|
Post by old3arrows on Oct 25, 2005 10:47:42 GMT -5
I spend a lot of time scouting and hunting in Madison County, and I sure don't see the numbers of deer that would support four bonus county does to be harvested. The days are gone when you could see small herds of deer together, or three or four bucks running in bachelor herds prior to the rut. I've talked to the local CO, and he says the same thing and gives his input to the state, but I guess it falls on deaf ears. As far as car / deer collisions are concerned, where are they? A major hot spot was SR-9 and SR-128, but after the stop light was installed it pretty much took care of the problem. I never see deer hit on SR-9 or SR-28, and I don't know about SR-32 because I do not travel it enough. I see a few deer hit each year on SR-37, but on the Hamilton County side down by the furniture store or the SR-213 exit. Interstate 69 pretty much traces the Madison / Delaware County border, so if it's a problem why lump it on to Madison County as the cause. I guess what I'm asking for is someone from the state to explain to me why such liberal bag limits when the total county harvest runs about 500 deer per year. I'm not seeing a herd that huge in Madison County are you guys?
|
|
|
Post by cambygsp on Oct 25, 2005 12:14:44 GMT -5
My opinion would be that the biologist is getting LOTS of pressure from farmers and insurance companies. I certianitly don't think it's a habitat issue, there is plenty of food and cover in that area!
|
|
|
Post by duff on Oct 25, 2005 13:57:07 GMT -5
Say it ain't so, you don't think we live in a deer mecca??? Yea, I agree 4 bonus tags is pretty insane. I would disagree Camby. Cover/habitat is the limiting factor for Madison Co. Small woodlots is all we have except for the major drainages of White River and its tribs we have really no good habitat. If it were not for the White River and Pipe Creek and Fall Creek Madison Co would rival Tipton for last place. It is pretty funny a few yrs ago we had 2 or 3 bonus tags available and counties like Kosciusco was an "A". Just a little messed up IMO. I really don't see the numbers of deer I used to see 8-10 yrs ago. Several things to cause this I guess but I always figured it was due to different land owners on adjacent land that limit hunting now. Used to be anyone who drove by could hunt one side and the other was owned by a guy I went to school with and he and about 8 others were always pushing deer over to me. Now only 1 other guy hunts on the one place and no one on the other so the deer are more natural.
|
|
|
Post by Indyhunter on Oct 26, 2005 12:32:55 GMT -5
I dont see it either Duff. I know of some pockets in the county that are full of deer, but that is because a farmer doesn't allow hunting and they are bordered by neighborhoods etc. Certainly isn't a county wide problem. They could allow 40 in our County and it still wouldn't matter or change the harvest figures. There is simply no where to hunt them.
|
|
|
Post by camoham on Oct 27, 2005 9:15:40 GMT -5
most biologists are out of touch with any given area.................
not enough time or money...................(this would be my guess)
i would suggest regularly emailing the IDNR with any concerns..........or observances that you have.
i have voiced my concerns in the past and they seem to be really receptive to input.
camoham
|
|
|
Post by Woody Williams on Oct 27, 2005 9:44:32 GMT -5
This is a report put out by our state deer biologist Dr. Jim Mitchell. It explains the procedure in determining the number of bonus tags in a given county.
From what I have gathered it is not just the number of deer in a given county, but also how much hunting pressure that particular county gets.
INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
Bloomington
DEPARTMENT MEMORANDUM DATE: 2/22/01
TO: Fish & Wildlife Personnel, Law Enforcement Personnel, Deer Management Biologist.
FROM: Jim Mitchell
SUBJECT: Interpretation of County Deer Data Statistical Sheets
I have been asked to provide a few comments about how I look at the available deer data when trying to predict: 1. what has been happening to a county’s deer herd and 2. what will likely be the effect of choosing different bonus county quota options.
We should first recognize that we have several semi independent indicators of the trend of each county’s deer herd that will often will lead to conflicting predictions. Thus the trick is to decide how to best resolve the conflicts or to decide which indicator to ignore when they offer substantially different predictions. It is relatively rare when every piece of data agrees as to the trend of the herd. Additionally any prediction in population trend is only as good as the assumption that conditions of data collection are constant. For example, we assume that misrepresentation of county of harvest is a small constant percent relative to the total harvest for the county. If differences in quotas through time (1 vs A vs 3) cause misrepresentation of county of kill to vary widely, then bad data will lead to bad predictions. Likewise if a check station doesn’t send in data for 1 year or writes down the wrong county for a week etc, bad data will cause bad predictions.
The first data that I look at is the trend in the antlered harvest. Since we have relatively constant numbers of hunters and relatively constant rules on antlered harvest, as a 1st approximation the trend in antlered harvest should parallel the trend in deer population. Since very few hunters ever took more than 1 antlered deer with a bow and 1 with a gun, the change in these regulations in the mid 90's really had no effect on whether harvest trends parallel population trends. (Hunter surveys have shown that only 10% of our hunters take more than 2 deer per year including all seasons and both sexes. Since approximately 65% of the harvest is antlerless, most of these hunters taking multiple deer are taking a combination of antlered and antlerless deer.)
The next thing that I look at is whether there has been a substantial change in the number of antlerless deer taken per year. Each year we find that approximately 27% of the antlerless take is comprised of button bucks (round to 25% for ease of calculations). Thus if a county takes 100 antlerless deer in 1990 that means that approximately 25 males were removed and were unavailable to show up in the antlered harvest in 1991. Let’s assume that the population remains constant but we change the bonus quota and instead allow 600 antlerless deer to be taken in 1990. Then approximately 150 males were removed and are unavailable to show up in the 1991 antlered harvest. The bucks were merely taken at different ages. Thus if the county has widely varying antlerless harvest, I consider a modified antlered trend that is created by adding 25% of the previous year’s antlerless harvest to the current antlered harvest. Unless the antlerless harvest varies widely, I ignore the impact of antlerless harvest on subsequent antlered harvest.
The next issue is how any change in antlerless harvest relates to changes in bonus permit quotas. A change in antlerless harvest under a constant bonus quota would be indicative of a change in population. However, a change in quota will confound the correlation of a change in antlerless harvest to a change in population trend. As we try to sort out the impact of changing quotas, we need to keep in mind that for a constant deer population, changing from an A to a 1 has a significant impact on antlerless harvest (generally will increase harvest by 2 to 3 times) while changing from 1 to 2 will have a much smaller impact and changing from 3 to 4 will have a very small impact. The decreasing effect of higher quotas is predictable from the low numbers of hunters who take multiple deer as discussed above. In general, changes in antlerless harvest are the hardest data to interpret unless the quota has been constant for several years. Obviously changing from an A to a 0 would have the biggest effect on antlerless harvest of any quota change and eliminating any antlerless harvest in the firearm season will lead to rapid herd growth. Such an extreme change in quota should be reserved for a unique situation where disease or other factor requires a major rapid increase in herd size.
Trends in accident rates, accidents per billion vehicle miles and number of damage reports generally parallel the trend of the deer population and are especially useful in evaluating the population trend since these indicators are independent of the hunting regulations / hunting conditions.
The percent antlerless in the harvest generally indicates how much pressure we are putting on the antlerless herd and thus is an indicator of whether the herd can be expected to grow. While a given percent antlerless would have a different effect in counties or states with greatly different pressure on the antlered deer, for the amount of pressure that we are putting on our bucks we find that 60% antlerless generally is the breaking point between growing or declining herds. If the % antlerless increases 5 or more % above 60%, our herds generally decline rapidly while if the % antlerless harvest declines 5 or more % below 60% our herds generally grow.
The percent 1.5 yr old males in the harvest is blank for a given year unless at least 15 1.5 yr old males were checked for the county at biological check stations that year. If the percent (not number) of 1.5 yr olds shows a significant decline for a single year, that most probably is the result of a declining herd due to high antlerless harvest (remember the 27% button bucks). The way this works is that we still have a relatively large number of older bucks due to the previously high herd but have low recruitment of 1.5 year olds due to the decreasing herd and due to the high antlerless harvest. Retention of older bucks coupled with the lack of recruitment of young bucks causes the % young bucks to decline. This is an important additional indicator of population trend! On the other hand, if we are simply merely putting a lot of pressure on the bucks, then few will live beyond 1.5 years. In this case the % 1.5 yr olds will increase and remain high through time.
After we look at all of the above, we then can estimate whether the herd is growing or not and where it stands relative to the previous 10 years. Then we turn to deciding whether to increase or decrease the antlerless harvest. As indicated above, a change to or from an "A" will significantly change the number of antlerless deer taken while any other change will have a much smaller effect. Regardless of the absolute deer population, if we want to increase antlerless harvest we need to liberalize the quota and vice versa. Thus the quota is primarily related to where people want to hunt (hunting demand) and secondarily related to where the herd is relative to desired level. We have counties with large herds and high hunting demand that have a low quota and vice versa.
Finally we need to keep in mind that rapidly fluctuating quotas make harvest data interpretation difficult and are not popular with the public. When in doubt, make changes progressive through time. The desire to avoid rapid large changes in quota also applies when considering setting a county quota at 0 which would need to be balanced by a much higher quota in a short time after the herd significantly grows.
The last 2 data sets to check your recommendation against are landowner and hunter attitude data. Keep in mind that we are trying to balance the herd so that both sides win something and neither side is sacrificed for the other’s desires.
|
|
|
Post by old3arrows on Oct 27, 2005 23:46:09 GMT -5
Woody that Mitchell fella just tried to dazzle me with a whole lot of BS that I read from your posted article. In this thread I was talking about Madison County only. I also spend a lot of time in Jefferson County, and it's like two different worlds. Very few deer seen and harvested in Madison vs. a lot of deer seen and harvested in Jefferson. We are kind of stuck up here in a bad situation that the IDNR adjusting quotas is not going to fix. The main problem we have is lack of access to private ground and there is zero public ground in Madison County to hunt, most guys travel out to Mississinewa, Salamonie, or Hoosier National Forest. A lot of the farm ground is controlled by a small number of big corporations that do not allow access. One of the biggest in our area makes it a habit to bulldoze every fence row and small woodlot. I personally witnessed close to ten miles get torn out last winter. Up here the deer use these areas for cover and travel. They are destroying tons of habitat for birds, small game, and deer. What can you say? They own the ground, and it's theirs to do with as they please. On the flip side, I have a friend who bought 20 bare acres planted in beans, and converted it in to a weed patch for rabbits so he can have a place to run his dogs. The farmers around him went nuts for doing, going as far as calling the state on him for Canadian thistle that was inside the fenced borders of his property and not along the edges of their fields. Every little wood lot we used to bunny or deer hunt, now has a house in it, so the game has no where to go after the fields are out. Hunting just flat out stinks up here, and is the same in Hamilton and Tipton Counties. Mitchell's county harvest numbers are off, but it's not his fault, because a lot of deer are not checked in. I would guess up wards of 30% off. I don't know how they come up with numbers of button bucks, 1 1/2 year old bucks, etc. harvested because all I've ever been asked at a check station is buck or doe. I have never seen a CO or biologist age a deer. I used to live right next door to a check station, and they never did a breakdown by age. My personal solution to the problem is to buy my own parcel of ground to deer hunt, and then by a small patch up here close to home to grow weeds, briars, and thistles on for the bunnies and let the farmers go ahead and complain, after all if I own it I can grow what I want to on it.
|
|
|
Post by Woody Williams on Oct 28, 2005 7:57:29 GMT -5
old3arrows,
It sure sounds like you guys have got a tough row to hoe.
Not sure what teh answer is to "development" short of buying our own places and managing the way want to.
Good luck..
|
|
|
Post by duff on Oct 28, 2005 10:00:55 GMT -5
Old3arrows, I had my first deer checked and aged last opening day of gun. I took it to Marsh's to check in and the DNR guy was there. I am sure they try to hit the big check stations. Marsh's gets a lot of traffic opening weekend.
You are dead on with everything else.
|
|
|
Post by bsutravis on Oct 29, 2005 7:44:01 GMT -5
I agree Old3arrows.... I live in Hamilton Co., inside the city limits of Noblesville. I cannot even shoot my bow in my backyard because of a city ordinanace banning the shooting of dangerous projectiles. With that ordinance in place, you cannot even shoot deer if you did have a place to hunt! Noblesville still has a few wood lot areas that could be hunted, but you can't even do that because of blanket laws that do nothing but screw the hunters. Oh yeah, in Noblesville you cannot have your deer carcass in plain sight.........that means you can get a ticket if it's in transit to your house and someone can see it in your truck bed, or if you hang it in your yard for self-butchering you can get a ticket. Totally crazy IMO.
|
|
|
Post by Decatur on Nov 22, 2005 8:52:35 GMT -5
I agree Old3arrows.... I live in Hamilton Co., inside the city limits of Noblesville. I cannot even shoot my bow in my backyard because of a city ordinanace banning the shooting of dangerous projectiles. With that ordinance in place, you cannot even shoot deer if you did have a place to hunt! Noblesville still has a few wood lot areas that could be hunted, but you can't even do that because of blanket laws that do nothing but screw the hunters. Oh yeah, in Noblesville you cannot have your deer carcass in plain sight.........that means you can get a ticket if it's in transit to your house and someone can see it in your truck bed, or if you hang it in your yard for self-butchering you can get a ticket. Totally crazy IMO. That is just NUTS!
|
|
|
Post by Indyhunter on Nov 22, 2005 20:17:20 GMT -5
I live in Hamilton Co., inside the city limits of Noblesville. I cannot even shoot my bow in my backyard because of a city ordinanace banning the shooting of dangerous projectiles. quote] That must be why all the big fake breasted women stay in Carmel, some of those are definitely dangerous projectiles.
|
|
|
Post by swat1018 on Jul 1, 2006 22:46:23 GMT -5
I'm on the Sheriff's Dept. in Madison County, there are still Car/Deer crashes, but not to the extend 8-9 years ago.
|
|
|
Post by old3arrows on Jul 4, 2006 19:12:48 GMT -5
Hey swat1018! Did you help me round up 17 head of black angus cattle two Mondays ago on 500 north at 7:00 am? I'm still questioning ownership over free ranging beef! I don't see what it would of hurt to claim at least one for the freezer, then I wouldn't have to worry about shooting deer in Madison County!
|
|
|
Post by jcceadotcom on Jul 10, 2006 18:51:25 GMT -5
A major hot spot was SR-9 and SR-128, but after the stop light was installed it pretty much took care of the problem. So how'd they get the deer to obey the stoplight? From what I've seen; you could raise the number of antlerless tags to 20 and not see a huge jump in the number of does taken. Most people will only take one doe... maybe two.
|
|
|
Post by Woody Williams on Jul 10, 2006 18:55:23 GMT -5
BINGO!!
|
|
|
Post by duff on Jul 14, 2006 21:31:31 GMT -5
Well in east central Indiana (Madison, Deleware at least) there is not nearly as many deer as there were 10 yrs ago. It is even more apparent since I have been spending more time in west central Indiana. The difference is huge. For what ever reason, and Madison county was still a bonus 4 county last 2 yrs.
|
|
|
Post by reloader on Jul 16, 2006 10:10:09 GMT -5
They are out of touch in Henry Co. too!This is a '3' county and shouldnt be. I used to see lots of deer,now its rare{daytime sightings in field egdes ] & years ago I witnessed 80 + in 1 field near I-70 and SR 109,but no more.there was enough food then ,But they act like now we need to get the population to land carrying capacity,and that'll mean bigger bucks,but that means fewer bucks too,big bucks grew anyways.Ive always seen them.The OBR has let some more grow,I hope it continues.
|
|
|
Post by jrbhunter on Jul 16, 2006 18:20:42 GMT -5
Our deer hurd is in good hands with All State.
|
|
|
Post by terrynlewis on Nov 1, 2006 0:59:14 GMT -5
Its been my experience that if no one shows up to the dnr meetings, when they ask for imput county by county. Most county's are not represented. It sometimes only takes one person to make a difference. I hunt the area on the corner of st rd 128 and st rd 9 the deer are still there. Not quite the numbers I've seen 5 years ago. I haven't taken a deer in 4 years. But a number have been taken by GM,Ford and Dodge. I've been called for a roadkill at least twice a year over the last 4 years. The area north of Alexandria on state rd 9 has alot of roadkilled deer. But I agree that 4 deer is to high on the herd we have in the county. 1 or 2 would be more realistic. I have alot of contact with the farmers in the are and the sherrif's dept. I'm not aware of any great deprevation conserns or increase of car deer accidents in the county.
|
|