Whitetail doe season... is it time to take end it?

[dana]

In the south of region 3 where I spend the majority of my time in the bush, either hunting or working, WT numbers are doing very well, but so are MD. I can't say the same about the northern parts of region 3 though, barely any deer at all, but moose numbers seem fine. Maybe they need to re-draw the regional boundaries and manage accordingly.

ugh, umm, geeze you just made me spit my coffee out and i almost died chocking. Moose numbers fine in Northern Region 3? Did I just read that? Sorry, still coughing and chocking on my coffee.

[blacklab]

In the south of region 3 where I spend the majority of my time in the bush, either hunting or working, WT numbers are doing very well, but so are MD. I can't say the same about the northern parts of region 3 though, barely any deer at all, but moose numbers seem fine. Maybe they need to re-draw the regional boundaries and manage accordingly.

Good Moose numbers? Why then are they cutting the season from 41 days to 15 in 3-39?

[HarryToolips]

Blacklab,
Just because you mentioned it and I got PM from another member, lets talk about bears. Another predator on the list that is having a huge impact on our fawn mortality. When you bear hunt all spring long, you begin to notice something every year. You can see bear after bear after bear without even trying and then like clock work every year they suddenly disappear for pretty much an entire week. You might find the odd young bear, but mature bears just fall off the planet for a week. Hmmm, I wonder where they go? Hmmm, funny how the timing just so happens to be when the does are dropping their fawns. Protein is on their menu and they hit the timber and start hunting. The data that just came out of an Alaska study with bears (both blacks and grizz) wearing gopros shows some staggering numbers of calf mortality in moose and caribou. Bears were always known to kill newborns, but the gopro data blew everyone away. It was always hard to guess a number in the past as the newborns are ate quickly with no evidence left behind. Now the gopro data has turned those guesses into real factual numbers and the reality of how big a threat bears are to ungulates is very high. Have we applied this new science to how we manage here? Do we crunch our numbers differently now? With soooo much going against or deer herds when it comes to wolves, bears, cougars and coyotes, we still think having an GOS on whitetail does with a baglimit of 2 is a good thing?

I remember before you left the site a while back, you had pics of your kids with wt does etc, and we're encouraging a wt doe harvest, because of concern for mule deer...I mean no offence, just wondering what changed??? And I hear ya about the bears, that's why I believe every hunter should be hunting black bear, and the springtime it's such a fun hunt, and good meat for sausage too....

[HarryToolips]

The Harvest Data is where the problem lays, nobody really knows. Does get whacked steady for 60 days of our GOS., and with the high predation and lack of habitat, harvest numbers will keep declining. Deer aren't like fish,
we can't fly over and dump a bunch out of a bag to restock the mountains. Your attitude on WT being the last critter of concern is shard by many Resident Hunters, that's the problem. Heck we even increased the Regional
allowable harvest to keep the pressure on them. Like I said Managing To Zero.
Maybe someone should look back at the history of all the increased Opportunities within the Resolution Process, I bet there's a common thread and a small group of individuals involved.

I see the same amount of wt now in reg8 as when they started the doe season in 2010, and Ariel counts by the MOE are showing the same....are you not seeing the same, or have you not changed your tactics??? What are your trail cams telling you??

[HarryToolips]

Here is what FD posted.
That would be total whitetails I presume. So you are telling me less than 300 of 1080 are does? That hunters are harvesting close to 800 whitetail bucks in Region 3? That is a hard one to believe.

Why is that hard to believe?? You have the sept harvest of any wt buck, before they really get acclimatized to the pressure, then you have wt buck harvest in reg3 right through to and including the rut up til dec 10th....don't know about you, but everywhere I go, I still see a lot more wt does than bucks....like they said: that harvest is menial....

[HarryToolips]

Harvest numbers are increasing because hunters have been convinced white tail are a trash species.
Go back a couple of years and read some of your own posts.
Hunters who would not have taken a doe or fawn, now think they're helping save the world.
How much time have you spent in region 3, in areas with little or no private land.
You are always beating the drum that there isn't enough money to do counts or surveys, yet you claim white tail numbers are increasing, where did this data come from and who payed the bill?

And what %% of hunters, can honestly say they're good at hunting whitetail?? I think we need to focus on bigger issues folks..Can anybody tell me this: have whitetails expanded their range in reg3 in the last say, 10 years??? I think we know that answer....

[HarryToolips]

In the south of region 3 where I spend the majority of my time in the bush, either hunting or working, WT numbers are doing very well, but so are MD. I can't say the same about the northern parts of region 3 though, barely any deer at all, but moose numbers seem fine. Maybe they need to re-draw the regional boundaries and manage accordingly.

Same with what I see...everybody says why do we have a 2 antlerless wt bag limit, where are they, they're unicorns, then I go in the bush and they're all over the place...can't say the same for north reg3 like you, maybe the preds really are hammering them down, maybe they'll have to adjust accordingly dunno...hope they knock some wolves down, and I hope we don't have the same wolf expansion down here..

[dana]

I remember before you left the site a while back, you had pics of your kids with wt does etc, and we're encouraging a wt doe harvest, because of concern for mule deer...I mean no offence, just wondering what changed??? And I hear ya about the bears, that's why I believe every hunter should be hunting black bear, and the springtime it's such a fun hunt, and good meat for sausage too....

What changed? Hmmm, scourched earth policy does not work! Seen it first hand, moose lost to save caribou. Mule deer lost to save caribou. Now whitetails are truly suckholing to save mule deer. All the while the answer is smack dab in front of our face and no one wants to go there. I was mislead that killing whitetails would help. Lots of misinfo has been promoted and I am still sorting out fact from fiction. We were told the moose numbers could handle it. And where did that get us. FD preached the science for years. The way we manage moose in BC was untouchable around the world. Everyone looked to us as leaders. Hmmm, how'd that work out for us? He bragged up that calf season as unfailable! So, with a track history like that, do you think I am to beleive him this time when it comes to whitetails?

[Stillhunting]

Good Moose numbers? Why then are they cutting the season from 41 days to 15 in 3-39?

Because of whiny NIMBY hunters complaining about too much pressure. Same old story, quads pounding every road and any other area they can get too, but still plenty of moose in less accessible areas. Do you think a spike-fork season really impacts moose populations? Pathetic amount of deer sign up there though, but it's been like that for years.

[HighCountryBC]

I see the same amount of wt now in reg8 as when they started the doe season in 2010, and Ariel counts by the MOE are showing the same....are you not seeing the same, or have you not changed your tactics??? What are your trail cams telling you??

When they stop counting whitetails within the first 15 minutes of the flight because there are so many that it is hard to keep up, that should say something to people. Unfortunately, some can't let go of the coffee shop bs. The fact that there is almost 400 posts on a thread concerning a species' that can withstand the most liberal of seasons and still maintain/increase their populations makes me bang my head against the wall.