Ohio making a big mistake,possibly…

[strait-aero]

#5635

I read recently that Ohio’s rules committee is considering having an early muzzleloader season in October. The meeting is in April for them to decide whether to instate it or not and I am worried that our hunting the rut with bow will be ruined by this.:cry:They want to increase the number of does killed but I feel someone hasn’t thought this one through. Couldn’t help but think how it’s similar to smokepoles messing up archery for elk in Colorado. Of course, the difference is that the want cut down the deer herd in Ohio and preserve the number of elk in Colorado. Just frustrating to have the ODNR working against you,or so it seems… Anyone hear anything or have a comment? Wayne

[Brennan Herr]

#42962

They have an inline muzzleloader season in October here in PA. It is frustrating but does not hinder the rut hunting too much for me. Over the past few years I have only run into a few guys using one in the woods.

[David Petersen]

#42984

Wayne — If I were you I would fight it with all my might. If you had a BHA chapter there, you’d have allies in this. You are right that having muzzleloader in mid-rut for elk in CO, which is also mid-archery season, really screws things up, for the elk as well as the hunters. IMHO there should never be any sort of firearms season during the elk rut because it makes them shut up and the messes up the natural order of the rut, archer’s interests aside. But you’re mistaken that the goal here is to preserve elk — we have way too many (for the shrinking winter habitat, which is mostly on private land) and for years now cow tags, in addition to bull tags, are easy to come by via draw. I have no idea whether a gun season will screw with the whitetail rut, but it sure as hell screws with archery season! And you can bet NRA will be all for it, overtly or behind the scenes, just as they have come to bat for X-guns in archery seasons … they are jealous of our longer seasons. Geeze, all I ever wanted was just to hunt … but increasingly to “just hunt” without becoming active in the politics of hunting is a loser’s game. And by that standard a solid majority of us are losers. Such a world …

[David Coulter]

#43124

The PA early season is pretty short, but it’s sort of laughable. In the beginning it was to let guys with percussion rifles have a turn, but then inlines showed up. It’s just an end run around the rules and the game commission is all for it to get more guys in the woods. I supposed there is a matter of getting more money into the system, but it’s too bad they are not promoting hunting as much as they are promoting new and easier ways to get a tag filled.

I’m not opposed to firearms, by the way. I shot a buck in rifle season and before I got this traditional archery thing in my veins I hunted a lot with a flintlock and I expect to do more of that. But the idea is to make it a good hunt. I don’t know that the inline crowd has actually put any hurt on hunting here. By happenstance I ended up hunting a wood lot with three other guys, using inlines, several years ago. It was a tight space with lots of deer moving through. At the end of the short hunt, three of us took shots and my flintlock was the only gun that went off. Apparently nobody told them that they still have to clean their firearms. I took a nice doe home that day.

[Stephen Graf]

#43549

If it’s anything like NC, you don’t stand much of a chance. The insurance companies want the deer dead. Fewer deer means fewer insurance claims, which means more profit.

They converted the last week of bow season here to black powder, which made the black powder season 2 weeks long in the prime of the rut.

They are passing rules now that anyone who owns 1 acre or more can kill deer without permit for depredation all year long.

The chairman of our Wildlife Commission said in an open meeting that he wished every elk and deer was dead.

Last year the changed the budget process so that hunting license sales go into the general fund instead of directly into the Wildlife Resource fund. Now the WRC budget can get cut every year, and the remaining funds can go to help subsidize fracking and sludge spreading over wild lands.

So don’t worry Ohio, no matter how bad you get, you will never catch up to NC!

[strait-aero]

#43808

Thanks for the input guys. I’m told this is not carved in stone yet, so there’s still time to change,or head off,this latest attempt to ruin bow hunting in prime time. There are already those in Ohio that see the disruption it could cause in our season and are calling for a halt to this.

Dave, I’m hoping we can rally several groups to show the ODNR that this plan would not only harm the archery season by causing deer to lay low earlier than usual, but that it could actually work to lessen the taking of antlerless deer.Not sure about an Oh.chapter of BHA yet.

Dave,I stand corrected,in that the elk herd in Co. needs to be thinned out also due to the loss of precious habitat.

Again, thanks for the input,one and all. Any help in this matter is welcomed.I’m sure there are other concerned bowhunters in Ohio and neighboring states.

Wayne

[David Petersen]

#43821

If managers and insurance companies want to cull excess deer, a stinking muzzleloader season in the rut/archery timeframe is a piss-poor way of going about it. Just make more permits available, cheap as possible, during rifle seasons. Add more rifle season as necessary, but not during rut. I believe some states have it set up where you have to kill X number of does before you can get a buck tag.

Of course the best solution of all is to open traditional archery deer does season year-round. 😀

[strait-aero]

#43849

Dave…Ohio did institute extra tags for doe a few years ago that were for early archery season, and you could buy up to three extra tags for our zone. And the beauty of it all was if you hadn’t filled the tags by gun season you could use them in the first week of gun hunting. But this year they didn’t allow their use in gun season. My guess is it didn’t make good revenue sense to let these $15 tags be used in gun season.:?:

[mhay]

#43970

One thing that has me puzzled about the Ohio seasons is why they moved the STATEWIDE PRIMITIVE WEAPONS season to now be after the new year instead of between xmas and new years,as it used to be . Lots of hunters were off work that week between holidays which seems to me to be more hunters and more deer harvested .

I know what you mean about the $15 tags. If we fail to fill it before the regular GUN season we are out the fifteen and have to start over with the $24 tags.

[Troy Breeding]

#44790

The main subject behind all this is MONEY!!!!

For some reason the archery industry just doesn’t spend the $$$$ the way the firarms industry does.

When I lived in AL we faught and won the first battle against X-bows. In the next state meeting the councel passed the X-bow rule without hearing from the people opposed to it. Later we found that one of the councel members owned a X-bow company.

Here again, can we say $$$$$ speeks?????

The state of OH could easily reduce the doe numbers by reducing the price of the doe tags. Yet, here again can we say money speaks???? Reduce the tag cost and the state looses.

It’s one of those danged if you do and danged if you don’t things.

IMHO,,, if the state really wants to reduce the doe numbers,,,, forget the smokeploes and open a later doe season for center fire weapons. Make it where you have to buy special tags for that season and then both the bang bang shooters and the state wins.

Troy

[strait-aero]

#45472

Good,and well-taken point,Troy…

Wayne

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