What would you do?

First hunt is flooded timber in Monticello then headed to Stuttgart for geese (snow and speckled belly)

Yes I have considered it. The market is very, very hot. I’ve have 4 unsolicited offers and 2 inquiries if I wanted to sell. Originally I put a $5000/acre bribe me price but since then I’ve learned this piece is very good and the market has moved higher - two big parcels just sold for $5300 and $5500/acre. Also, my neighbors don’t want to sell. It’s kind of fun having different bucks to hunt too
 
Again , you will have a blast! I've been getting great reports from the area. Being from Wi. you should have no trouble coping with the cold us southerners are struggling with!

My comment was somewhat tongue and cheek.. but not entirely. As I have said to you before , I can't relate to the issues you deal with, the habitat destruction I see, and the population/quality dynamics which seem so dysfunctional to me. I also recall your comments on property values where you are. If you have an emotional connection to the property you own then I completely understand staying where you are and coping as best you can. If not there is no question in my mind that you could sell and find property where you could actually manage for quality deer, enhance the habitat and bear far greater fruit than what you report now.
 
Yes, I’m emotionally connected and it’s where I grew up so I have a lot of friends and family

This county is one of the best areas in the state - genetics and quantity of deer. It’s very hard - if not impossible- to find 1000 acre blocks in the great areas in WI. Even if I could afford it you don’t find blocks like this available. Thus you have to put up with small parcel neighbors

It’s really a fun place to hunt. I know I will get criticized for this but having too many deer is a high class problem. Rather have this issue than too few

I have neighbors who only shoot trophy deer with killing few does and hunt smart. We have genetics and food. The deer are in very good condition from what I can tell. My only worry is the breaking point on how high can the population get before there is a problem. Next year will be interesting.

This 40 acres is mainly pine and cedar swamp. It’s surrounded by quality Ag. No worry really about regeneration from my perespective.
 
Yes, I’m emotionally connected and it’s where I grew up so I have a lot of friends and family

This county is one of the best areas in the state - genetics and quantity of deer. It’s very hard - if not impossible- to find 1000 acre blocks in the great areas in WI. Even if I could afford it you don’t find blocks like this available. Thus you have to put up with small parcel neighbors

It’s really a fun place to hunt. I know I will get criticized for this but having too many deer is a high class problem. Rather have this issue than too few

I have neighbors who only shoot trophy deer with killing few does and hunt smart. We have genetics and food. The deer are in very good condition from what I can tell. My only worry is the breaking point on how high can the population get before there is a problem. Next year will be interesting.

This 40 acres is mainly pine and cedar swamp. It’s surrounded by quality Ag. No worry really about regeneration from my perespective.
Too many deer is not a "high class problem"...
 
First hunt is flooded timber in Monticello then headed to Stuttgart for geese (snow and speckled belly)

Yes I have considered it. The market is very, very hot. I’ve have 4 unsolicited offers and 2 inquiries if I wanted to sell. Originally I put a $5000/acre bribe me price but since then I’ve learned this piece is very good and the market has moved higher - two big parcels just sold for $5300 and $5500/acre. Also, my neighbors don’t want to sell. It’s kind of fun having different bucks to hunt too

BW .... if WDNR doesn't work to effectively manage the recently discovered CWD in 2 deer-farm deer in Waupaca County, you might find your DPSM reduced dramatically over time. Your 3 big population counties (Shawono, Marathon & Waupaca) are sort of like the 3 golden triangle counties of western Illinois. If you go to whitetail properties.com and click on hunting properties for sale, you can screen up properties in the 3 IL counties and the 3 WI counties. Given it is a limited sample (but still a real estate firm that specializes in selling hunting properties), it remains interesting that many - if not most - properties in these highly popular deer-hunting counties sell for less than 5000 per acre ... unless they are larger farms/properties with buildings or small properties with homes. I'd say you have a better than average piece of swamp. Finally, if you research deer population changes in the management areas of WI, you will note some interesting trends. During the 2000-2008 period, the deer population of the central farm area remained relatively stable and then experienced a dramatic increase during the 2009-2017 period. The forest areas of the north saw increases during the early part of the 2000-2007 period with declining populations during the last 8 years. In comparison, the southern farmland zone saw very steady/strong increases in the deer population from 2000-2008 and than a decline for a few years ... now back on the increase. Since the overall habitat in the central farmland zone should not have changed much over the last 8 years, compared to the 2000-2008 period, what's your take on these population changes by areas (and especially the central farm area)? See Fig. 2 at the end of attached article.
 

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Oak cwd on the game farms is nothing new in central Wisconsin. They need to be stopped immediately, no question.
We have always had a lot of deer. Earn a buck did lower the population. My property saw saw more reasonable populations. Deer are not evenly distributed across the landscape. So earn a buck ruined hunting on properties that were lower to begin with.
The deer simply aren’t distributed evenly. I was in western waupaca yesterday. Standing corn, thermal cover, all around prime habitat.....few deer tracks. Didn’t see a deer! Across the road a half mile north, no abundant food source, hoards of deer! I see it every year. Now if the block hammered the does, and eliminated the population in that block. Everyone would be bitching there isn’t deer.
I have my opinions about trophy buck opportunities on the over populated blocks. I will disagree with bull that it’s a high class problem. This years buck just missed 150, but my 16 pointer last year crushed that mark :) I’m definitely not high class though.
 
To the original question - I'd take the does here to fill my freezer - especially if I had other managed properties to seriously hunt a specific buck on.
 
BW .... if WDNR doesn't work to effectively manage the recently discovered CWD in 2 deer-farm deer in Waupaca County, you might find your DPSM reduced dramatically over time. Your 3 big population counties (Shawono, Marathon & Waupaca) are sort of like the 3 golden triangle counties of western Illinois. If you go to whitetail properties.com and click on hunting properties for sale, you can screen up properties in the 3 IL counties and the 3 WI counties. Given it is a limited sample (but still a real estate firm that specializes in selling hunting properties), it remains interesting that many - if not most - properties in these highly popular deer-hunting counties sell for less than 5000 per acre ... unless they are larger farms/properties with buildings or small properties with homes. I'd say you have a better than average piece of swamp. Finally, if you research deer population changes in the management areas of WI, you will note some interesting trends. During the 2000-2008 period, the deer population of the central farm area remained relatively stable and then experienced a dramatic increase during the 2009-2017 period. The forest areas of the north saw increases during the early part of the 2000-2007 period with declining populations during the last 8 years. In comparison, the southern farmland zone saw very steady/strong increases in the deer population from 2000-2008 and than a decline for a few years ... now back on the increase. Since the overall habitat in the central farmland zone should not have changed much over the last 8 years, compared to the 2000-2008 period, what's your take on these population changes by areas (and especially the central farm area)? See Fig. 2 at the end of attached article.
My two cents. I believe the elimination of earn a buck contributed significantly to this

In the time of stability we had to register a doe before we could shoot a buck. Thus everyone had to hunt does.

The wolf population and less logging contributed to the decline up north.
 
The two legged wolves that bought every bonus tag they could get and shot every deer they saw share a very large portion of the decline too.
 
I'm confused or dumb. 42 deer . If that is even half the total in a sq mile/640 ac, then even conservatively that is dsm of 150+. If 5 yo bucks are common under this system, then none of us should be shooting any does and let our population explode. I know that is prime ag land, but I can't fathom 150 class bucks in poor browse management being common. Can't wait for the predator to track down this area and then the fun begins. Maybe I need to rethink population control if this is all true.
Thank you! I can't grasp the rationality of the numbers although I've read about some crazy population statistics in WI.
 
I don’t know. Have you guys ever been to a deer farm. There is 0, I mean 0 browse and they grow trophy racks.

No question browse is necessary if you don’t have anything to eat but I can make a strong arguememt you can grow big healthy deer with 0 browse

The key is enough food to make it a though the winter months around us. There are enough farmers and food plotters that are helping prop up the population by us. One of the best trophy areas in state
 
Dont they feed tons of protein pellets and feed pellets at a deer farm to grow the trophy racks. Kind of like comparing cows in a barn yard with no grass to graze on but fresh round bales place in the feeder when its empty.
 
Dont they feed tons of protein pellets and feed pellets at a deer farm to grow the trophy racks. Kind of like comparing cows in a barn yard with no grass to graze on but fresh round bales place in the feeder when its empty.

Yes, they do. Plus the pens are kept as stress free as possible, not to mention the world class genetics.
 
There is enough ag and plots that deer in your area don't need browse? That gap has been filled and isn't needed? Don't you have a giant exclusion cage that shows just how much over browsing is happening on your property (this property)? Preferred plants are eaten first and the rest is secondary. Do you think there will be any long term effects due to this shift in diet? What if ag shifts suddenly to crops that aren't nutritious for deer, will the deer herd crash? Maybe plots and feeding become illegal due to over crowding diseases and the sustained over population has eaten everything else? Not sure, but I don't think I would be comfortable with that situation.
 
Don't get too worked up about this catscratch he's just trolling again. Trolling........ throw out some "BAIT" to get a reaction then "HOOK" the suckers and reel them in until somebody calls "BS". Then we get a new thread about 200 deer per acre, only in the summer but, no bucks but, they're there in the fall but, deer don't eat browse but, I'll shoot 2 does but, my neighbors shoot 2 so I don't have to but, we have a high class problem. LOL. Don't forget that his neighbors in this post only shoot trophy bucks and few doe but, other posts say his neighbors shoot lots of doe so he doesn't have to. LOL Strictly entertainment only.
 
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Well said Bucky.

You only forgot the fan boy man love that some of the members will throw his way on each thread.


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