# maybe changes for next deer season.



## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

the state is considering some season changes for deer gun season, like for one is having a two day anterless statewide muzzleloading season in early october, and dropping the bonus two day season in december,so we,ll see, it,s still not law but there thinking about it...


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## fakebait (Jun 18, 2006)

I myself hope they do not change the two day season. Us working stiffs that do not have time off during gun season only would have 2 days with every deer spooked by their own shadow.


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## JimmyZ (May 18, 2004)

I agree with that. I like the 2 day bonus weekend. I can't get out during the week of gun due to work, so the weekends is all I have. Really don't understand how a 2 day anterless season with muzzleloader statewide benefits anybody. Screw up bow hunters with more people in the woods before the rut. It's also nice knowing you still have 2 days of gun after regular week of gun if you still have tag(s) to fill.


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## Flatty01 (Aug 9, 2008)

I also heard of them doing away with the 2 day season. I havent hunted it much as im usually tagged out but my brother in law sees more and nicer deer then. Hopefully they can find a different way of cutting back on things re: doe tags.


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## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

there also considering dropping the three area early muzzle season in oct. in favor of the two day event in oct sometime.the state claims they need the does thinned out, heck that ehd bug bite did the deer in, in our area, i saw three deer all week in gun , and those were on the 1st day within 15 min. of each other, and they came from across the road, my brother saw them go down the well drive, past my trk.yeah that early hunt would spook the bucks if it was in later oct. they will talk about this at the march open house they have..


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## FISHIN 2 (Jun 22, 2005)

Heck, If they want to thin out the does all they have to do is keep the 15.00 antlerless tags usable during gun seasons thru the year. They would take an extra 5% possibly. Wouldn't mind an early antlerless 2 days at all either. Just love the opportunity to get out in the wild.


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## jray (Jan 20, 2006)

ya that would be great sitting out there during pre rut with the muzzy just so u can watch the monster chase the does your allowed to shoot under your tree


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## Gills63 (Mar 29, 2012)

Not a big fan of this idea and I'm not sure we want to kill more does. There may be some benefit to this early season, but if they are going to do it maybe they shouldn't make it antlerless only.

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## the czar (Aug 14, 2008)

My 2 cents on the matter would be to move the youth season to the weekend in october when the have the special area black powder season. Then start gun season sat. After thanksgiving in lnstead of extra weekend. Thus giving the serious bow hunters the prime weekend back from the kids and allowing more time between gun and black powder. As far as herd size. It is down big time i hunt in 5 counties in ohio and all is down. Resolution is simple lower bag limit. Don't shorten season. There are only so many weekends to hunt for us working stiffs. Just my thoughts. Happy new year

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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

I am guessing the move of eliminating the 2 day gun in December and replacing it with a statewide antlerless only season in October is to further reduce the deer to the established population targets. The two seasons would both be weekends, the only difference is that you can not shoot a buck in the October season thus furthering the quest of the ODNR of killing more does.

Many hunters believe that the populations have reduced substantially already based upon their observations while hunting and the last few years deer harvest declines. These hunters believe the populations are already below what they should be but apparently the ODNR either doesn't agree that the populations have been reduced as much as hunters believe or their target population is still below what we have today.

Hunters are the tools of population reduction. The ODNR sets the bag limits and seasons, but only hunters actually control how many are killed and what the population is for any given geography.

I do not personally like any reduction in opportunity to hunt. I do not like the further reduction of population, I do not like the 2 day October doe hunt, I do not like that I can not get from the ODNR the population target for the county I hunt or the state.

I know there are many proposed changes coming with bag limits, zones and seasons. I just have to wait until the changes are made public and attend the Open House meetings and voice my opinion.


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## reo (May 22, 2004)

Lundy said:


> I am guessing the move of eliminating the 2 day gun in December and replacing it with a statewide antlerless only season in October is to further reduce the deer to the established population targets. The two seasons would both be weekends, the only difference is that you can not shoot a buck in the October season thus furthering the quest of the ODNR of killing more does.
> 
> Many hunters believe that the populations have reduced substantially already based upon their observations while hunting and the last few years deer harvest declines. These hunters believe the populations are already below what they should be but apparently the ODNR either doesn't agree that the populations have been reduced as much as hunters believe or their target population is still below what we have today.
> 
> ...


Well said. I agree with every word.


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## big red (Feb 4, 2010)

I agree and disagree with what the state wants to do.many areas have been over harvested while others are still doing fine.instead of changing to an early doe season for firearms,make those target areas where you must take a doe before you can harvest a buck.then lower the number of deer to be harvested in the remainder areas.
another problem I see is the amount of outfitters that are in the state now.you take these areas are off limits to only those willing to pay the high price for a trophy instead of putting some meat in the freezer.some of the outfitters have a few hundred acres to several thousand acres leased.
we will just have to see what the state plans on doing at the meetings to adjust to a better hunting season.


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## crittergitter (Jun 9, 2005)

I don't agree with the current initiative of the DOW to reduce the deer herd. Most public land areas have had their populations decimated and they don't care. 

Until I can secure a lease or buy my own large land mass, and have some control on the harvest for that localized area I will not be participating. I may have bought my last deer tag for quite some time. 

So, with that said, I don't give a flying rat's tail what the Division of Wildlife does to further screw up deer hunting in Ohio.


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## bobk (Apr 30, 2004)

crittergitter said:


> I
> 
> So, with that said, I don't give a flying rat's tail what the Division of Wildlife does to further screw up deer hunting in Ohio.


How does that attitude help with the current problem you think the state deer population has? Wouldn't be better to get involved, go to the meetings and voice your concerns?


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## ironman172 (Apr 12, 2009)

In m opinion this is all driven by the insurance companies with car related damage and deer.....and pressure from them to reduce the deer herd....that in most cases will never be enough....and some in the ODNR to justify there job by tweaking the reg's and seasons


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## crittergitter (Jun 9, 2005)

bobk said:


> How does that attitude help with the current problem you think the state deer population has? Wouldn't be better to get involved, go to the meetings and voice your concerns?


The director of the ODNR was formerly head of the Department of Agriculture. Good luck getting your message heard.


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## dmills4124 (Apr 9, 2008)

I dont understand the idea of not getting your tags. In arizona they had a policy of filling the javalina tags($50) with out of state hunters first to fill the bank accounts. Well the anti's fiquired out what was going on and baught up all the tags for like 5 years running. They didnt use one tag. The population exploded and the Arizona Game and Fish Dept saw that the majority of the tags issued did not get filled. The cities started to get overrun and there went the nice plants around the townhouses in suncity and the cities close the state lands. They did the same thing when they wanted to stop the state from allowing coyote fur trapping. After a while the population exploaded and fluffy and fefe started to get carried off by the local coyotes in down town Phx. 
What I am trying to say is that your voice will do much more than your manipulation of the tags that you do or do not buy. Some one or another group may buy your tags and try to alter our deer populatin for their own desired goals. The states biologists have had a grip on ohios deer population and their harvests. Be it for meat or trophy if the population needs thinning or grown we need only to voice our opinion regarding our area. If I have gotten the wrong end of the stick, Please someone correct me. For myself, this next year will be the first year that I aggressively try to fill my freezer with as many tags as we can afford and that I can fisically handle. I'll be starting with the states assisted handicap hunt and try what I can do from there. 
JMTCW
donm


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## davycrockett (Apr 9, 2005)

crittergitter said:


> The director of the ODNR was formerly head of the Department of Agriculture. Good luck getting your message heard.


Right on, Crittergitter. Not to mention the ODNR has been bullied by Farm Bureau for the last several years. They (FB) want to see the herd down to 250,000.
I'm in favor of ditching the 2 day shotgun and in favor of the early ML. The proposed early ML will be early Oct. Just 2 days of ML isn't going to screw up the bowhunting(I'm a bowhunter 1st & foremost) as it will be only a few weeks into the archery season. Most guys don't even get into the stand until the rut kicks in later in the month.


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## bad luck (Apr 9, 2009)

Any word on allowing handgun calibers?


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

davycrockett said:


> I'm in favor of ditching the 2 day shotgun and in favor of the early ML.


So you are in favor of the ONDR plan for further herd reduction?


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

i feel all your pain. it seems like they want the deer herd here in indiana to be at the levals they had back in the early 60,s, when you were lucky to see a deer track while in the woods. our anterless permits have just gone crazy. most counties have as many as 8 extra anterless permits per county. then this year they added another anterless hunting season. after our ml season ended on i believe the 23rd then any county with 8 anterless permits they opened up a new season from dec 26th untill the 1st sun in jan. and this is anterless only. how can they justify this season?? thats a 12 day anterless season for most counties in indiana. and thats after all the other seasons are done killing our does.

i have no clue what the end game is here in indiana. but its plane to see they want to reduce our herd fast and hard. i dont know if they just want the extra money from license sales or if it is just pressure from the insuarence companies. eithe way were not going to have much of a deer herd left to hunt if they keep this up. so i wouldnt be worring so much about a 2 day season, i would be worring about what they plan to do next.
sherman


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## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

bad luck said:


> Any word on allowing handgun calibers?


 that was another topic that may be happening, the pistol calibers would be allowed in a rifle for deer, but in the march meetings that are open to the public,i,m sure a lot of these issues will be brought up, weather they become a reallity this next seson we,ll see i guess.


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## bad luck (Apr 9, 2009)

snag said:


> that was another topic that may be happening, the pistol calibers would be allowed in a rifle for deer, but in the march meetings that are open to the public,i,m sure a lot of these issues will be brought up, weather they become a reallity this next seson we,ll see i guess.


Thanks. 
Have they posted dates when March meetings are.


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## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

not sure on the dates yet , it,s usually been in the first half , will try to find any info..


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

Does anyone have any link to a DOW article that may detail the proposals? My son had shown me an article the other day in a paper somewhere. I can't recall where it was. I was short on time so I didn't get a chance to read all through it. I know that much of what I read I was not real fond of.


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## davycrockett (Apr 9, 2005)

Lundy said:


> So you are in favor of the ONDR plan for further herd reduction?


Not at all. I am, however in favor of utilizing my muzzleloader, if this gets approved, to put a deer in the freezer. There are far fewer hunters that hunt with ML's than archery or shotgun. This won't even put a dent in the herd, at least in my region.


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## NorthSouthOhioFisherman (May 7, 2007)

I don't like the sound of the 2 day ML season. Spook all the deer before the rut. Everyone was complaining the deer didn't have enough time to "calm down" by the bonus weekend so now your going to put those gun shots in the woods a couple weeks before the best time of the year, no thanks! Make some more weekend time for gun hunters even though I think they kill too many already...


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## Brian.Smith (May 18, 2006)

I have read a lot of post on this and i hear people say stop the excessive tag limits and I do believe that has hurt the deer numbers. People shooting 3 does a year over 4 years will destroy a heard. That is ruffly 60 deer taken out of a herd. I say hunters need to have common sense just cause you can kill 6 deer dosn't mean YOU SHOULD. You shoot a buck and another will come along and replace him. If you shot 3 does last year and the year before don't complain about herd numbers it's YOUR FAULT. Sorry about the rant.


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## AverageJoe82 (Nov 7, 2011)

I have a suggestion. You have Zones A, B, and C. Two deer in A, Four in B, and Six deer in Zone C. What should be done is to monitor deer harvest numbers for every county for the last 5 years. I bet you would find that Zone C's harvest numbers started high but now are probably substantially higher. Where Zone A and B's are probably lower. Main point is Zone C may be getting wiped out of deer where Zones A and B's deer population may be rising fast. Maybe allowing the zones to be redone on how many tags are allowed per Zone. There are substantially more deer in urban zones( where most are not allowed to discharge a firearm) than ever before as well. I think the DNR obviously does not care about the population flourishing just overly overly well controlled. I am making it a point to be at the March DNR meeting and all of you should be too. Make your voice be heard and maybe we can have a solution beneficial to all.


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## Carpman (May 18, 2005)

I am for the new season. It makes a lot of sense to me.

IMO, this will completely balance the population, drastically needed BTW.

1. Less people own muzzeloaders
2. Some people only trophy hunt
3. No bonus weekend, Forces everyone who only shotgun hunts to one week - The best yet

My only concern is taking a weekend away from bow hunters during the rut. Some of the biggest bucks are taken with bow during the month of October. Just glad it would be a doe only hunt.


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## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

if and when they have that two day ,doe muzzle season, it,s in early oct before the full start of the rut,this past season the rut seemed on in the first week of nov.


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

For those guys who think that there are not many who muzzleloader hunt I am not sure what you consider "not many". The past few years have yielded 15,000-18,000 deer killed in the late muzzleloader season . This is only after everyone has had 3 months to hunt so I would suspect that an early season harvest would be very substantial. There are a lot of guys who use muzzleloader for even the slug week, me included. My son used one that week and took a doe. I am not sure that the numbers are available from the DOW for the number harvested by muzzleloader. The season results only reflect the totals for the specific muzzleloader seasons.

I also suspect that if they have an early season there would be an increase in the number of guys who want to pretend they have a muzzleloader. My mother had some of those type behind her place Saturday. She heard 1 shot, then 3 quick shots, then 2 shots. I know that is a separate issue that should not impact the decision of whether to have a season but it is still fresh in my mind and I am wishing that I had made the trip over there on Saturday to hunt so that I could have met up with them as they were also trespassing on her property.


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## Muskarp (Feb 5, 2007)

Carpman said:


> I am for the new season. It makes a lot of sense to me.
> 
> IMO, this will completely balance the population, drastically needed BTW.
> 
> ...


That's part of the problem. Bowhunters mostly trophy hunt. I bet if you checked buck-doe kill ratios for Sept-Oct it would be four to 1 or worse!

Maybe they should add a two week youth season to the front of archery season. We have a yute season for every other game...why not archery!


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## Muskarp (Feb 5, 2007)

bkr43050 said:


> She heard 1 shot, then 3 quick shots, then 2 shots.


How many guys? Maybe a driver shot, then three posters, then two reloaders.

Not saying this is the case. But some of you guys act like if you hear two shots within 3seconds they both came from the same gun.


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## bobk (Apr 30, 2004)

Muskarp said:


> Bowhunters mostly trophy hunt. I bet if you checked buck-doe kill ratios for Sept-Oct it would be four to 1 or worse!


You might want to check what the ratio really is.


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## Muskarp (Feb 5, 2007)

Your correct. However, every bowhunter I know is a trophy hunter. I guess they are the exception and not the rule.

But, if I change the dates to include up to yute gun buck harvest makes a hard charge!


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

Muskarp said:


> How many guys? Maybe a driver shot, then three posters, then two reloaders.
> 
> Not saying this is the case. But some of you guys act like if you hear two shots within 3seconds they both came from the same gun.


She lives on a small property with about 2.5 acres of her field behind her and then open fields beyond that. It is possible that it was multiple hunters but I know that if they were in her woods with more than one or 2 they would have been creating quite a crossfire. Not to mention that they are not allowed there to begin with. It is also possible that they were beyond her place in the next open field. As quick as it sounded from her description I think it would have had to be at least 3 different guys.

I am not saying all rapid succession shots are illegal but I have seen enough to know that there are plenty of ignorant guys out there.

As I mentioned earlier, I did not bring that incident up as an argument to stop any particular season. I was just frustrated with it. My argument as to why I don't like the possibility of an early muzzleloader season has nothing to do with that. I just don't like it because I foresee it taking a lot more deer than most think.


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

I just find it hard to justify unless the intent is to reduce antlered harvest while at the same time increasing the doe kill.

You are exchanging two weekend days for two weekend days. The current is buck or doe, the new would be doe only. In the current you can use a shotgun, the new would be MZ only.

It will mess with the bowhunters big time for no apparent reason.

In my opinion you still would harvest similar numbers. Again no good justification, that I can see, to do it except to reduce the breeding population.

What am I missing?


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## 'Rude Dog (Apr 11, 2004)

It would be nice to see them move muzzle loader BACK to the week between xmas and new years, and extend it to a full week. My son and I ( he is 29, now...) used to have the time off together to muzzle loader hunt , when he was in Jr. High. I always thought that hunting was supposed to be a " family oriented" event. moving it to where it is now cuts down on father/son ( or daughter !) time...


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## bobk (Apr 30, 2004)

Muzzy season used to be in January then they played around with the earlier season for a few years. Many people asked for it to be moved back into January. I'm am glad it went back to January. The deer would be beat to death if it was after Christmas. That's 3 season in a 1 months time. I do know what you are saying about wanting to spend time with your son though.


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