A coyote may take a fawn, and don't get me wrong, I despise yotes, but dropping healthy doe's to fill extra tags, Do you not maybe think that knocks down the yr to yr population more so than any bush dog? A healthy doe can throw twins for 10+ yrs, over time that's 20 or more deer taken out of the population, for what, that extra bag of pepperettes? Doe's and yearling's are the first to break out of the bush, down they go, and more often then not, many are wounded only to die later and go to waste. Not saying its not hard work, and requires marksmanship, but to have a dozen guys line up, and a few others drive the deer past them, that's just a meat harvest. Now I have never been a part of a deer drive, never will, it just doesn't seem like sportsman like hunting. None of us are biologist, but have always figured you shoot a buck, pretty good chance there will be another buck you didn't get to service the does, and the herd population stay's relatively stable.
We stand hunt, tree stands, ground blinds, and have always shot bucks.
As a group of 4 or 5, we've always put some venison in the freezer, and most yrs, more than not, have tagged out. We hunt black powder, not by choice, but to be legal. That said, either the deer population varies greatly yr to yr, and yes I understand it does change somewhat do to hunting pressure, weather and predication, but from 1 tag, then up to 6 tags, then back to 1 tag per hunter? Makes one wonder how precise the MNR deer counts and survey's are?Īs hunter's, this also beg's the question, who need's more than 1 deer, or maybe 2 top's in any given yr? I've seen the tag allocation go from a lottery draw, where you didn't always get your tag every year, to being allowed up to 6 tag's per yr, ( 1 applied for, and 5 extra's), then to being able to buy 1 extra, and to where we are this yr, 1 tag per hunter. I have been hunting deer in the 90's WMU for probably 35yrs or more. I'm sure this post will raise some discussion, but here it goes.