The Future of Deer Hunting

[Mennoniteman]

A good discussion, I read every post. IMO, we cannot bring back past hunting traditions because people have changed, and it's hard to fight change.
And we don't know where the future of hunting is going, history tells us that whenever someone tried to guess what the future holds for any particular thing they were usually wrong ninety percent of the time.
That leaves us with the present, which we can either spend worrying about things we have no control over, or we can experience, enjoy, and change it for the better in so many small ways. One of my late father's favorite saying was; it's impossible to worry and fish at the same time. So I'm going fishing (hunting deer actually). And hopefully not worrying about anything other than my food plots.

 

[Buckly]

The past is history,
The future is a mystery.
Today is a gift, and that's why they call it the present.

 

[MarkDarvin]

The future isn't hard to see, it's going on as we speak. Decent hunting land/habitat is shrinking at an alarming rate. In MN, as more land falls under state or federal ownership, it's a death sentence for game management. The DNR wants all the deer shot, so unlimited tags are given out and the hunters oblige and shoot it completely out and move on to the next place. Well today, those guys have run out of "next places" and are leaving the sport, angry at the "rich city folk buying up and closing all the land."

In farm country, habitat nooks and crannies are being torn out by everyone. If a farmer isn't trying to eek out a few more bushels, a city dweller is moving to the country to build an acreage, or the USFWS is out there bulldozing and burning woody cover in the name of grass mono-cultures.

If the sport is going to survive, it's going to continue to privatize. It's the only way. The folks who bet on the government to always provide a free place for them to hunt have been sold a turd.

 

[dogghr]

The past is history,
The future is a mystery.
Today is a gift, and that's why they call it the present.

Yes, but it is still fun to conjecture. And their have been thots given and books written over the years that have proven to be scary correct. And some that were way off. Been a fun thread.

 

[Bullwinkle]

I worry about deer losing value with CWD. I don’t worry about collapse of population at all. In fact the opposite. From what I hear in southern Wisconsin. The deer population is very high because people don’t want to eat deer and only trophy hunt

With the number of does we have to take each year to keep a reasonable balance, I can’t imagine testing all those deer for cwd and managing around this. The state has a big problem brewing. CWD will keep expanding and they will be facing this situation down the road

 

[j-bird]

You want a good picture of where we came from, where we are and where we are going......consider this.

We have farm animals in zoo's to expose the public to them and we have wild animals behind fences to protect them from the public!

 

[Pacahunter]

You want a good picture of where we came from, where we are and where we are going......consider this.

We have farm animals in zoo's to expose the public to them and we have wild animals behind fences to protect them from the public!

We have wild animals in fences to satisfy the wealthy who are not skilled enough to appease their own egos. The mutated breeding of deer has turned the white tail into nothing different than a Holstein cow. Fence deer are a completely different animal.

 

[Bullwinkle]

We have wild animals in fences to satisfy the wealthy who are not skilled enough to appease their own egos. The mutated breeding of deer has turned the white tail into nothing different than a Holstein cow. Fence deer are a completely different animal.

I agree. I’ve hunted high fence for work related activity (I didn’t pay for it), not even close to low pressure free range. On a different planet compared to public.

It’s not fun enough in my opinion to attract a large percentage of hunters. Better than golf but nothing like free chase. It will have a place but not significant in WI

 

[Jason Broom]

A lot of interesting and insightful posts in this thread. While it's easy to find cause for concern in today's hunting world, I think there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful, as well. More and more young people with a different mindset than I had when I was a kid. I remember the goal was to simply see and shoot a "legal" deer. In California, that meant a buck with at least two point on one side. In MI it was 3" of antler. When I got a little older and was hunting some better ground in central Wisconsin, the landowner asked that we hold out for deer with 4 points on one side.

I tend to be on the slightly pessimistic side of pragmatic. I look at trends like dropping hunter participation and growing deer numbers, and I see changes and complications that we will be forced to deal with. In most states, deer numbers are either higher than they've ever been, or they were in recent years. In some states, excessively high deer numbers have led to outbreaks of disease, including EHD and CWD. What I see coming has to do with the desperate measures states are employing to try and keep deer numbers close to their target range. I know there are exceptions, like in MN, but most states have deer populations that are stable to increasing, in areas where they are already at or above target. Couple this with fewer hunters going afield each year, and decreased access to the lands where those deer live, and you've got a recipe for a dramatic change in how we are allowed to hunt deer.

My family and I do most of our hunting in Antrim County, MI. For the last 10 years, prior to 2017, this county issued 200 public land tags and 5,200 private land tags, for antlerless deer. During the years 2014 - 2016, they never sold all of the private land tags. In 2017, based on crop depredation, insurance claims, hard browse lines on key indicator species, and a mild winter index, Antrim County increase public land tags to 800 and private land tags to 7,000. This was an increase of 2,400 of 44%. During that same 10 year period, hunter participation in the county has dropped a full 20%, based on some of the best survey data in the country. So, 20% less hunters and 44% more tags, when they couldn't even sell all of the tags offered during the previous three years?

In the future, hunters in many areas will have to draw for a buck tag, harvest one or more does before a buck tag is issued, or only be allowed to harvest a buck during certain years. We will see a better age class of deer, overall, with lots of bigger/older bucks being seen, but with fewer hunters left to harvest more does, biologists and state game agencies will be forced to focus most of our efforts on deer with no antlers. That's the kind of hunting I expect my children and grand-children to be faced with.

 

[Baker]

We have wild animals in fences to satisfy the wealthy who are not skilled enough to appease their own egos. The mutated breeding of deer has turned the white tail into nothing different than a Holstein cow. Fence deer are a completely different animal.

Amazing insight. Your experience in this area must be vast to support such a judgmental post.