Is there a problem

[caretaker]

I have not posted here in probably a year or so. Mainly because of the self appointed know it all arm chair biologist on this site but I am going to toss y`all a bone. I posted this Ask TWRA section. I wonder what the response will be. Any way thought I`d give the know it alls a chance to respond as well.

Is there a problem with the health / numbers of the heard in Unit A thru Z except for Unit L? Unit seems to have an over abundance of doe/anterless and is being addressed with a couple of weeks of doe / anterless hunting weeks at the end of the season for private land owners. While in the eastern half of the state the TFWC / TWRA decided to break down Unit B into sub units C - Z restricting anterless / doe harvest. They also did away with anterless harvest per county within Unit A and B. Also a two doe / anterless limit has been placed on juvinile hunters on juvi hunts. Last season a two buck limit was imposed and everyone jumped on the trophy hunter agenda either for or against. When these new restrictions were passed a lot of us thought uh-o more trophy hunter agenda but I am not buying into that. I want to know flat out is there a problem with the numbers/ health of the heard in Unit A - Z except for Unit L. Is that the reason for these restrictions. Has the heard in Unit A and B been over harvested in the past and are we now playing catch up. Also if this is the case why not just come out and tell us Unit B and Unit A hunters up front.

 

[landman]

I'm not in A and B, all I know is what I see on
here so take it for that

It seems you see the same amount of hunters
complaining about not enough doe tags per hunter
as you do the hunters complaining about no
does to shoot.


As far as arm chair biologists, if you think about it
The main one making decisions is actually a more
Administrator than anything these days, bet they
have very few days in the field really working.
They have to depend on others work, I fell Chuck
has a better understanding and relationship with
his field staff than Daryl did, or carried to listen

So theirs my Chair report

 

[scn]

Welcome back, I've missed seeing your posts! As I told you in my TWRA answer, I wasn't at the meeting to hear any of the discussion concerning the creation of the new units, so I have no idea of the thought process behind it. And, I haven't seen a TWRA biologist post on here in a while. I don't know if the unit changes represents a feeling that they have gone too far in trying to open up antlerless opportunities in ETN, or if they wanted to be proactive before there was a problem.

Since ETN was my home, was where I spent about a third of my TWRA career, and where I killed my first deer, here are a few random thoughts for deer hunting up that way:

-I have officer friends that have told me that the liberalization of the antlerless muzzleloader regs was VERY bad for the Cherokee NF herd. With unlimited access, that herd, according to them, was really whacked. Coupled with the tree huggers preventing any or having at most greatly reduced logging, that herd may be down. IMO, the same unlimited access has very adversely impacted some WMAs in Unit L as well.

-There are pockets of good deer habitat in ETN. But, on the whole, the habitat in ETN doesn't come close to the deer habitat in middle and west TN.

-I'm not sure what the figures are today, but at one point you had almost 2/3 of the state's deer hunters living on approximately 1/3 of the total acreage of the state in ETN. And, the 1/3 of the acreage they live on is overall the poorest habitat in the state. With that type of pressure, it is VERY difficult to have much overall growth in the deer herd. It just does not have the reproductive potential that the Unit L counties have. That makes it imperative that the TWRA managers are MUCH more conservative with regulation liberalization than they would have to be in Unit L. If they make a mistake in ETN, the herd takes MUCH longer to recover than it would in Unit L. The early history of deer hunting in TN has examples of an ETN deer herd being severely over hunted where it took many years to recover.

-The average size of farms in ETN is much smaller than the remainder of the state. My experience is that the acres/hunter in ETN is much smaller than in middle and wtn. With that type of pressure on small farms, it doesn't give many farm managers the ability to limit the kill to what they think their farm should sustain, as their herd is likely using multiple other properties where they are being killed as well. That is different from the Unit L scenario where owners can at least somewhat tailor their harvest to meet their management needs.

-The Unit L antlerless concept has been one of the most misunderstood things that TWRA has tried to do with it's deer herd. The 3/day antlerless limit was not a signal that everyone hunting in a Unit L county needed to shoot any doe in sight. It was done to give people managing acreage in Unit L a tool to address their harvest goals. There was a realization that in a lot of cases, that hunter-managers were limited in the time they could hunt their properties. Many are weekend only. If they had a streak of bad weather on weekends where the deer just didn't move, it was difficult for them to meet their harvest goals with low daily antlerless limits. Thus, they were given the opportunity to harvest up to 3/day. Again, contrary to what some have thought, it was not a signal that they needed to be shooting 3 every time they went to their farm.

So, again, I'm sorry that I don't know the details behind the unit changes. Give John Mike or Dan Gibbs a call in the Region 4 office and they should be able to fill you in.

 

[PickettSFHunter]

I'm in Unit B and our antlerless opportunities were greatly expanded with changes.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[caretaker]

Steve ,thank you for your response. I had hoped you could clarify some of my concerns. I hunt a trac of land around 30 acres that is bordered by two bigger tracs on each side that do not allow hunting. The season before last we only took two deer and last season no deer were taken on the property. I only saw two deer crossing the property all season. A smaller trac a mile or so away showed no deer sign as well. I contributed this to a lack of acorns. I did this because another trac about 12 miles away had acorns and deer. Yet the new regulations got me to pondering so I thought I`d ask. Maybe I`m over think this. I hope so. Well, we will see what the new season brings.

 

[scn]

Steve ,thank you for your response. I had hoped you could clarify some of my concerns. I hunt a trac of land around 30 acres that is bordered by two bigger tracs on each side that do not allow hunting. The season before last we only took two deer and last season no deer were taken on the property. I only saw two deer crossing the property all season. A smaller trac a mile or so away showed no deer sign as well. I contributed this to a lack of acorns. I did this because another trac about 12 miles away had acorns and deer. Yet the new regulations got me to pondering so I thought I`d ask. Maybe I`m over think this. I hope so. Well, we will see what the new season brings.

I haven't heard of any major concerns up there outside of some of the unlimited access lands. I know historically that Region 4 biologists have learned to be on the conservative side in liberalizing regulations due to a super long recovery period if a mistake is made. I haven't paid that close of attention to the 2016 changes, but in my brief reading it looked like the antlerless opportunities may have been liberlaized for a lot of folks. That would not have been done if there were concerns that the herd was in bad shape.

 

[WORM82]

In my county we can only kill one doe in muzzleloader and one doe in rifle. The only change for me with the new units is that instead of a week in rifle to kill a doe we now have either 14 or 16 days. This is in Washington co and where I hunt we have only had deer in the area for maybe 8 or 10 years now and it seems the deer are leaving the mtns and the CNF and spreading into the more urban areas. Last year I walked a gated rd in the CNF for over a mile and never even seen a deer track or trail crossing the rd. they need to start logging again.

 

[csi-tech]

Last year there was a small outbreak of EHD in our Southern counties. So the deer in those localities were impacted. I had a lease in Giles County that was exploding with deer every year. More spikes, forkhorns, buttons and does than you could shake a stick at. On an average hunt I could count 20 different deer. On one day during any given season you would see a buck that would break 120". You would never, ever see anything bigger than 135".

Fast forward to today. The Giles lease was not renewed by the landowner. I am hunting our family farm that is surrounded by QDM property managers. In my current camera survey I see very few does, several 120" bucks and a couple that are 135" or better. There are bachelor groups of 2.5 and 3.5 and older bucks.

The point is, problems are localized. Opening day at my old lease sounded like D-Day. Spikes and buttons dropping like flies. Lots of deer, yes, quality deer? Very rarely. Here, the silence of opening day was only interrupted by the occasional, distant gunshot. That hunter, in all likelihood dropped a good buck.

 

[megalomaniac]

In general, deer populations are declining in all states in the south. Is it a sign of a problem or increased pressure on doe harvests? Nobody really knows.

The sky isn't falling, but state employed biologists have their eyebrows raised.