management expanded even more in 1937 with the passage of the Pittman-Robertson Act for Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration. This act collected a federal excise tax on hunting arms and ammunition to be returned to the state for research, land acquisition, and habitat development. Full-time wildlife research biologists were hired by the Department and housed at research stations. Some of these researchers, like Mr. Louis .1. Verme and Mr. John J. Ozoga, became international experts in the nutrition, physiology, and behavior of white-tailed deer.

At the same time scientific studies were being done, the deer herd began to rebound. Some of the increase was due to habitat changes as logged-over areas produced deer browse. Shrubs and other deer foods developed in many areas that had been cleared for agriculture but abandoned. There was also an impact of the no-dog rule, the "buck law", and what was known to hunters as the "Shiras gun law" (this law prohibited the carrying of firearms in deer territory during the closed season.)

By 1930, the abundance of deer was recognized. The first discussion of deer-vehicle accidents began. Hunters complained that the "woods was full of dry does", and that maybe the "buck law,' should be changed. There was also a significant amount of winter starvation and over-browsing in cedar swamps where field investigators reported a shortage of food and cover for the growing herd. By 1936, hunters were complaining about low buck-to-doe ratios.

A crop damage committee was formed in the late 1930s to include representatives of hunting and agricultural groups. Mr. Ilo Bartlett, the state's first deer biologist, reported that there were 1.125 million deer in the state in 1937 (about 1/3 of which were in the Upper Peninsula and 2/3 in the northern Lower Peninsula- only a very few deer were present in southern Michigan). He began to talk about the "Deer Problem."


DEER HABITAT ACQUISITION  

The Department of Conservation recognized that there were two solutions to the deer problem of the late 1930s:
1.Reduce deer numbers to balance the herd with the range, and
2.Provide more and better deer range to sustain habitat on a long-range basis.

There were many discussions about changing the "buck law" and also about ways to provide more hunting lands for deer. In 1931 a law was passed to earmark $1.50 for land acquisition from each deer license sold. These funds were often used to purchase tax-reverted lands because of farming failures or hardships of the Great Depression. About 700,000 of the 3.8 million acres of state forest lands were purchased with funds from hunting licenses. In the early years of the Pittman-Robertson Program, a large share of federal aid money was used to purchase game lands in southern Michigan.

Despite the state's attempt to provide more hunting lands and to place more deer habitat in public ownership, the deer problem continued until the herd peaked at about 1.5 million deer in the late 1940s.


REINSTATEMENT OF ANTLERLESS DEER HUNTING  

A decade of carrying more than 1 million animals with bucks-only hunting severely damaged the habitat. Deeryards became death traps for deer, where they came for cover but had no food. The reproductive rate of nutritionally stressed does was poor, as was the survival rate of fawns born in late May and early June.

In 1941, for the first time since the "buck law" of 1921, antlerless deer were taken in an experimental hunt in a 37-square-mile parcel in Allegan County after the regular season. Hunters were selected by drawing.

Also in 1941, the camp deer license was liberalized. Before that time, four or more hunters could apply to take an extra buck for use as camp meat. The 1941 rule allowed that camp deer be either sex. The number of camp deer taken increased from several hundred to 17,100 in 1941. Sportsmen and nonhunters reacted so negatively that the either-sex camp deer law was repealed.

Small antlerless hunts were also held after the regular seasons in a few deer damage areas in 1949, 1950, and 1951. A major antlerless season was held in 1952 in the northern Lower Peninsula north of Highway M-20. No permit was required. Any licensed hunter could take a deer of either sex during the last three days of the season (November 28 through 30). A total of 95,810 antlerless deer was taken, which many hunters considered to be too many. There is still talk in northern Lower Peninsula deer camps about the "slaughter of 1952." It was reported that a truckload of letters came to Lansing, one of which was signed in doe blood.

After the public reaction, the Department changed to an area and quota system to take antlerless deer, which has been maintained today. For example, in 1956, Deer Management Unit 2 included parts of Mason, Lake, and Newaygo counties. A total of 4,270 Hunter's Choice (either sex) permits was issued in Unit 2 for use during the regular November 15 through 30 season. The Department and public liked the idea of focusing the antlerless harvest by specific numbers of permits issued for specific units, rather than the open season for any hunter across the entire region, as was done in 1952. In 1956, the first antlerless deer hunting since 1920 was opened in the Upper Peninsula in four small deer management units. Mr. David A. Arnold and Mr. Joseph E. Vogt, deer management experts with the Department, worked diligently to gain support for antlerless deer hunting. By 1965, almost all of the land in the Upper and northern Lower peninsulas and about 1/3 of the land in southern Michigan was open to antlerless deer hunting. A total of 227,314 permits was made available in 58 units.

During this time of increased antlerless deer hunting, the habitat for deer collapsed. Some of this was due to heavy browsing of deer between 1940 and 1960. Most habitat deterioration was due to forest succession. Mature stands of timber began to appear on lands that had been formerly logged. The heavy leaf cover in the canopies of the mature trees prevented sunlight from reaching the forest floor. Thus, there was little food for deer to eat in the mature forests. Also, there was not much logging to produce browse for deer.

This combination of decreasing deer numbers due to habitat change, along with significant antlerless deer harvests, sent a confusing message to the public. Many individuals attributed the decreasing herd to the antlerless hunting because they were unaware or did not believe information concerning the habitat crash. Habitat was not much of a problem in southern Michigan. All deer hunting had been closed in southern Michigan from 1930 to 1941, when Allegan County was opened. By 1943, for the first time in 70 years, deer could be found in every county. The southern herd increased from 15,000 deer in 1949 to 85,000 by 1972. Even the increased presence of deer in southern Michigan did not affect a major decline in the herd from 1.5 million in 1949 to 0.5 million in 1972. Two generations of deer hunters reacted as they had been taught by the Department-return to a "buck law." A few hunters, however, understood the real problem in the 1970s and pursued a more important solution.

DEER RANGE IMPROVEMENT  

Due to the leadership skills of Wildlife Division Chief Merrill (Pete) Petoskey and the technical knowledge of Staff Biologist John Byelich, the Department of Conservation developed a Deer Range Improvement Program (DRIP). Act 106, P.A. 1971, provided that $1.50 be earmarked from each deer hunting license "for the purpose of improving and maintaining habitat for deer, for the acquisition of land required for an effective program of deer habitat management, and for payment of ad valorem taxes on lands acquired under this section." A goal of 1 million deer was established for spring 1981.

Priority townships were identified with the most potential for deer habitat improvement. Forest cover guidelines were established to outline ideal mixtures of tree species, age classes of trees, forest openings, and winter cover. At first, the Department invested heavily in bulldozers and field personnel to complete on-the-ground projects because the timber market was weak in most areas. With the increased opportunity to complete deer range work through commercial forestry, more Department money was provided for salaries of wildlife personnel to work with state and federal foresters to plan forest treatments.

About $20 million was invested in habitat improvements for deer from 1972 to 1987. Specific impacts included the creation, seeding, cultivation, and maintenance of more than 70,000 acres of forest openings. A total of 5,113 acres of critical deer range was purchased with DRIP funds. More than 137,292 acres of land were improved through direct cuttings or residual treatments of timber stands to benefit deer and other species. Wildlife personnel evaluated and planned forest treatments on more than 550,000 acres during this time.

Deer range improvement was also accelerated by an increase in the timber market in northern Michigan and increased agriculture in deer territory. A series of mild winters in the 1980s and artificial feeding of deer by the public further propelled the herd to a new peak of 2 million deer in 1989. Signs of distress in the herd appeared again. The percentage of spikes among yearling bucks in the Upper Peninsula exceeded 50 percent. Many yearling bucks had dressed-weights of less than 100 pounds. Survivorship of fawns from June to October was as low as 40 percent in some areas. A hard winter of 1985/86 resulted in the winter loss of an estimated 125,000 deer. Deer-vehicle accidents exceeded 40,000 per year with an average of 5 people killed and 1,500 injured each year. Crop damage reappeared, and an ad hoc committee of agricultural and hunting interests was formed once again. Also, hunters once again began complaining about the low buck-to-doe ratio.


A SMALLER DEER HERD WITH A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF BUCKS  

In the late 1980s, the Department of Natural Resources reaffirmed its goal of 1.3 million deer in the fall herd (which was biologically the same as the 1971 goal of 1 million deer in the spring herd). However, a new dimension was added by specifying that 35 percent of this fall herd should ideally be antlered bucks. Increased hunting of antlerless deer was encouraged by quota and area to thin adult doe herds. In 1989' the Hunter's Choice license was changed to a bonus Antlerless-only license. The number of antlerless deer hunting licenses was increased from the tens of thousands issued annually in the 1970s to a peak of 322,890 in 1990. The herd responded as was intended-there were 20 percent fewer deer in fall 1993 as there were in 1989.

The heightened opportunity to take antlerless deer reduced the hunting pressure exclusively devoted to bucks. Thinning the herd also increased fawn survival so that more 1½-year-old bucks were recruited into the fall herd in the 1990s, compared to the 1960s. In 1991, the bag limit for bucks was reduced from four (two in archery plus two in firearm or muzzleloading seasons) to two bucks in all seasons combined. Many hunters thought that the buck harvest should be restricted even more, and proposals were developed to drop the second buck license or to make it illegal to tag a spikehorn with a buck license. There was much discussion about application of "quality deer management" from the Southeastern states to Michigan.

Some tough choices are ahead if we continue to aspire to a herd with 35 percent antlered bucks in the fall population. We have reached the point where further increases in antlerless deer harvest will not have much impact on the buck-to-doe ratio. To further improve the percentage of bucks in the fall herd, we will have to find acceptable ways to reduce the buck harvest.

Continued bucks-only hunting to rebuild herds may complicate the problem by placing all of the hunting pressure on antlered deer. That will decrease the buck-to-doe ratio and eventually return us to the situation where we started in the mid-1980s. Now, we should evaluate regulations that will allow the careful taking of specified numbers of antlerless deer in areas with smaller herds. We need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of regulations to reduce buck harvest in ways that are acceptable to hunters and landowners.

Methods of handling deer crop damage were also changed in the late 1980s as a result of recommendations from Department field personnel and from the Ad Hoc Deer Damage Committee. The Legislature and Commission have repeatedly concluded that the best solution to crop damage is recreational hunting, rather than trapping, compensation, or birth control.

In keeping with this policy, a "block permit program" was tested in 1987 and initiated statewide in 1989. This program allowed landowners, with a history of significant deer damage documented by the Department, to receive by for distribution to licensed hunters. Thus, nuisance deer could be taken during the regular season from areas with known crop damage instead of from anywhere within a deer management unit of several hundred square miles.

Out-of-season killing of deer, illegal kill, and "gut shooting" were reduced by providing opportunities to take deer with block permits during the regular season. Block permits also allowed the state to have more deer in problem areas instead of reducing the herd in a large deer management unit. Problem "hot spots" could be handled with block permits. Although the number of deer taken on these licenses was small (10,000 to 15,000 annually) from a statewide perspective, landowners with damage were pleased with the ability to control local economic losses from deer. Block permits were used to encourage hunting in some metropolitan areas and nature centers where it was difficult to obtain enough antlerless licenses at specific sites. The 1980s and 1990s have also provided some new technologies and new policy issues for deer range improvement. The reduction of thermal cover in cedar and hemlock deeryards, especially on private land in the Upper Peninsula, increased winter losses of deer and reduced deer numbers in several local sites. The Department initiated a lowland conifer regeneration program in 1991 to encourage regeneration in yards where deer were scare, but the yard once held large numbers of deer. An inventory of lowland conifers was completed in 1994 by the Department, through a contract with Maclean Consultants Ltd. This work involved mapping of deer thermal cover by satellite imagery on all lands (private, state, and federal) in the Upper Peninsula. This information will provide direction for deer habitat improvements during the next decade.

Completion of state forest plans in the Escanaba and Pere Marquette forests and for the three federal forests in Michigan also provided some new opportunities to place deer range improvement in a larger context of landscape planning, conservation of biodiversity, and ecosystem management. The Department's experience in deer range improvement during the past 20 years has taught us the importance of managing vegetative communities, rather than just deer. Deer management has also taught us that the hardest species to include in ecosystem management is Homo sapiens. The recreationist and concerned citizen must not be excluded from the landscape planning process.

The build-up of deer in urban and suburban areas had also been a challenge in the past decade. These deer herds were often in places like airports or golf courses or subdivisions where lethal control was unpopular. The constituents who got involved in these issues were often subdivision residents or others with little hunting experience. As a result, local decision-makers often ignored the problem or selected trapping, birth control, or other nonlethal solutions to pursue. Other than fencing, these nonlethal control methods were usually unsuccessful or impractical, and lethal controls were eventually applied. Management of deer in urban and suburban settings will provide many future opportunities for public education and involvement.

One final issue of the past decade has involved the management of social conflicts between hunting groups with different characteristics, hunting methods, or values. For example, deer hunters that do not bowhunt expressed a concern about the fairness of allocation in the harvest. Deer hunters that do bait complained about the territoriality of baiters or ethics of baiting or the image of hunting being tarnished by those using that method. Muzzleloaders questioned the use of scopes on firearms that they felt should be primitive. Hunters without access to private land complained about the increased opportunities that some hunters had to take antlerless deer or large bucks.

These kinds of social issues were by no means new in deer management. What was new, though, was the attitudes of people that state government should intervene in matters beyond the biology of deer or management of habitat. To date, there is a feeling in the Department that hunters need to discuss and resolve these issues among themselves and then ask their government to act accordingly. However, biological and ecological issues are perceived differently. State government has a legal mandate and moral responsibility to act, even if contrary to public will, where the integrity of the resource is threatened. Thus, the real challenge of the future of deer management will be to carefully sort out the social from biological, to respond to the will of the public for the former, and to take leadership, even if unpopular, for the latter.


SUMMARY  

This brochure has shown the dedication of Michigan hunters in supporting deer management during the past century.

Michigan hunters have supplied millions of dollars for the development of hunting regulations based on scientific data. They have also provided funds to enforce those rules in the field. Millions of dollars have been contributed for the acquisition of land and for the improvement of deer habitat on those lands. In many cases, legislative action to protect deer, acquire land, and improve deer range has been initiated by hunters themselves. This partnership among the Michigan deer hunter, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Michigan Legislature speaks well of our ability as citizens to work together through state government to manage wildlife. There is no question that the Michigan deer herd will generate considerable discussion and debate in the future. Such debate is essential to develop management procedures to keep our deer herd and deer range in good condition.

I hope I'm not getting too much into the weeds with some of this research paper stuff, but the basis of the research really is the crux of the problem of hunters not trusting the DNR.

This is a really interesting look into the thoughts of deer hunters. While it's from Wisconsin, the Midwest attitudes are very similar.
 http://www.uwsp.edu/cnr/Wildlife/faculty/Holsman/DNR%20Credibility%20Report_Holsman%202009.pdf  


Here's a part that pertains to the conversation we're having here. I pasted the excerpts from another site...

"Hunters in this study acknowledged the importance of biological carrying capacity (BCC) in process of establishing deer population goals, but they appeared to differ dramatically from agency conventional wisdom about the current state of the deer population in relation to their habitat. When asked how much weight should be given the concepts of BCC, public acceptance capacity and hunter preference, BCC received the highest weighted average, slightly edging hunter preferences 39% to 35%. Yet, three out of four deer hunters believed deer populations in their DMU at are at or below biological carrying capacity; over half (53%) believed deer are below the BCC (Figure 14). Only 13% responded that deer numbers were above the BCC. These numbers were obtained even after a formal definition of BCC was provided in the preface to the question (see Appendix A).

  Four in ten hunters believed that unless a large number of deer starved in the winter, then they were not overpopulated. Forty-four disagreed that "visible browse lines in the woods indicate that we have too many deer". Based on the responses to these two measures, it would suggest that most hunters lack the capacity to evaluate or perceive deer impacts that degrade the long-range productivity of the habitat. (Bold by me)  Four in ten hunters believed that unless a large number of deer starved in the winter, then they were not overpopulated. Forty-four disagreed that "visible browse lines in the woods indicate that we have too many deer". Based on the responses to these two measures, it would suggest that most hunters lack the capacity to evaluate or perceive deer impacts that degrade the long-range productivity of the habitat. One of the great outreach challenges of wildlife management is to develop skills among landowners and hunters to recognize the signs of overabundant deer when the mere presence of high densities seems to suggest that the land is capable of "carrying" those animals."

"Focus group results suggested that hunters believe that insurance companies in Wisconsin wield powerful influence over the DNR when it comes to setting deer quotas. Indeed, the questionnaire data showed that two out of three respondents believed this to be true."

"But perhaps more telling were the 50% who agreed that managers
distort deer numbers to justify larger harvests."

I asked 4 questions to measure wolf attitudes among hunters, including their belief regarding agency involvement in "transplanting wolves" to establish their population. A clearly majority of hunters (56%) believed that the DNR is responsible for bringing wolves here and only 8% disagreed with this idea. Despite the facts that wolf populations returned naturally to Wisconsin in the 1970‟s through immigration from Minnesota, the DNR-wolf myth runs deep among Wisconsin hunters. The agency clearly needs to aggressively address this misconception.

One of the most surprising findings of this study deals geographic differences in wolf attitudes. I expected attitudes toward wolves to be the most negative in the Northern and Western regions where wolf packs are well established. Instead those living in the Eastern Farmland region expressed the highest degree of anti-wolf sentiment (Table 21). Again, this appears to be driven by recreational landowners whose attitudes are more negative with anything associated with DNR. In essence, hunter dislike of wolves may a function of the symbolism of what wolves represent as much as from personal, negative encounters with them. Deer hunters who own land for the purpose of hunting were more likely to indicate that wolf reduction would improve agency credibility. Differences in wolf attitude can be explained partially by education levels. There is linear correlation whereby attitudes toward wolves become more favorable as education increases.

More misconceptions and irrational behavior. Recreational landowners in the eastern farmland region have the highest hatred towards wolves even when they don't have to deal with the wolves. The majority of hunters also believe the WDNR deliberately planted the wolves in Northern Wisconsin. The Eastern Farmland Region also has the highest distaste for the DNR... despite having some of the highest deer population densities in the state.

You guys..  we are no different here in WI.  Battling the same problems, seeing fewer deer.  

Look at our gun deer kill stats for this year.  Dismal.  and of course, they blame the cold weather on the opener.  If it was hot they would have blamed that.

I don't know the answers.  I HAVE been on the other side during my long career with the FDA.  

What I said above, I believe as total truth.  I know more about FDA stuff than you do.  You know more about (your profession) than I do. Those folks in the DNR know tons more about deer biology and how it impacts the rest of the world than we do. That's what makes the world work.

They cannot be everywhere.  They cannot know that there are 100 deer per mile on Joe's private place down the road, and 3 deer on the public land I hunt.  Until we inform them.  Somehow there has to be a connection made.  A way to channel information from those that just walked those 100 acres and saw nothing, including tracks.  Then, once they KNOW that... well, what can they do ?  Yup, Joe has 100, he has crops and rotates his tree harvesting, and he doesn't allow hunting or access.  Their hands are kinda tied.

The difference between private and public agencies is huge, but, then again, not so huge.  All of it is driven by money and perceived power, at some level.

We need to do less "bitching" at the guys and gals who are out there, and somehow, someway, do more pushing and directing.  If they can't do anything because of the politics, then THAT is where the pushing needs to be directed.

For years we have "bitched" about some of our (Wisconsin's) hunting laws.  They were stupid, but they have always been there.  One day, our newest Governor said.. "they are stupid" (meaning, some high ranking political donors said they are stupid, and hindering commerce) and BAM... they were changed.  

The law enforcement side of the DNR said "oh oh, we are gonna see a big rise in * * * crimes because we can't trust anybody"  but they never happened.

We have the added pleasure of having CWD in our herd.  Anyone wanna guess how it jumped from Colorado to Wisconsin in a single bound ?  My guess involves money and commerce and power.

Right now, my little bit of forestry and wildlife training (I majored in Bio, but only superficially in wildlife related studies) says that Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan (esp the UP) was logged over years ago.  The new growth opened the doors for a huge growth in deer population, which wasn't there before. Right time, right place.  

That growth is now at the level where it mimics a climax forest with no understory.  My little place in the UP shows exactly that.  Lots of trees.... nothing growing underneath for food.  The soil is very poor.  Growth is agonizingly slow.  It can no longer support the large herds. Cedar and other browse plants are so overwhelmed by browsing that there is no real regeneration.  

But We all know this already.

So to change this, we need several things.  We need controlled removal of the trees, to start.  Regrowth follows, or.... we need to retrain our minds to what constitutes a good, healthy deer herd.  

The State doesn't do the tree harvesting, but it gives contracts to do this.  Again, money and power.  I perceive (but don't know) the lumber industry is not what it was in the past, at least in the north woods. Trees are probably not of the right size for lumber, but rather for pulpwood.  There appears to be less call for that.

There is also a call / push from a sizeable portion of our population to just leave nature alone.  Who is right ?  Who trips the Governors' chain and gets action?    Will it be us, or them ?

Coming up with a way to win / win with minimal cost to the public would go a long way towards successfully steering the politics.

Can we use trees to make ethanol (or methanol) ?

ChuckC

Mojo

Thanks for all that info.  We all need to read up on our history and what caused certain things to be.

We can make much more informed decisions and arguments that way.
ChuckC

I think bowhunting orgs need to reconsider everything they think they stand for. Many bow groups seem(ed) to exist mainly to fight crossbows, at least in the political/regulations arena. That was and is a losing plan of action. It's divisive for no reason, since crossbows will be coming to nearly all states in the next 20 years, except maybe a few western states. The baby-boomers, cash starved states that fund DNR's with large hunting populations and the hunting industry will see to it. As will the majority of hunters who want it. Trust me, I worked at Cabela's. Trad guys may not like crossbows, but literally 1,000,000's of US hunters want them.

I also believed and still believe that the political capital/good will with the non-hunting masses we Michigan hunters burned up over what is likely a 1 year wolf hunt over 40 some wolves will come back to haunt us for years, bigtime. The faux outrage many hunters have, who don't hunt within 100 miles of the closest wolf and who've never seen a wolf is like chasing a scapegoats shadow.

Instead of doing anything about the UP's real habitat problems, we as a group have PO'd the 80% of non-hunters and now the wolf hunt will likely be on the ballot in 2014. Let's just hope that liberal turnout is low in 2014 due to  all the problems in DC. But the wolf hunt is just a side issue. The bigger issue is groups realizing that if they take hunting issues to the ballot box, they win almost all the time. While many hunters hate the DNR, turning over natural resource management to suburban soccer moms and coffee house hipster dufus types at the ballot box will be the end of our world.

Back to my point-what do we want as a group? More opportunity? How about adding bow season dates?That should be priority #1. Basing "killing" opportunity with real opportunity is the wrong approach, in my opinion. Nobody complained about lack of opportunity when antlerless deer tags were mostly by lottery. It's the "hunt" itself that's the opportunity. Whether one wants to kill 2 fawns with his bow is a choice he can make or if he wants APR's or hunters choice, he can choose where to hunt or what tags to buy. One never has to fill a tag, even on a big 8pt. The tag gives you the opportunity to be bowhunting. But when January 2 rolls around, unless you leave Michigan, your bowhunting opportunity has ended.

In DMU's with low deer numbers, maybe we should be considering more conservative harvest restrictions, not more liberal regulations. Then again, maybe not. That's something we should ask the biologists about.

Maybe in the UP, one should only get to use one buck tag all year? Maybe there should be tags by region, where if you hunt the NLP, you buy a NLP tag and you only get one buck in the NLP, all year?

I'm just throwing things out there, but we need to think proactively about positive changes we want vs basing our groupthink on things we're against. If all we are is against new idea's, all we'll end up with is fewer old idea's that are out of date. I don't think any changes should be off the table, without at least giving them fair consideration.

As far as UP habitat improvement, I just don't see any long term fix that's worth the expense. If habitat work is to be done, I'd suggest doing it and spending the money in the NLP, where more SLP hunters can access it with a 2-3 hour drive and if need be, the yoopers may one day have to swallow the shame of driving south across the Bridge, to access decent deer hunting habitat. Just thoughts.

Doing what I can afford to do at my place I call my "Field of Dreams".  Had 42 semis of pine trees/chips removed on two 4 acre strips within the pines, spent $10,000 on a backhoe to remove stumps left from the tree removal.  Just finished that up this past summer.  Looking to sell the backhoe and buy a tractor to work up the new small fields and other small spots BUT that just me.  My neighbor on 2 sides could give a rip and I touch some Federal property and, well its just plain government land.

The government in their infinite wisdom planted Autumn Olive.  Works for birds but it is very invasive. I have pockets of that stuff all over the place and am constantly removing the best I can.  That plant is as tough as poison ivy to get rid of.

So reading what everyone has written, I still wonder what the answer would be.  I can't see the government spending a bunch of money on habitat for deer and other game.

Thanks to everyone who posted here.  It is a good and informative thread.

Money...that's what it`s all about.

Crossbows..."millions" wanted them...is it better for bowhunting? Does it generate more money? Sell more tags?

Habitat improvement? Check the difference between STATE and FEDERAL land and check the difference between how the STATE does it versus how the Forest service does it. It is a bonus that logging DOES help wildlife when the clearcuts regenerate...but when they begin to mature, the faster growing PULP wood forests become USELESS to wildlife. Thigh sized Poplar forests are way too common on State land...it is a cash crop. How much CLEARCUT versus SELECT cut do the Feds do versus the state?

I have been to meetings (TB and crossbows) where the public gets to "voice" their opinions and it is all just a feel good measure. I have NEVER had my questions answered as to how the DNR comes up with REAL population numbers. Pellet counts? Bridge surveys? Mail in surveys? On line surveys?
I am NOT the average deer hunter, but I am a citizen, and my questions were never satisfactorily answered. AND they SHOULD be!

In the late 1990`s I was with friends at a meeting in Harrisville when the DNR was revealing their plan about how to deal with TB. In the crowd, a concerned hunter asked the biologist at the podium how much of an effect the coyotes will have on a low deer population...the biologist responded by saying "NONE" and said with complete confidence that coyotes do not prey on deer, and at worst, they may catch a fawn from time to time. The whole crowd was made up of hunters and we all KNEW better...and the meeting was pretty much over from that point on as everyone then KNEW they (the DNR) were out of touch.

Make no mistake...my household had a good season thus far and it is not over. But the effort and EXPENSE has been tremendous. If not for the time off work, and available money, deer hunting would be a thing of the past for me. I assume many others feel the same way. It is VERY common topic of discussion.

A few pages back, someone asked "what do we do?"
Trust in what the state is doing? I for one am not fooled...it is a money grab, and the whitetail is a very resilient commodity. I truly mean no disrespect to anyone...my decisions are not made by emotion alone. And I know many other citizens feel the same as I do.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but it was likely the group of hunters that were out of touch.

While predators do take deer, and coyotes are #1 in fawns/deer followed by bobcats (oddly enough), then bear, then wolves with the fewest fawns/deer killed, it's one dimensional and counter-intuitive to assume that the predators hurt hunter success.

Deer populations are not a zero sum game. We cannot stockpile deer by killing coyotes or banning "doe tags".. Counter to conventional wisdom, predators could provide MORE deer sightings. If predators take some of the young and weak, it can avert a larger winter die off, which would impact the entire herd, even the otherwise healthy adult deer.

As mentioned, we cannot stockpile deer, especially in cruel environments like northern Michigan. If a habitat can support only 30 deer per mile, then winters will average that out, sometimes by killing far more deer than a winter otherwise should. That's the negative many hunters never see.

Now, we can slightly alter age class, like with APR's, but all that's going to do is shift the bulk of the harvest from 1.5 year old bucks to 2.5 year old bucks. The key is to have stable populations, in balance with what the habitat can support. The days of boom-bust-boom-bust has done decades worth of needless harm to our northern forests. It will take 20 more years to recover from the 1990's damage done.

Here's a good read on the impact of predators...

Many deer hunters tend to believe that every deer killed by a predator results in one less deer available for a human hunter to harvest. Research has found the truth to be more complicated. Predators do not, in fact, always reduce the population growth rates of prey.

Biologists use the terms "compensatory" and "additive" to describe the impact of predation on any given wildlife population. If predation is "compensatory," it means the total number of prey to die in any given year does not change as a result of predation. It means the predators remove the number of animals that would have been lost anyway to other causes.

If predation is "additive," then the predator is killing prey animals that otherwise would have survived the cycle of seasons. In these cases, the predator is slowing the growth of the prey population, or in some instances, causing that population to decline.


Here's an excerpt from biologist C.J. Winand...

The word coyote is an Indian term, which means God's dog. Native Americans gave the animal reverence and admiration. However, white man has waged war on coyotes. The case could be made that no other animal in North America has withstood more intense efforts by man to wipe them out, than coyotes.

Even today's modern hunters curse the coyote because they take deer. The fact is, coyote do take deer, but the question is, "How many?" Do coyotes really compete against hunters, thus negatively hurting our hunting opportunities? Are there any states importing coyotes to control burgeoning deer populations? These answers have been determined through scientific research.

There is a lot of controversy among hunters, who insist that their state wildlife department has imported coyotes. Although most of this is simply based on emotions, one fact is clear, before any state imports animals across state lines they must have proper permits. I know of NO documentation to support such claims. And believe me, no state wildlife agency would ever jeopardize any kind of funding for such a project.

If the states did not break any laws, "Where did the Eastern coyote come from?" The answer to their establishment in the East is


In some areas of the Northeast, bowhunters are often faced with the dilemma of choosing between tracking too soon and losing the deer to coyotes.

still speculative. Theories suggest that the present day eastern coyote was probably a cross with a timber wolf that dispersed across Canada into the eastern US, a cross between a feral dog or was the same animal we used to call the brush wolf. Genetic studies lean toward cross-breeding with wolves as the most likely reason why we have coyotes in every state east of the Mississippi River. Research has proven that coydogs simply don't pass the natural selection test and only survive a generation or two.

Coyotes are omnivores, which means they will eat almost anything. One research project in Texas showed that predators, primarily coyotes were responsible for 60 percent of all fawn deaths in one year. It should be pointed out that the study area experienced severe drought for two years. During the third year, rainfall amounts were back to normal and fawn survival increased up to 80 percent. This study basically proves that given adequate cover or hiding places (which most of the US has), coyotes will NOT impact a deer herd.

Hunters also point out, they actually see coyotes with deer parts in their months or they notice the amount of deer hair in a coyote's scat. The real question is, "Are these animals the coyotes eating already dead?" Being an opportunistic critter, chances are the deer are already dead or carrion. From an energetics point of view, "Why would you chase a deer half way across the county when you could eat a road kill?" The answer is, no animal would waste the energy.

Where deer densities are too high and hunting pressure light, the coyotes are actually doing the deer herd a favor by taking out a few deer. On the other hand, where we have deer populations less than 10 deer per square mile, coyotes may have a negative impact. But, there are very few places in the country where this exists. Do coyotes negatively effect our deer herds? The answer is generally NO! In fact, in the big woods with an average deer herd and normal precipitation, I doubt whether it's even measurable. Do coyotes take deer? Yes, but there is no doubt we loose more deer to road kills, birthing complications, disease, abdornmalities, etc. than coyotes would ever take to significantly effect our hunting opportunities.

CJ Winand is a whitetail biologist from Randallstown, MD. He is a staff writer for Bowhunter as well as Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine.

I hope I haven't ruffled any feathers here, that is not my intention. I hope people can consider what points I'm trying to make on a pretty complex situation and for those who disagree, then we'll agree to disagree for now.
I'm going back to trad bow talkin'!    :)

Whenever someone says they "KNOW" for sure and are "certain" and "no doubt"...and they are rarely or NEVER in the woods...well take it for what it`s worth.

And I STILL have never gotten and answer as to HOW the DNR knows ANYTHING about the modern population in REAL numbers...not made up ones or excuses for a poor deer kill because it rained on opening day.

This could be NY

From Michigan State University...

http://deer.fw.msu.edu/management/assessment.php/


Assessment of Deer Populations

Successful deer management requires some form of population assessment so that population objectives and goals can be formulated.  Management agencies assess deer populations using a variety of methods.  Some methods, including counting of deer and utilizing intensive surveys to estimate populations or identify trends are often labor intensive and expensive.  Other estimation methods are more easily implemented, yet perhaps less accurate, and may not provide the reliability or precision desired by some agencies and stakeholders.  Other assessment techniques based on specific outcomes such as hunter and landowner satisfaction, or measurements of deer impacts on agricultural crops, forest regeneration or native plant communities can also be used.  The Michigan DNR, like most agencies, relies on a suite of assessment methods to provide information needed to make management decisions.

Voluntary Deer Check
Michigan's voluntary check system gives the DNR the opportunity to collect biological and physical data from a sample of the harvested deer. This data is used in a variety of formats to monitor the size, composition, and health of the deer herd.  The percent of harvested deer checked varies across years, seasons, and regions, but has recently averaged around 10 percent of the total deer harvest. Wildlife management agencies in some states utilize mandatory deer check or telephone or internet based deer check systems, but in many instances, little to no biological data are collected from harvested deer.

At the check station, a trained DNR employee or volunteer records the age, as determined by the tooth wear patterns, and sex of the deer, the location and season of harvest, and the size of the antlers for bucks or the lactation status for does. Voluntary deer check stations also provide the opportunity to monitor the deer herd for diseases as some hunters are asked to submit samples to be tested for bovine tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease. As a secondary benefit, for many hunters, a visit to the deer check station represents a rare opportunity to discuss issues, share their thoughts and experiences, and ask questions as they directly interact with DNR personnel. This also provides valuable anecdotal information to DNR personnel regarding hunter opinions and impressions of deer hunting and management.

Mail Survey
The annual deer harvest mail survey uses a statistically based, stratified sampling design to develop estimates of the number of antlered and antlerless deer harvested, the number of hunters pursuing deer, and the number of days hunters spent pursuing deer.  This information is collected by county, Deer Management Unit (DMU) and season.  The survey is sent to a randomly chosen sample of people who purchased Michigan deer hunting licenses.  The survey asks hunters to report where and for how many days they hunted and to report the number of antlered and antlerless deer they were successful in harvesting.  Although only a sample of hunters receive the mail survey, all deer license buyers can report their hunting effort and results online.  The harvest survey data helps to assess the effects of regulations on hunting seasons and to assess the potential effects of the hunting season on the deer population.

Sex-Age-Kill (SAK)
The primary method for generating deer population estimates in Michigan is the SAK technique.  Data taken at deer check stations includes sex and age composition of the deer harvest while data acquired by the post-season mail survey provides an estimate of the buck harvest for that season.  This data is used to reconstruct the pre-hunt deer population.  The key assumption for SAK is that the buck kill should go up when increases in the buck population occur and should go down when decreases occur.  To minimize effects of assumptions and biases on SAK population estimates, local biologists may adjust standard SAK estimates based on local knowledge of hunting conditions and generally only biodata collected from deer harvested within the firearm season is used.

Winter Severity Index (WSI)
The Michigan DNR implemented a technique to index the severity of winter weather conditions starting in 1964 in the UP and 1986 in the LP.  This WSI was composed of air chill and snow hazard ratings.  The current WSI uses data collected hourly at automated weather stations located throughout Michigan and the surrounding area and reported by the National Climatic Data Center.  Temperature, wind speed, and precipitation data are downloaded and calculations performed on a weekly basis from November 1 through April 30.  The WSI values from individual stations can be averaged together to give a regional perspective on winter severity. Weekly index values may be plotted to identify the pattern of severe weather events throughout the winter season (such as the very early or very late peaks in severity that tend to have the greatest impact on deer) or they may be summed throughout the year to track the cumulative effect of the winter weather on deer (a less informative approach).

Pellet Surveys
Hunters frequently use the presence of pellet groups (deer scat) to assess whether areas are occupied or unoccupied by deer, or as a measure of deer abundance. Pellet surveys are best used as an index for tracking annual changes (increases or decreases) in deer density and to help evaluate other population indices and estimates.  Pellet surveys previously conducted in much of northern Michigan on a regular basis have become less frequently implemented over fewer areas.  The most recent implementation was limited to use in the western UP to assess trends identified by other methods, and is no longer commonly used.

Observations, Spotlight Counts and Aerial Surveys
Spotlight counts and aerial surveys offer several advantages over daytime observations.  These methods are sometimes implemented in surveys in order to assess trends in local populations.  Rather than being conducted as highly structured, formal surveys, these efforts often complement other sources of knowledge or information.  They allow biologists to draw inference regarding distribution of deer on different land ownerships or distinct areas within a larger area at which other data are summarized.

Deer Camp Surveys
Many deer hunters in the UP return to the same "permanent" deer camps during the November firearm season.  Camps are typically occupied by five to ten individuals who hunt on the same parcels of land year-after-year.  Deer camps tend to keep records of their deer sightings and kills over the years or are willing to do so if they believe the resulting information can help manage the deer herd.  The DNR devised a cooperator deer camp survey that is distributed to select camps during the 16-day firearm season.  The survey allows hunters to provide their assessment on local deer herd levels and the quality of hunting.  This survey has been conducted in the western UP since 1994 and the eastern UP since 2003.  

The deer camp survey has several objectives:
•Assess deer herd size compared to past years (more, same, less) based on the number of deer seen, harvested, and camp opinions of deer herd trend.
•Monitor doe-to-buck and fawn-to-doe ratios from hunter sightings.
•Assess the quality of hunting based on hunter success rates and their written comments.
•Monitor trends in sightings of select furbearer species by deer camps.  
•Detect and address emerging deer management issues based on written comments submitted by camps.

The information resulting from this survey provides an early and localized view of deer herd size, trend, and hunter satisfaction.  This survey, while hindered by small sample sizes in some deer management units, provides information immediately following the deer season.  Thus, it fills a gap in information until other survey data are available.  

Deer Tagging
Trapping and tagging deer during the winter months can provide information on seasonal migrations.  Deer have been tagged for over 50 years in Upper Michigan to catalog the migration patterns for deer in different wintering areas.  Objectives of tagging studies include: determining the distance and direction of seasonal migrations and measuring the size of the total annual range for deer associated with each wintering area.  Trapping and tagging are done during the months of January through March when deer were most concentrated and natural foods are in short supply.  Subsequent observations of tagged deer by the public are provided to the DNR.  Observations of tagged deer include live free-ranging deer, hunter-harvested animals, and deer struck by vehicles.

Other Indicators
In addition to formal population estimates, indices and measures, other factors are considered when evaluating deer populations. Local wildlife biologists monitor deer-vehicle collisions, crop damage and forest regeneration issues as well as hunter satisfaction and hunter success rates. These indicators, when tracked over time and evaluated in the context of other changing factors can provide insight into local deer population trends.

In summary, precisely estimating population size of free ranging white-tailed deer at the local, DMU or statewide level is difficult. Conditions vary across the state and no known single population estimation technique can be successfully applied statewide. By applying a consistent technique (SAK), in combination with consideration of a variety of locally appropriate measures and factors, biologists in Michigan can provide a reasonably accurate population estimate that is useful when making deer management decisions and evaluating population goals and objectives.

Here is a good explanation of SAK from WDNR...

http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/2009/10/deer.htm


While the Sex-Age-Kill (SAK) calculation has used the same factors since the 1960s with some modifications, there are misconceptions about how the agency arrives at its annual population estimates. In most areas of the state, "the count" is made by compiling and analyzing the mandatory stubs provided by hunters registering each deer harvested in each Deer Management Unit (DMU). The stub tells the location and sex of each deer harvested and an age is determined for a representative sample of the registered deer. This data is combined with information gathered during field studies to calculate an estimate of what the deer population was like when the hunting season began.

Since the early 1960s, the DNR has used a statistical formula called the SAK model to estimate, not count, Wisconsin's deer population. Information from hunter harvests is the foundation for making this estimate. There is no way to duplicate the details about the deer herd that more than 600,000 hunters help us capture each year, and the SAK method capitalizes on this power. The specifics that hunters provide when registering their deer are the most important parts of the deer population estimate.

SAK incorporates the registered buck harvest and other data collected by hunters and field biologists using a series of equations developed with decades of sound population data to estimate the size and makeup of the buck, doe and fawn populations as they were prior to the hunting season.

SAK in detail

Let's look at the SAK method in more detail. There are several parts to the SAK model: the buck harvest, the buck harvest rate, the age structure of bucks and does harvested (the adult sex ratio), and the fall fawn-to-doe ratio.

The buck harvest is the combined registered buck kill from all seasons and includes bucks taken using damage permits. In Wisconsin, this harvest data comes from the registration stubs hunters have provided since 1953. At registration stations, DNR staff and volunteers age a representative sample of deer brought in by hunters – more than 20,000 animals are aged each year. These data are critical for accurately estimating the buck harvest rate and the adult buck-to-doe ratio.

The buck harvest rate relies heavily on the data collected by aging bucks harvested statewide and on past research gauging the proportion of all bucks taken during legal hunting seasons. In heavily hunted populations, about 90 percent of buck mortality is due to legal harvest. In more lightly hunted populations, the legal harvest may account for only 60 percent of buck mortality. The buck harvest rate is generally higher in the southern farmland areas of Wisconsin where the deer range is more fragmented and hunter densities are higher than in the extensive northern forests, although this has been changing recently.

The adult sex ratio of adult does to bucks in the fall population is estimated by measuring the proportion of yearling does to yearling bucks from the harvest data. This is another factor that relies on the information we gather when aging deer at the registration stations. The comparisons year to year show that does live much longer than bucks.

Let me show how this factor is used. Hypothetically, if buck and doe fawns were born in approximately equal numbers and if bucks were to die about twice as fast as does do, then the proportion of yearling does in the harvest would be about twice that of yearling bucks. In this example, the adult sex ratio would be about 2:1 – two does per buck. In reality, there are between 1.2 and 2.3 adult does for every adult buck (at the start of the hunting season). Generally, there are more does per buck in southern Wisconsin where hunting pressure on bucks is higher.

The fall fawn-to-doe ratio is created by data collected by department staff and volunteers who keep records of deer observations from July through September. Biologists, foresters and many other volunteers record the number and type of deer they see and the DMU (management unit) in which the observation was made. The compiled data are used to estimate the yearly fawn production per doe around the state. That number is multiplied by the number of adult does to estimate the fawn population.

Essentially the number of bucks in the herd is estimated by dividing the number killed during the hunting season by the harvest rate. The doe estimate is made by multiplying the number of bucks harvested during the deer season by the ratio of adult does to adult bucks. The number of fawns is judged by multiplying this doe estimate by the fawn-to-doe ratio. Adding these three totals together provides an estimate of the deer population on the landscape before the hunting season opened.

To estimate the number of deer remaining after the hunting season, the total harvest is multiplied by 1.15 (to account for 15% of the population that we estimate may die from wounds or poaching mortality). That total is subtracted from the pre-hunt population to form a post-hunt population estimate. Those post-hunt estimates are built into the overwinter goals for the herd.

What SAK can and can not do

SAK is a time-tested model that has been independently reviewed for reliability and precision several times. According to outside experts, the amount of data collected and the way SAK is used make Wisconsin's deer population estimate one of the best in the nation. The SAK uses harvest information from hunters to estimate the deer population at two points:
1.pre-hunt (September 15) and
2.post-hunt (February 1)

The information used to form the SAK is robust because it is re-calculated every year from data collected when deer are harvested by more than 600,000 hunters. However, this model does have limits. SAK is not designed to predict how many deer will be in Wisconsin woods and fields before the fall hunting season begins. The harvest data can only be used to estimate the pre-hunt deer population in hindsight.

Long-term averages of historical data are used to estimate how deer herds change between February and September. Indices like the Winter Severity Index estimate how well the herd survives under various winter conditions. These averages are applied to project what may be expected to happen in any given year. Predicting the fall status of the herd is less accurate since these predictions are based on historic data on herd growth and are influenced by many factors, including winter weather and spring weather conditions that affect fawn survival.

For those of you who are a bit more interested in mathematics and statistics, we'll delve into the SAK a bit deeper. The precision of SAK decreases as the sample size decreases. So the population estimates are much more precise and accurate for larger Deer Management Units covering a larger area. The SAK cannot estimate the deer population on a single parcel of property. This can be frustrating to hunters as the average deer density calculated by SAK for a whole management unit is not likely to be reflected in what they see right under their treestands. Deer are not distributed evenly across the landscape and their travel patterns change with time.

SAK also does not directly estimate the impact of predators on deer populations. However, since the estimate is valid immediately prior to the hunting season, the impact of predation is accounted for in the population estimates.

Here is some more, a bit of a rehash. But hopefully this answers the question of how they establish the estimates...


MDNR Estimating Deer Population Numbers

by MS.com staff on August 26, 2011


Scientific estimates of wildlife numbers and information about population trends (increasing, decreasing, or stable) are necessary to successfully manage wildlife. For more than 50 years, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has worked very hard at estimating deer population numbers. Each year, wildlife biologists use this population estimate to adjust hunting season rules and regulations to meet the DNR's long-range deer management goals to....

Maintain a deer herd that is in balance with its habitat and that yields healthy fawns, does and bucks;

Maintain a quality deer herd to meet the social, economic, and recreational demands of the public, while considering public safety and the carrying capacity of other native species, native plant communities, agriculture, horticulture and silviculture; and

Maintain a quality deer herd to provide diverse quality recreational experiences for those wishing to hunt deer and those wishing to view them.

White-tailed deer populations, like other wildlife species, fluctuate in size from year to year, as well as from season to season. Annually, they reach their highest number by early summer, following the birth of fawns. Predation, disease, vehicle-deer crashes, hunting harvests, and winter losses due to starvation reduce their numbers during the rest of the year. Various survey techniques have been designed to assess these losses and provide wildlife managers with information to estimate the size of Michigan's deer herd. These techniques fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle all of them are needed to see the entire picture. Following is a brief description of the time-tested surveys that the DNR has relied upon for managing Michigan's white-tailed deer.

Deer Harvest Surveys

Hunting harvest information is the foundation for monitoring the deer herd. Hunting is the major source of population reduction. Mail surveys, rather than mandatory registration, are used to estimate the legal deer harvest each year. Following the 1999 deer season, nearly 1-out-of-16 deer license buyers were mailed a survey questionnaire requesting information about their hunting season results. These scientifically random samples of license buyers provide reliable estimates of the deer harvests by county. Hunter success and the ratio of young to older-aged deer in the harvest provide wildlife biologists with additional information about the status of local deer populations, such as population growth and sex ratios. Scientists around the world recognize our mail survey techniques for their excellence.

Summer Deer Observations

For nearly 70 years, DNR wildlife biologists, conservation officers, foresters, and other field employees have recorded the numbers of deer seen during daylight hours during the period from July 1 to October 31. Changes in sighting rates (the number of deer seen per hour of effort) reflect changes in the deer population. Summer deer observations provide wildlife biologists with one measure of fawn production that is critical for estimating population size. Deer observations are also useful for forecasting upcoming hunting seasons, identifying areas where deer numbers are changing, and for assessing the sex and age composition of local deer populations.

Check Station Data

Last year, DNR employees checked and recorded physical data for approximately 43,000 hunter harvested deer brought to highway deer checking stations and DNR offices. Experienced deer "agers" determine the sex and age of each animal, count antler points, measure antler beams, and check the general condition of each deer. Deer are also examined for bovine tuberculosis. Antler points and beam diameter measurements provide biologists with an index of the physical condition of local deer herds. Age and sex information for harvested deer is compared with similar information obtained from summer deer observations, to assure that the best available data are used for estimating the deer population size each year.

Traffic Survey

The sole use of the deer traffic survey is to provide an early estimate of the firearm season deer harvest. Michigan's strong deer hunting tradition has always captured the interest of news reporters who are eager to report the deer hunting season results. DNR employees count deer on vehicles as they pass by observation points along the four major north-south highways in the Lower Peninsula. Deer "agers," who are stationed at deer checking stations at highway rest areas, help with this estimate. They determine whether deer are visible to highway counters. The traffic survey results are then adjusted for those deer that are not visible to highway counters. The results of the deer traffic survey closely match with mail survey results, which are not available until spring.

Pellet Group Surveys

DNR field employees are busy with deer pellet surveys during the spring season. This survey provides a useful index of deer distribution and abundance from year to year in the northern-forested areas of the state. Pellet group surveys do not work well in areas where intensive agricultural activities disturb evidence of deer. Since 1950, field employees have counted pellet groups along random survey courses to determine the relative number of deer within a defined area. These counts are generally expressed as deer per square mile.

Dead Deer Searches

Dead deer searches are done in conjunction with pellet group surveys. Teams of Wildlife personnel count the number of dead deer they locate while walking pellet survey courses. When a carcass is found, a determination is made whether the loss occurred during early or late winter. Over-winter loss is a major source of non-harvest mortality to deer on the northern fringe of their range. The results of dead deer searches are used with pellet group surveys to estimate spring deer populations.

Car-Deer Crashes

A common deer population index in the Midwest is the number of car-deer crashes reported to law enforcement officers. Several research studies from across the country indicate that car-deer crashes are related to road densities, traffic volumes, and deer densities. The Michigan State Police and the Michigan Department of Transportation maintain data on the number of car-deer crashes and traffic volumes. Recent findings by Michigan State University demonstrate the usefulness of these data to wildlife managers since a correlation exists between county car-deer crashes and the buck harvest. Car-deer crashes are also used to estimate additional non-harvest mortality.

Here's a good explanation of the SAK model from Michigan State University...

The Sex-Age-Kill Model
By Justin S. Hall

Last month I looked at the ways that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources collects the data that is used to estimate the deer population. Two different types of data collection were discussed. Indices, which reflect trends in populations, such as the summer deer observations, and samples, which estimate parameters of the population, such as the pellet counts. Indices can only give an indication of whether the population is moving up or down while samples can potentially be used to give an estimate of the size of the population.

One of the main ways that the DNR estimates the population of deer is by using a mathematical model known as the Sex-Age-Kill model. Models can be very simple or very complex but at their heart they are merely a way to quantify what you observe. In the case of modeling the deer population of Michigan it is important to look at what is easily observable. In Michigan we harvest a lot of bucks each year in the deer seasons. Since we kill a large percentage of the bucks each year and we can put a good estimate on the number killed, estimating the total number of bucks seems like a good place to start for estimating the overall population. Then, if you can get an idea of how many does are out there for each buck, you can estimate the number of does based on of the number of bucks. Finally, if you can get an idea of the average number of fawns per doe at the start of hunting season you can estimate the total number of fawns based on the number of does. Add all this up and you have an estimate of the deer population. This is basically what the Sex-Age-Kill model does.

The Sex-Age-Kill model was adapted from fisheries population models for use in deer population modeling in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Much of the development was done here in Michigan by Lee Eberhardt of the Michigan DNR. The methods for estimating the number of bucks, both those that are harvested, that die and are not retrieved, and those that survived, along with estimating the buck to doe ratio, and the fawn to doe ratio, are all based on scientific studies conducted in Michigan and other states. Since the early 1960's, this approach and similar harvest-based models have been adopted as the primary deer population estimation technique in much of the Midwest.

So how does the Sex-Age-Kill model work? Let's say that you own a hunting camp of 640 acres, one square mile. You and your friends are the only people that legally hunt deer on that square mile and you live on the property year round and you like to spend a lot of time observing the deer. Last hunting season you and your friends killed four bucks and three does on the property. You took them into the DNR check station and they aged them for you. Three of the bucks had small racks, a spike, a forkhorn, and a nice 6 point, and the largest buck had a wide rack with eight points. The biologists aged the first three bucks and one of the does as 1-½ year olds. The large buck and the other two does were aged as 2-½ year olds. As you were leaving home one day you noticed a dead buck in the ditch along the road on the east side of the property which you are pretty sure wandered out of your woods. So now you want to get an idea of how many deer there will be on your property next year so you know how many friends to invite.

We'll start by figuring out the number of bucks at the beginning of hunting season. You already know that there were at least 4 bucks since those are the ones you harvested. You found one more dead. We don't know how many deer died for other reasons, like the one you spotted along the road, but studies have shown that 85 to 90% of bucks will die by legal harvest. This is known as the recovery rate. That leaves 10 to 15% that die from other causes. How many got away? We know that some do survive, otherwise you would never have gotten that 2-½ year old. At this point we rely on research from New York and Michigan that shows that the percentage of 1-½ year old deer in the harvest is approximately equivalent to the percentage of bucks killed in the harvest. In Michigan the percent yearling bucks in the harvest is about 70%, and it is highest in the southern lower and lowest in the UP. First we determine the total percent mortality of bucks.

Percent Mortality = Percent Yearling Bucks x Recovery Rate

To determine the percent mortality we multiply the percent yearling bucks by the recovery rate. We multiply by the recovery rate to take into account the non-harvest mortality. So, on your square mile 3 of the 4 (75%) bucks killed were yearling bucks.

Percent Mortality = 75% yearling bucks x 90% recovery rate

Percent Mortality = 67.5%

We then determine the total number of bucks by dividing the buck harvest by the percent mortality.

Total Number of Bucks = Buck Harvest

Percent Mortality

Total Number of Bucks = 4 adult bucks

67.5% mortality

Total Number of Bucks = 5.9 adult bucks

(Now of course you can't have 0.9 deer on a square mile, but if you look at 10 square miles there will be 59 bucks.)

So, we know approximately how many bucks were on your property, now we need to use that information to determine the number of does.

To determine the number of does we first need to know the adult sex ratio. If the buck harvest is indicative of the bucks out there, is the doe harvest indicative of the number of does? Not necessarily. First, the number of does harvested is limited by the number of doe tags available and by the willingness of the landowner and hunters to harvest does. However, we can use knowledge from other researchers that shows the ratio of yearlings in the harvest can be used to determine the adult sex ratio. In determining the adult sex ratio it is assumed that there are about an equal number of 1-½ year old does to the number of 1-½ year old bucks.

Adult Sex Ratio = Percent Yearling Bucks

Percent Yearling Does

75% of the bucks you harvested were 1-½ year olds and 1 of the 3 (33%) does you harvested was a 1-½ year old.

Adult Sex Ratio = 75% yearling bucks

33% yearling does

Adult Sex Ratio = 2.3 does per buck

Using that sex ratio and the total number of bucks we can now determine the total number of does.

Total Adult Does = Total Adult Bucks x Adult Sex Ratio

Total Adult Does = 5.9 adult bucks x 2.3 does per buck

Total Adult Does = 13.6 adult does

The last thing to do is to estimate the number of fawns. As you wandered around the property you noticed some does with twins and some had single fawns. You also noticed that a couple of young does didn't have any fawns and you also came across a couple of dead fawns in the woods. The DNR check station data for your area shows an average of 0.6 fawns per doe in the harvest, this seems to agree with your observations on the property. The total number of fawns equals the total adult does multiplied by the fawn to doe ratio.

Total Fawns = Total Adult Does x Fawn to Doe Ratio

Total Fawns = 13.6 adult does x 0.6 fawns per doe

Total Fawns = 8.2 fawns

To determine the total population on your square mile all that is left to do is to add up the number of bucks, number of does, and number of fawn.

Overall Population = Number of Bucks + Number of Does + Number of Fawns

Overall Population = 5.9 adult bucks + 13.6 adult does + 8.2 fawns

Overall Population = 27.7 deer

Translate that to the land around your hunting camp and you have about 28 deer per square mile.

28 deer represents a mathematical estimate of the number of deer that were on your square mile on October 1st, just before hunting season. It seems strange that you would estimate the number of deer before the hunting season after the hunting season is over but you can then adjust the number for the number of deer you killed. So, subtract the seven deer that you killed and you still have about 21 deer on the property. You also need to subtract the number of deer that are killed by means other than harvest. You add 10% of the number of bucks harvested so subtract another 0.4 deer leaving you with approximately 20 deer to start the herd for the next year. If we examine those 20 deer more closely we see that 2 bucks survived, 10 does survived, and 8 fawns survived. Since fawns are evenly split between buck fawns and doe fawns, come hunting season next year there will again be 6 bucks on the property, and 14 does, one more than last year, so the herd is slowly growing.

Due to the effect that changes in habitat from year to year can have on deer distribution, this model this model works best for larger areas than on the individual square mile. For this reason the DNR collects data from all over the state and uses information from much larger areas (county to several counties) to incorporate into these models. But just as an example, if you were to take your 28 deer per square mile and multiply it times the approximately 56,000 square miles in the state you would come up with around 1.5 million deer in the state. Of course deer are not evenly distributed across the landscape and some areas will have more deer than your area and some will have less. The DNR estimates for the county or counties that includes your area won't necessarily represent your particular square mile but will be the average per square mile for that larger area.

If you have a good idea of the numbers for your particular area, or you think one of my example numbers should be changed, for instance perhaps the sex ratio should be different, I would encourage to you to put in those numbers and see how they effect the population numbers.

again.. thank you for this information.

ChuckC