Deer numbers down

[MikeBrennan]

Well, muzzle loader season has ended and I still have a doe tag left...looks like I'm hitting the bonus antlerless season. Hopefull I don't freeze my, er um "antlers" off.

 

[possumpacker]

i saw my brothers truck pull in the barn lot bout 4 this evening to hunt the field behind my house. i looked out the upstairs window deer are already in the field feeding. i called an told him to take another way to his stand. i watched 9 does an a 12in wide 8 point in my spotting scope feed in the been stubble bout an hour, when the buck raised his head and became alerted and trotted out of the field with the does. i looked down at the clothes line in the back yard and the wifes panties were blowing the other direction. he called later an said 6 other does came out and fed in our chickory food plot and fed till dark.

 

[Willie]

Illinois is down...by design -

Hunters kill fewer deer in Illinois, shows population getting under control, DNR says - Chicago Tribune

 

[Willie]

Current reported deer harvest


116,394

From Sept 15, 2016 to Friday, December 30, 2016 at 9:15 AM CST

Deer harvest numbers are updated as deer are checked in via CheckIN Game. All numbers are raw data that have not been verified by the Indiana DNR.
: Indiana Deer hunting, biology and management
I think one thing that will keep the harvest down from last year for this "late season" is the fact that the ONLY weekend will fall on New Year's eve and New Years day. Last year it was on December 26 and 27th. There are a TON of variables year to year so comparing year to year is an exercise in futility. That is why the DNR uses trends to help even it all out.. Kind of fun though..but pretty well meaningless..

 

[yetti462]

I started off shooting the Barnes expanders out of my 54 cal Knight muzzleloader years ago. The results were impressive. When I bought my 50cal omega I shot the Barnes expanders, very impressive. The bullets are devastating to deer.

When the wildcat rifles were made legal, I bought a custom .358. Originally I was shooting a 200gr. Hornady ftx bullet out of it. Lame results. I switched to the 200 gr. Barnes and Bingo!!! 2016 rolls around and my favorite Winchester m70 243 is now in the game. It digests sierra 80gr btsp pushed by 37.5gr of imr 4895 well producing clover leaves at 100. A change in the recipe to an 80gr. Barnes resulted in 1" at 100. This combo was good enough so no tweaking was needed.

With this combo I head shot a doe and the results are self-explanatory. The buck that was downed was a 3.5yr old 12pt. He was slightly quartering away at 180yds. Double lung and heart were taken out with an exit through opposite shoulder. The blood trail was minimal due to small entrance hole. Being the exit hole was through the opposite shoulder the blood didn't have time to get from the chest cavity and out of the meat. He went about 15-20 yds before piling up. If he had gone farther I am assuming the blood would have started to pump out. The internal damage was impressive.

The Barnes bullet is a deer slamming pill. I have some 130gr Barnes for my 300 blackout. I will give the results after the antlerless season ends. Based on years of Barnage (Barnes carnage), I'm expecting good things.

I forgot to mention. My elk rifle is a Remington 700 7mm remmag. And you guessed it, 160gr Barnes is what it digests and yes the results are impressive.

Just giving the report for the 300 bo with the 130gr barnes. Shot a doe in the neck, dropped with a silver dollar sized exit hole. My brother was using 120gr barnes out of his 300 and both of his deer went 20 yds and tipped.

 

[MRP2003]

So this year is the lowest harvest number for over 8 years.
2016 - 119,220
2015 - 123,664
2014 - 120,073
2013 - 125,635
2012 - 136,248
2011 - 129,018
2010 - 134,004
2009 - 132,752

Just a note 2012 was the first year that crossbows were legalized for everyone to use

 

[Willie]

So this year is the lowest harvest number for over 8 years.
2016 - 119,220
2015 - 123,664
2014 - 120,073
2013 - 125,635
2012 - 136,248
2011 - 129,018
2010 - 134,004
2009 - 132,752

Just a note 2012 was the first year that crossbows were legalized for everyone to use

It was also the first year of the late "special antlerless season"..

 

[clfergus]

It is weird how things go. I saw more deer this year than the last few combined and especially bucks.

 

[MRP2003]

It was also the first year of the late "special antlerless season"..

Maybe they should consider reducing the number that we can take during the special antlerless season.

 

[Willie]

Maybe they should consider reducing the number that we can take during the special antlerless season.

They do by reducing the number of counties that qualify for the "special late antlerless season."

They feel that more deer need to be killed in the counties that are still eligible. By looking at the harvest trends it appears that their stated herd reduction back in 2012 is working as planned.


.

 

[antiwheeze]

Not really much of a change overall. Weather may have as much of an effect as anything last season.

 

[MRP2003]

When you look at percentages, it doesn't seem like much but there is a trend downward in the number of deer taken.. The last 4 years vs the previous 4 years shows a decline of almost 9%. If the trend continues, IN will be back to harvesting less than 100K of deer a year. While that number doesn't bother me so much if I am seeing a good number of deer like I have several years ago but the last few years, I have seen less and less deer each year. This year, I only passed on one buck which was the only buck I saw and did not see one doe on one of the properties that I hunt. All around that property, I have heard from other hunters that they are not seeing many deer compared to years in the past. While I love the fact that if I wanted, I could take 4 doe from that property by the rules, I wish they would go back to only allowing 2 does.


Just my opinion as I have read that several people have seen just as many or slightly more this year.

 

[JeremiahJohnson]

Personally I'd like to see that late firearm season go away, just don't think we need it. I agree with the assessment of 2012, that the late season had more to do with increased kills than cross bows. Good to see the HPR's didn't affect harvest numbers, no blood in the streets, no Swiss cheese houses or cattle.

 

[kolob10]

I'm in Brown County and over the past few years I have noticed the deer population down about 20% based on sighting, signs and game camera pics. Coyotes numbers continue to rise in spite of efforts to thin them out. Rabbits, squirrel, and gamebirds also have declined in number recently.

 

[Willie]

I'm in Brown County and over the past few years I have noticed the deer population down about 20% based on sighting, signs and game camera pics. Coyotes numbers continue to rise in spite of efforts to thin them out. Rabbits, squirrel, and gamebirds also have declined in number recently.

I understand the reasoning behind it but when the DNR stopped live coyote sales everyone pretty well knew that the coyote population would explode. There is no money in trapping them anymore...

 

[kolob10]

Coydog on the game camera. He's a big one! He is on the left and a n adult female on the right.

 

[gregr]

Interesting reading all the comments here. Pretty typical from what I read and hear elsewhere too. Some complaining because someone killed two "small" does, much like the "serious" hunters bust chops when someone kills a buck they think shouldn`t have been taken. I learned a long time ago that what each of us kills is very personal, and it doesn`t have to suit me, so long as it`s a legal, ethical hunt. And some seeing more deer than usual, some less, most, probably about the same as every season. EHD takes a toll, and that`s usually in small pockets, and it seems to move acound the state, with a few areas seemingly more prone to be hit by it. Just as an aside, I`ve heard the rumors that get spread around as fact, like one guy said he was "told", that there were 50 to 60 deer found dead by different parts of Big Walnut in west central Indiana. The wildlife biologist I spoke with said as far as they could tell, that`s just one more rumor, but to encourage everyone to report finding like that, so the DNR can investigate and document it. I hunted 3 small farms, all in Putnam County. Two of the smallest farms in eastern Putnam had good sign, but the only deer I saw were the two my buddy killed opening morning of firearms with his 30.06, which dropped where they stood at 65, and 80 yards respectively. But the third farm I hunted with a different buddy just 5 miles further west of the other two, I saw probably 20 plus deer over the span of half a dozen hunts. That`s how it goes. There`s so much that plays into deer movement, and deer sightings, it`s difficult to compare one hunt to the next, much less one season to the next.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Willie]

Interesting reading all the comments here. Pretty typical from what I read and hear elsewhere too. Some complaining because someone killed two "small" does, much like the "serious" hunters bust chops when someone kills a buck they think shouldn`t have been taken. I learned a long time ago that what each of us kills is very personal, and it doesn`t have to suit me, so long as it`s a legal, ethical hunt. And some seeing more deer than usual, some less, most, probably about the same as every season. EHD takes a toll, and that`s usually in small pockets, and it seems to move acound the state, with a few areas seemingly more prone to be hit by it. Just as an aside, I`ve heard the rumors that get spread around as fact, like one guy said he was "told", that there were 50 to 60 deer found dead by different parts of Big Walnut in west central Indiana. The wildlife biologist I spoke with said as far as they could tell, that`s just one more rumor, but to encourage everyone to report finding like that, so the DNR can investigate and document it. I hunted 3 small farms, all in Putnam County. Two of the smallest farms in eastern Putnam had good sign, but the only deer I saw were the two my buddy killed opening morning of firearms with his 30.06, which dropped where they stood at 65, and 80 yards respectively. But the third farm I hunted with a different buddy just 5 miles further west of the other two, I saw probably 20 plus deer over the span of half a dozen hunts. That`s how it goes. There`s so much that plays into deer movement, and deer sightings, it`s difficult to compare one hunt to the next, much less one season to the next.

Just my 2 cents.

Agree 110%.....

 

[miguel]

Where did you get the numbers? Are they available by county?

 

[BigMatt]

I can't figure out why last year us Hoosiers had our chests puffed out because a magazine rated us #2 in quality of our deer herd. Here we are, one year later complaining about the deer numbers being down.