Submitted mine. My biggest concern is the split season. I absolutely hated it when it was in place before even with MZ allowed. In some areas this time corresponds with the rut.
TWRA seeks input on Changes to seasons
- Thread starter Methane
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Exactly. That was probably their dumbest idea.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Gotcha
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I'm not so sure we can/can't say it hasn't had an effect (yet). We would need several years to trend data.
Total Antlered Harvest (Henderson County)
2021-22: 760
2022-23: 1095 (With Earn-a-Buck)
Either way, I think the real impact is that 2nd tag, not the 3rd one.
Without earn-a-buck, punching that 2nd tag is a very selective process. Your season is done after you pull the trigger.
With it, it just means you have to kill a doe to get another tag.
The whole purpose of the Earn-a-buck is to promote more testing and to reduce the adult male deer population, right?
If it won't have an impact on population, then why are they promoting it.
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In Unit CWD, you can earn an extra (and unlimited) number of additional buck tags by killing and testing one antlerless deer per tag.
We had earn a buck in 2021. Look at several years before. The ratio of bucks to does hasn't changed much.
Look at areas outside of CWD zone and you'll see a comparable increase. 2022 was a great year for everybody.
Look at the last several years
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Alright, good point @TX300mag .... nerd time.
I looked at data going back to 2019 season for 4 counties (Henderson, Madison, Gibson, Crockett, referred to as HMGC). I don't have the time to pull in all of unit CWD, and would exclude Fayette and Hardeman either way since they are actually high prevalence. There are 12 total core counties in unit CWD. HMGC are similar boundary counties with low levels of reported CWD cases.
Specifically, I wanted to see if the % of antlered bucks harvested in HMGC is changing as compared to the statewide totals.
In 2019, HMGC accounted for 4.1% of the total statewide antlered deer harvest. The 3 year average from 2019-2021 was 4.19%
Last year, the % of bucks harvested accounted for in HMGC was 4.6% (3,812 antlered bucks vs 87,373)
This extra ~0.5% accounts for almost 500 more antlered bucks harvested in these 4 counties last year over expected trends.
Extrapolating this out, you can roughly assume an extra 1500 antlered bucks across unit CWD last year over prior year trends.
You can also see that the % is increasing across all 4 counties individually.
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These might not seem like a lot, but at an individual level its significant % increase.
21.2% increase for Henderson
4.2% Increase in Madison
11.8% Increase in Gibson
28.6% Increase in Crockett
(Year over year change in % of total statewide harvest)
Kirk
Well-Known Member
Submitted my opinions.
Yep totally against splitting the season hate seeing muzzleloader basically done away with
I am still pissed..lol.
1) Limited vacation days and long work commutes makes some people have to utilize the weekends and holidays more than others.
2) TN weather is up and down in November and it does effect deer movement. Possibly some of the best days the season might not be open. That would just depend on the weather that no one can control.
3) And the biggest...I didn't spend money on a food plot and work my butt off on the property to not be allowed to hunt on some of the best rut and post rut days there are (depending on when Thanksgiving falls).
1) Limited vacation days and long work commutes makes some people have to utilize the weekends and holidays more than others.
2) TN weather is up and down in November and it does effect deer movement. Possibly some of the best days the season might not be open. That would just depend on the weather that no one can control.
3) And the biggest...I didn't spend money on a food plot and work my butt off on the property to not be allowed to hunt on some of the best rut and post rut days there are (depending on when Thanksgiving falls).
Correct. The flipside is there are a good many hunters like myself who start the season "in Unit CWD" with 3 antlered tags, kill 5-6 does, submit them for testing, earn those 5-6 antlered tags, and close out the season without killing a buck. Essentially I'll have 6-9 buck tags this year and may not use the first one, just like last year. I killed 5 does last season, zero bucks. Also, the earned antlered tags are only good for Unit CWD, not Unit L, Unit A, etc.
I mean I won't shoot anymore than 3-5 per year as I butcher them and it is all we need. I would be fine with like 5-6 doe tags, so if I don't get a bigger buck (hardly ever do) then I can shoot 3-5 and if I eat a tag I eat it, or maybe I find someone that wants one and I give them one.
I don't see a split... Am I missing something? they said Archery starts normal, and ML would be first or second Saturday of November and Gun would start Saturday before Thanksgiving, which is when it starts now. I didn't see any split, but I was sure to say just leave the seasons alone.
There's a proposal to add some archery time in December.
They listed a dumbass proposal to run the gun season a few days and then close it about a week and then reopen. The "thought" was that it would give a second opening day effect and let processors catch up. It obviously didn't matter to the FOCUS group that they were closing it to gun at the peak hunting time for a bunch of folks.
How about getting rid of " cwd high risks areas "either its cwd or its not !!!
About 30 minutes into the video he starts talking about it. Open gun season on Saturday before Thanksgiving and close it the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Then bow only open for 12 days then reopen gun. I am mad again lol
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Processors catch up? Who cares? Hire more workers!
