Quality Deer Management

[Ptaylor]

#6745

I was checking out the QDMA website and was wondering what you thought about this:

From my understanding of natural systems, mortality is greatest on the youngest deer, fawns and yearlings (taken by cougars-wolves-bear-etc. not hunters). As a deer ages its likelyhood of surviving increases. Shouldn’t we (hunters) try to mimic the natural system, which has resulted in large deer for millennia? Therefore, isn’t letting young bucks walk contradicting the way natural mortality has shaped deer in the past?

[Doc Nock]

#54322

PT,

You’ll likely get smart people to answer. I’m not one of them. I’ve read a “bit” on QDM and PA here instituted antler restriction. The rhetoric goes similar to QDM, best I can tell.

Their point (pic your poison) is that to have a ‘healthy” herd, you need age-class structure…some older, some middle age and some pups!

guys around much of PA with too many blessed deer back whenever that was ran ratios reported to be 22 antlerless to 1 antlered buck…

Bucks can only service 5-6 bucks (lazy buggars)

So if you have shot off the big boys or they go so nocturnal they die of old age (my story-having never seen but a few nice branch antlered deer), and the spikes get whacked and stacked, you loose the age class of upcoming genetics which is bad for the pool.

If that age structure (puppies) are easy pickins for the predators, then they want us to “let em grow”… if they evade the predators so the new blood can strengthen and diversify the gene pool.

I will NOT comment on my opinion, cause that would be all it is, OPINION. But that is the Party line as I know it on letting em grow.

I’m sure those in the know will refute some of my armchair understanding or refine it at least!

🙂

[David Coulter]

#54701

Pt, The best way I can answer that question is to let someone else answer it. Look up Kill Bambi by Dave Petersen, which might be in Heartsblood. He’s suggesting what you are and backs it up. dwc

[robbin68]

#54719

I recently researched the QDMA website for a college paper. Sounds a lot like deer farming to me. Also, deer that live in areas with a lack of nutrients like low acorn production or swamp deer are not necessarily going to grow bigger antlers. It also sounds contradictory to let young bucks go and harvest the bigger ones for the purpose of getting good genetics in the herd. Wouldn’t that mean the younger or scrubby not legal bucks are potentially putting more bad genetics into the herd? I also don’t approve of “trophy” hunting. Hunting is about having fun and I don’t need a 150″ set of antlers to have fun while deer hunting. And lastly, how many young hunters won’t be able to harvest their first buck because it is a four point and the QDMA doesn’t approve?

[skinner biscuit]

#54726

I’ve never passed up a forked horn (four point for you eastern boys).They taste :Dbetter.Meat in the freezer is the best trophy, as far as I’m concerned.

[Ptaylor]

#54749

Those are similar to my sentiments.

I can understand how limiting rifle hunters would just lower the total harvest. That alone might just allow deer to get older. But for me hunting blacktails with trad gear, I’m just not good enough to let deer walk. I might only get one shot a season.

It also seems QDM fits better with eastern hunting. There’s more deer and more private land. But then I agree, it seems like ranching deer rather than hunting. And what was it Leopold said… “Managing a species too intricately takes away its wildness” or something like that.

However, I do approve of QDMA pushing for doe harvest to have a more equal sex ratio.

[1shot]

#55283

The core tenents of “QDM”, the taking of bucks with larger antlers/better genetics, have been proven failures over the long haul. When the ‘cream-of-the-crop” is targeted,eventualy all thats left are the animals with the poor genetics…

Antler restrictions are kinda against the American model of hunting, hunting for all, My Hunt, My tag, My deer, my decision to take a spike…

(Personaly, I only shoot deer that are 8point or better(eastern count) these days, but I have killed over 300deer(approx 200 deer with rifle, 75-100 with a recurve) and can now wait and pick what I want to tag…)

Photo: New York Buddies pole barn wall, where we hang antlers that, for whatever reason, dont make it to our own home walls…

[Brennan Herr]

#55331

Here in PA I think some management is needed. For both deer and people. Not to grow monster bucks but to ensure healthy forest, deer, and people issues.

When I started deer hunting bucks were hunted for 2 weeks with a rifle. Does where hunted after the two week season for three days. And before that does where protected. This method caused 80 percent of bucks to be killed every year.

The antler restrictions in PA allow for young bucks to become adults which brings the herd into a proper balance of age structure.

In the early 2000s the 3 day doe season ended. Does and bucks where now hunted during the 2 week rifle season. This helped to reduce the overall deer population as a whole and also balance the buck to doe ratio and help reduce over browsing of the forest.

Now doe season in most of PA is during the second week of the rifle seasons.

Perfect. No, but it is doing more for the deer and forest in PA. And continual study and changes are made to help the herd as needed.

Senior and juniors do not have to abide by the antler restrictions and they also get a doe only 3 day rifle season in October.

There is a week long doe only inline muzzle loader season in October and cross guns are used during archery.

There is also a late season archery and flintlock season after Christmas.

And don’t forget the year long season of car hunting. But it is very expensive and insurance companies hate that method.

I don’t agree with all PA does with the deer herd and hunting seasons but at least they are using biologist and watching other states for what works instead of doing nothing.

Here us one resource on PA antler restrictions. They also posted there management plans.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/document/715029/handout_-_biology_and_hunting_-_antler_restrictions_-_v13_20090806_pdf

[robbin68]

#55691

I personally agree with 1shot. If a hunter chooses a personal APR due to his own feeling of accomplishment, more power to him. I chose to take up traditional archery for a higher level of personal accomplishment, and now in Michigan, mandatory APR’s mean that I can’t shoot forkhorns or spikehorns, which we have a lot of, and I would be more than happy putting a tag on. Every hunter should be able to choose what deer is worthy of his or tag and states should base their deer management on scientific evidence provided by the state biologist, not a club interested only in “trophy” racks.

[David Petersen]

#55766

Brennan– I love your Ruud end quote! It succinctly summarizes the major quandary of existence for thinking people, the yin and yang of life, which mandates death. I’ve read that book five times now and still find myself going there when I’m in desperate need of clawing outside of my own self-importance in the big picture.

David, yes, my take on QDM, with a lot of input from Valerius Geist, is in Heartsblood, in the “The Bambi Syndrome Dismembered” chapter. I rarely go back and read books or articles once I’ve published them (I’d rather read others in order to keep my questioning and thinking moving forward), so thanks for the reminder. It’s now dated, and as with most wildlife management concepts, “set and setting,” that is, local habitat and human pressure distinctions, make any single “solution” imperfect for general application. But there are moral as well as biological considerations at play here, and it’s my story and I’ll stick by it. Basically: “Provide abundant rich wildlife habitat, manage for ecosystem health first, not for any single species, and take for ourselves only the excess.” Anything less I view as being untrue to what I’ll simplify for here and now as “life.”

[David Fudala]

#55939

There’s a distinct difference here that needs considered. When predators outside of ourselves hunt they hunt for survival. There is no discretion and no thought about how their actions will affect their target species livelihood or longevity. Mother nature takes care of that for them by programming them to cull the easily harvested first. Wolves and bears care nothing for antlers. Trophy obsession is a human emotion. Exploited by an ever growing industry over a fan base of overnight “sportsman” who grow lazier and more inept as the years go by. IMO, there have been several QDM programs that were started with the most honorable of intentions. Learn how our hunting of a species affects that species and try to manage our actions to benefit that species. This is essential due to our efficiency as hunters compared to our wild counterparts! What remains to be seen is if these programs will be able to stay the course and not be corrupted into antler factory programs whose only goal is to increase the population of trophy animals. I don’t know, maybe I have an overly grim view of things due to my own experience but managing the harvest of a species to the betterment of that species is a noble idea. Using that idea to manipulate that species into something mother nature did not intend seems ignorant.

[David Bartlett]

#56087

Dfudala wrote: Using that idea to manipulate that species into something mother nature did not intend seems ignorant.

Like this! Saw this the other night on the “Outhouse Channel”.

deertraders.com

[Robin Conrads]

#56358

Ugh, that’s awful! David, I understand what you were trying to show the group, but I am disabling the link so Deer Traders doesn’t see a bunch of internet traffic from our site. In essence it’s a deer breeding site. If you want to see it, you’ll have to copy and paste the address into your browser.

[David Petersen]

#56436

Mom, why does it matter? I doubt TBM will be wanting to run their ads, so what’s there to lose? We should be proud of being a thoughtful and critical discussion group, as there sure aren’t any such anywhere else. IMO

[David Coulter]

#56479

Brennan,

I’m also in PA and I think the management has done good things overall for the herd (deer) even if it’s soured the herd (hunters) to some degree. I’m still seeing plenty of deer, although maybe not as much as I did 15 years ago. The forest is much healthhavier in my neighborhood. I’m hearing grouse on occasion again, too. I consider myself a meat hunter, but was happy to kill the two largest bucks I ever saw in the woods in the last two years. Just lucky and it was in the rifle season. I was feeling the empty freezer pressure, then went back to the bow.

I have to give the biologists credit. Given a chance, they’ve done good work and will continue to make adjustments as they have this year. dwc

[Ptaylor]

#56483

This has ben a good discussion. Although, I was kind of hoping some folk that practice QDM might chime in as well, as I’d like to hear there first hand experience.

I just finished reading “Deerland” by Al Cambronne. Its a fascinating and scary look into the industrial white-tail complex. Worth a read to open my western eyes.

And since it was brought up. I read “A Year Long Day” after it was recommended here. Awesome!!! What a badass dude!

[David Bartlett]

#56902

Webmother wrote: Ugh, that’s awful! David, I understand what you were trying to show the group, but I am disabling the link so Deer Traders doesn’t see a bunch of internet traffic from our site. In essence it’s a deer breeding site. If you want to see it, you’ll have to copy and paste the address into your browser.

Robin,

Yes it is! I understand your rationale for disabling the link. Keep up the great work.

[Fallguy]

#56923

QDM must work or else those pay to play outfits in Texas would not have any business. Now if you choose to pay did you take a wild animal fair and square or did you shoot Pavlovs deer coming in for its 5:00 feeding? I believe that the deer herd should be managed for the health of the habitat and let Ma nature take care of the antlers.

[Robin Conrads]

#57391

David Petersen wrote: Mom, why does it matter? I doubt TBM will be wanting to run their ads, so what’s there to lose? We should be proud of being a thoughtful and critical discussion group, as there sure aren’t any such anywhere else. IMO

Maybe I should have explained myself better. Deer Traders sells advertising to other folks based on how many “hits” they get on their site. In a roundabout way, traffic we generate for them helps them sell ads. The hits don’t tell them whether we are interested or disgusted, only that we looked at the site and the ads were displayed.

I am proud of this thoughtful and critical discussion group!

[Ptaylor]

#57714

Shoot, I clicked on that website a bunch of times to show people! I wonder if there is a way to open the website without them knowing about it…?

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#57761

Ptaylor wrote: …I wonder if there is a way to open the website without them knowing about it…?

There are ways to do it without them knowing much about you, but at the end of the day, a click is a click.

Mom is right – increasing traffic to those sites only benefits them.

[Fallguy]

#57939

I never doubted it “Mom is always right”:P

[Ralph]

#58847

Fallguy wrote: QDM must work or else those pay to play outfits in Texas would not have any business. Now if you choose to pay did you take a wild animal fair and square or did you shoot Pavlovs deer coming in for its 5:00 feeding? I believe that the deer herd should be managed for the health of the habitat and let Ma nature take care of the antlers.

Hey, I feel picked on because I live in Texas. It just seems so as no other state is mocked for it’s hunting practices or game management. Guess that’s why we have the biggest whitetail herd in the US.

Sorry, but there are a bunch of us that hunt within cow fences which seem to not slow deer down a bit. Like 10,000 acres I hunt on way cheaper than people can drive to “the west” and hunt.

All of these other geographical areas must be part of Texas I guess.

“With all the buzz surrounding deer baiting in Michigan since the CWD incident, I wondered just how many states in our great 50 allowed baiting of deer. This was no easy task to find out! I was amazed at just how hard it was in some of the state hunting regulations to find out if baiting of deer was legal or not. Some states make it next to impossible to know if it is allowed, I had to read carefully on a lot of these guides to understand the law and regulations. Some are vague and some are bold in their explanations. I would tend to think that this issue would be spelled out in great big bold letters so it would cause no confusion. Boy was I wrong!

After a careful search of the guides and a few emails to friends in states that I couldn’t get clarification, I came up with the list of baiting states and those that don’t. Out of our 50 states there are 22 states that allow baiting of deer for hunting purposes in either the whole state or in selected parts of the state. The remaining 28 do not allow it at all. In the 22 states that allow baiting of deer for hunting, 14 of them allow it state wide, the remaining 8 allow it only in limited areas.

Here is the list that I came up with, now if I have mis-spoken or mis-stated the states listed please email me or comment and I will do further research on this issue. I could have mis-understood the rules and regulations.

No Bait Allowed:

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming

Baiting Allowed In Entire State:

Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Washington

Baiting Only In Selected Areas:

Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin

Looking at the results there is 56% of the states that do not allow deer hunting over bait what so ever, and if you combine the limited baiting to that, it only leaves 28% of the states that allow it state wide. Half of the states that allow deer baiting for hunting have either had CWD in their state or in an adjoining state that has CWD found in it. Three of those states, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Utah have had cases of CWD in their states. Of the states that allow partial baiting, only Florida does not have CWD or boarder a state with CWD. This conclusion comes from the CWD cases map on the CWD Alliance website. Baiting and CWD have not been positively connected as one causing or promoting the other. With that being said, scientists do concur that baiting does help spread CWD, or at least the absence of baiting helps to stop the spread of CWD.

I guess what we can draw from this is that only three states with CWD currently still allow baiting on a statewide scale and the states of Michigan and Wisconsin have limited the areas you can bait in. It looks as if the states that are dealing with CWD are either limiting the bait or stopping it all together. I don’t know what the answer is, but I did think this was an interesting look at where baiting is being allowed and where it isn’t as compared to Chronic Wasting Disease in the cervid populations in the U.S. Look at the map and draw your own conclusions, it is now up for debate!”

– See more at: http://www.skinnymoose.com/hooksandbullets/2008/10/14/deer-baiting-across-the-us/#sthash.fr6B1mqz.dpuf

[Ptaylor]

#59022

I think peoples’ desires to hunt over bait push state game agencies to make decisions not entirely for the benefit of the deer/bear/animal. As this relates back to QDM, I think a hard decision for agencies will be: Are food plots bait?

I am glad to live in a state that does not allow baiting, CA.

[David Petersen]

#59085

Another great discussion that could happen no place else I’m aware of. Here, there are no bullies; all opinions sink or swim on their own merit … which is the only true way toward comprehending not only the big picture but all of it’s nano nuances. And thanks for the clarification, Robin.

[Fallguy]

#59116

R2 I did not intend to offend. Texas gets a lot of notoriety because of all the large ranches that do cater to those individuals who’s only measure of a successful hunt is inches of antler. Thank you for research on which states allow baiting and which do not.

I did not realize that many did. I do know that when I have talked to people in the Wisconsin DNR they have ALL said do not allow baiting to start because you will never be able to stop it.

I used to think that food plots where OK but I have been having second thoughts. We have individuals in Minnesota that have cut tree’s and plowed up state forest land for food plots in front of their permeant deer stands. Of course they can not get a ticket for hunting over a food plot. They can only get and ticket if they are caught cutting, plowing and planting.

It is a sad state but many of today’s deer hunters believe what they see in the video’s. A trophy in every woodlot and monster buck at the end of every hunt.

[David Coulter]

#59127

R2, Good post, even if you are from Texas… just kidding! I appreciate all the research you did for your post.

I’m in PA and as far as I know this is our first year of allowing baiting. It might be in areas that have a heavy population of deer and humans and there has been little success in herd reduction. It makes me cringe but I’ll wait to see what the results are. Lots of things are a choice that we as a herd here elect not to do. That sort of thing will remain my guide if baiting becomes allowed in my neck of the woods. Allowed is also a key word here, because I know more than a few folks already hunt over or near bait here. There’s the red neck feed bag method, which is a plastic shopping bag hung off a branch. It has a little hole in it allowing corn to drop through if nudged. Then there’s the shelves upon shelves of super feed blocks and bottles of deer cane in the “sporting” goods stores. Legal to sell but not legal to hunt over… yeah right.

Let our hearts be our guides in a world gone crazy. thanks, dwc

[Ralph]

#59643

I was just trying to say that there’s those that do and there’s those of us who don’t do as they do.

I have a feeder, that’s in the terms of my lease. Quail and turkey love it. I hunt not either because of drought whupping up on quail population and turkeys get dumb as cows when there’s corn on the ground. My deer hunting is done elsewhere’s but deer do use the feeder. I have some nice pics from trail cam.

Management of animals is important to the herd as long as the stupid is kept out of it (possible?). Never keep the stupid out of the hunting population (or stupidly greedy?).

Food plot, feeder? One has a timing motor, one does not. High country hayfield with elevated blinds around it, corn feeder, food plot? NFM (That means, “nuff from me”) Make some happy 😉

By the way, the gov shut down messed with a bunch of archery hunters around here too.

[David Petersen]

#59885

Ralph, to update your good research, baiting is no longer allowed for deer in AZ. I and other BHA members were active in campaigning to have it outlawed, as it had utterly destroyed bowhunting for Coues, which is largely done over scarce waterholes. Water in the desert is sufficient bait, which is largely balanced by countless thousands of years of deer being ambushed by cats at waterholes, having evolved in them the most unbelievable caution and quick responses I’ve ever seen in an animal. The baiters had taken over every waterhole they could access by ATV, placing alfalfa, salt, “sweet grains,” trail cams and tree stands all around. I quit hunting AZ because of it. I believe that on public lands there’s a higher necessity to keep the playing field equal, with no baits and no motorized vehicles beyond designated roadways. Otherwise the actions of a pushy minority ruin it all for the majority, not to mention spitting in the face of fair chase. All such considerations become more complex and arguable on private land, as in Texas. It also has to do with whether we view the wild animals we hunt as a commodity or symbols of wildness and majesty.

[Ralph]

#59906

Thanks David for the info. It’s a good deal what you and others have accomplished. I didn’t know apparently. 😀

Me, I hunt, I don’t go to the local deer diner.

People do different in different places but there are places where things need to be done different to protect a species.

If I plan to hunt or get caught up in a deal to hunt a place with different rules and policies and I disagree or do not like, I don’t participate. Simple to me. I don’t have to kill.

If the game is getting scarce for any reason, I don’t hunt it and it should not be hunted. I dearly love to hunt quail but there’s no way I’d hunt them right now as I’ve seen one covey of 8 birds in the last three years and I used to have 10 or 12 coveys that I hunted.

That stops not a lot of people though. Someone would shoot the last bird or last deer just to say they did.

Anyway thanks Dave and good job done. I do not condone hunting over feeders and won’t but I know many that know only that method.

[paleoman]

#60133

I live in Michigan and I vote with my license. It’s been archery only for more than a few years now. I wouldn’t even buy a license if I didn’t live here because of the baiting. But, you can still have a good hunt here if you choose to avoid the practice, and for me that’s the October season. The best time of the year anyway.

[David Fudala]

#61559

I’m not even gonna get started on baiting cuz I’d really go off on a rant! I live in the heart of baiters paradise up here in Northern Wisconsin and full inclusion crossbows coming up isn’t going to help! I just hope one day we wake up and do away with it. You can’t manage a population of wild animals properly (if that’s really possible?) if your sustaining it with non-natural sustenance? How do you figure in all the animals that survive a winter because of it one year versus another unless the amount of artificial feed is consistent? Whoops! There I went and did it anyways! Sorry, I’ll shut up now.

[skinner biscuit]

#61573

In my home state they outlawed baiting for bear but allow baiting for deer and elk.I’d like them to ban it all!

[Ptaylor]

#62133

In the book I recommended, “Deerland”, Cambronne discusses the issue that rural real estate in some counties of the upper midwest area is being driven by deer hunters. And the lands is really expensive, so much so farmers are losing leases or selling their land. The majority of people buying this land- residents of metropolitan areas. They are putting in food plots and want to shoot a trophy.

Doing research for a school paper (the last school paper I have to write before graduating) I came across a study titled “Wildlife and the Illinois public: A benchmark study of attitudes and perceptions”. You can find it on google scholar. Anyway, the point I’m after is, the authors found that people in urban settings thought the land can support an indefinite amount of animals, that populations are not limited by resources.

I think this all ties back to bating. Just put more food out there and more deer will appear. Even for folks that don’t hunt but feed deer.

[robbin68]

#62566

I have had the opportunity to hunt before, during, and after the baiting ban in Michigan. Personally, I saw more deer during the baiting ban. A large portion of area “hunters” were lost without their bait piles and did not hunt during this time which also relieved some pressure on the deer. I am not against baiting and have baited in certain areas where natural food sources are scarce, but I would rather not as bait is expensive and I have seen a doe and two fawns eat a half bucket of bait in a short amount of time and bait buckets are a nuisance moving in and out of the woods.

[Author]

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