IWDHM

I understand what they are trying to do, and commend them for it. But, they are blaming bonus county antlerless tags when they aren't the problem. Heck, I live in an "8" county and we are overrun with deer. I see deer daily, and a friend just posted a photo of a large group in front of her house yesterday. Yet, I would be willing to bet that if they get a CDAC created, there will be people in my county crying around that there are no deer here. LOL! I've seen too many times where two hunters can be 200 yards apart and one be covered up with deer while the other sees none.

I think bigger problems are predation by coyotes and bobcats, habitat loss, the prevalence of food plots drawing deer AWAY from areas that used to hold many, and simply tracts that allow no hunting that create sanctuaries.

All I've heard for months is how they wish to reduce the bonus antlerless permits....

Ohio did that very thing and the harvest actually went up...The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says hunters checked 188,335 white-tailed deer dating back to the opening of archery season in the fall. That’s up from the 175,745 deer checked during the 2014-2015 season.

The increase came even as the state lowered bag limits and eliminated antlerless permit use in most counties.

wkbn.com/2016/02/09/ohio-deer-hunters-increase-take-over-last-season/

And if bonus antlerless permits are cut significantly in Indiana, how is that revenue going to be replaced? Are they going to push for higher tag prices?

It's easy to say..."we want to protect the herd for future generations". Who doesn't want that? But without addressing specific issues that are being raised with realistic answers, then statements such as those ring as hollow as all the promises being made by everyone from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders....

And now that the the IWDHM has secured a place on the committee, it's time to deliver specific answers/solutions to their broad based, loosely structured charges.

It's just that simple.....

Who are the elitists? Who do you feel that the dnr and legislature has "lost all respect for"?

In other words....care to elaborate on your post?

We all know who they are, they are usually the ones feeling guilty. Why shut the thread down by using specific names.

In theory the CDAC is a great thing, more dialogue between hunters and the DNR is a great thing....however as some have eluded to how do you weigh and measure opinions and emotional responses from hunters to these county leaders?

What makes say 20 hunters in a county that feel herd is decimated more valuable than 12 that say it is just fine with 15 saying they don't know?
Do you assign a point value system to weigh each response?
Do hunters have to state how many hours they hunted that year and assign a grade or value to their response (weighting?)?
What qualifies someone to be the CDAC rep for a county?
What qualifies a hunters response as valid?

Do you take the hard harvest data numbers and assign a weight then somehow mesh it with hunter thoughts collected from those that chose to reach out to the CDAC and attempt to develop the next year's bonus quotas for a county? Seems like an awful large operation to control a facet (bonus antlerless tags) of the harvest totals that is what % of the overall harvest?

I don't know...myself like I said I support more dialogue and communication with the DNR from hunters...I just struggle with how you would even begin to weigh and measure "opinion and emotional responses".

A personal example would be a 70 acre farm I hunt...right up until gun season (I can only bow hunt it) I had deer everywhere...shot my buck about a week and a half before gun season and a doe days prior to it. The firearm hunters claimed they saw next to nothing...and are worried for the herd. Neither of us are wrong...whose opinion gets assigned a greater weight? No good answer there at all IMO.

In areas that see hunting pressure, the deer just adjust their habits so they move when people aren't around, i.e. nighttime; depending on the level of hunting pressure. I've seen this time and time again via trail cam.

So to me, this "not seeing deer" could actually be "not seeing deer during legal hunting hours".

Very true. The deer have to be using the property too.

One place I hunt, is basically a travel route between a sanctuary and farm fields. It is 80 acres in size, and mature woods, not much undergrowth, so deer don't prefer to make it a bedding area. Deer there will move through the area well before dark, and feed on mast when it's on the ground. Any hunting pressure will make them change their habits to moving later in the day from the sanctuary or earlier in the morning back to it.

What fun would it be if we could kill a deer anytime we walked into the woods? I've got very good deer numbers in my area, but I may hunt 10 times to see a deer. I laugh when I see posts (not yours) saying I used to see 20 deer in a sit, now I only see 5-10. Heck, I consider 1 deer a sit to be phenomenal!

Hunters have become spoiled, and many would cry themselves to sleep if they had to hunt a 1970's herd. As a youngster in the 70's, I remember how big a deal it was if my family saw a deer while driving around the countryside. Yet real hunters got it done with a way smaller herd. Today's herd size was nothing but a dream back then.

Having deer hunted since 1968 I have seen it all.. Famine and feast.. Multiple times ..

As far as the number of deer being seen while hunting this past season was as good,if not better, than most.

Approximately 36 trips to the stand, saw anywhere from one to nine deer a sit except twice when I did but see a deer.

I had to scratch my head and say WHAT when one poster on FaceBook said he used to see 20 deer a sit and now he's lucky to see 20 deer all day!

My first year of deer hunting I saw 6 deer all season. Yep, some modern day deer hunters would have quit real quick back then..