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Im smelling death

JCDEERMAN said:
2017 was bad on the plateau
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In my two hunting areas in Morgan/Scott counties we lost 2/3-3/4 of the herd. The herds are recovering albeit slowly. I have imposed a no doe shooting policy on myself.

The increase in bear, hog, and coyote populations are keeping our fawn recriutment low. I would like to see increased opportunities on bears.

The state in its infinite wisdom has kept the antlerless bag limits too high in our area. There should be no antlerless deer taken with a modern gun and maybe one allowed with a muzzleloader.

Protect the does and the herd will grow!
 
FTG-05 said:
Pretty bad right now:

20240917_south_date.png
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If you had a north wind, you could drop a match at the top of the Sequatchie Valley and it would burn to the Alabama line.

I nearly got stuck in dust the other day.
 
348Winchester said:
In my two hunting areas in Morgan/Scott counties we lost 2/3-3/4 of the herd. The herds are recovering albeit slowly. I have imposed a no doe shooting policy on myself.

The increase in bear, hog, and coyote populations are keeping our fawn recriutment low. I would like to see increased opportunities on bears.

The state in its infinite wisdom has kept the antlerless bag limits too high in our area. There should be no antlerless deer taken with a modern gun and maybe one allowed with a muzzleloader.

Protect the does and the herd will grow!
Click to expand...
You're exactly right. I'm sure someone from over around Knoxville or Nashville will correct you though 😂
 
PickettSFHunter said:
You're exactly right. I'm sure someone from over around Knoxville or Nashville will correct you though 😂
Click to expand...
Not necessarily! My situation is unique in that my place is directly adjacent to a Federal Refuge. This Refuge used to have two or three weekend quota hunts. It had a reputation for producing some huge bucks, so it was a very popular quota hunt to apply for. But because the big deer herd was eating all the crops grown on the Refuge to feed migratory birds, the managers decided to "lower" (i.e. decimate) the local deer herd. They implemented an Earn-A-Buck program where hunters had to kill an antlerless deer before they could take a buck. And because these were just weekend (actually, 3-day) quota hunts, hunters had to quickly kill their antlerless deer - any antlerless deer - so that meant does, fawns and sub-legal spike bucks were decimated so hunters could hunt for a big buck.

If this program wasn't bad enough, they started it in 2007, when our local herd was decimated by EHD. Within a few years, the deer herd on the Refuge was wiped out. What they didn't care about was all of the neighboring properties that also had their deer herds wiped out. Yet they continued the program for a full decade, ending after the 2017 season. Since then, does have been pretty off-limits on my place. If someone NEEDED a doe for meat, then fine, but as a general rule, our place became buck-only. And it still is. However, we are finally, 6 years later, seeing the doe population rebound. Normally, deer populations rebound fairly quickly (through increased fawn production) after a population is knocked down. However, ever since the 2007 EHD outbreak, fawn survival across the Southeast has been vastly reduced. We went from regularly seeing 75-120% fawn recruitment to 20-30%. This sudden greatly reduced fawn recruitment across the Southeast is still one of the great mysteries I have yet to decipher.

But keeping doe harvests low - while trying to rebuild a knocked-down deer herd in today's environment - is biologically sound.
 
BSK said:
Not necessarily! My situation is unique in that my place is directly adjacent to a Federal Refuge. This Refuge used to have two or three weekend quota hunts. It had a reputation for producing some huge bucks, so it was a very popular quota hunt to apply for. But because the big deer herd was eating all the crops grown on the Refuge to feed migratory birds, the managers decided to "lower" (i.e. decimate) the local deer herd. They implemented an Earn-A-Buck program where hunters had to kill an antlerless deer before they could take a buck. And because these were just weekend (actually, 3-day) quota hunts, hunters had to quickly kill their antlerless deer - any antlerless deer - so that meant does, fawns and sub-legal spike bucks were decimated so hunters could hunt for a big buck.

If this program wasn't bad enough, they started it in 2007, when our local herd was decimated by EHD. Within a few years, the deer herd on the Refuge was wiped out. What they didn't care about was all of the neighboring properties that also had their deer herds wiped out. Yet they continued the program for a full decade, ending after the 2017 season. Since then, does have been pretty off-limits on my place. If someone NEEDED a doe for meat, then fine, but as a general rule, our place became buck-only. And it still is. However, we are finally, 6 years later, seeing the doe population rebound. Normally, deer populations rebound fairly quickly (through increased fawn production) after a population is knocked down. However, ever since the 2007 EHD outbreak, fawn survival across the Southeast has been vastly reduced. We went from regularly seeing 75-120% fawn recruitment to 20-30%. This sudden greatly reduced fawn recruitment across the Southeast is still one of the great mysteries I have yet to decipher.

But keeping doe harvests low - while trying to rebuild a knocked-down deer herd in today's environment - is biologically sound.
Click to expand...
I really don't understand the generous doe bag limit in unit 6 where deer density is so low, especially in the south portion of the unit. At least doe harvest is limited in SCNF.
 
PickettSFHunter said:
You're exactly right. I'm sure someone from over around Knoxville or Nashville will correct you though 😂
Click to expand...
I would love to see an all out war waged on bears, pigs, and coyotes everywhere in TN outside the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and even in that national park, war should be waged on pigs & coyotes, neither of which are native to TN.

As to protecting the female deer more (than now) from hunter harvest?
No, generally speaking.
I believe even in East TN, all deer hunting should be "either-sex".

The human hunter harvest can be managed by annual bag limits x the number of hunting days.
If the deer population actually needs growing, then you have an annual limit of 1 buck & 1 doe, with or without a shorter deer season. Perhaps such is needed in much of East TN?

But get rid of the over-populated bear & pigs, and there will be better fawn recruitment.
Improve & make your habitat more diverse, you will have better fawn recruitment.
We will never get rid of coyotes, but you can minimize their predation on your deer by improving your habitat.

A robust, healthy deer herd is what I find most appealing to the most people.
Not too many, not too few, but super healthy.
And, with this great herd health, better fawning habitat, you minimize coyote predation,
even if you never trap or kill more coyotes.

You generally cannot have that great "herd health" with buck-only deer hunting.

Your mileage may vary.
 
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TheLBLman said:
I would love to see an all out war waged on bears, pigs, and coyotes everywhere in TN outside the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and even in that national park, war should be waged on pigs & coyotes, neither of which are native to TN.

As to protecting the female deer more (than now) from hunter harvest?
No, generally speaking.
I believe even in East TN, all deer hunting should be "either-sex".

The human hunter harvest can be managed by annual bag limits x the number of hunting days.
If the deer population actually needs growing, then you have an annual limit of 1 buck & 1 doe, with or without a shorter deer season. Perhaps such is needed in much of East TN?

But get rid of the over-populated bear & pigs, and there will be better fawn recruitment.
Improve & make your habitat more diverse, you will have better fawn recruitment.
We will never get rid of coyotes, but you can minimize their predation on your deer by improving your habitat.

A robust, healthy deer herd is what I find most appealing to the most people.
Not too many, not too few, but super healthy.
And, with this great herd health, better fawning habitat, you minimize coyote predation,
even if you never trap or kill more coyotes.

You generally cannot have that great "herd health" with buck-only deer hunting.

Your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...
I think its situational. The habitat/coyote issue is two sides of the same coin, at least in the mountains. We need more logging.
 
TheLBLman said:
I would love to see an all out war waged on bears, pigs, and coyotes everywhere in TN outside the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and even in that national park, war should be waged on pigs & coyotes, neither of which are native to TN.

As to protecting the female deer more (than now) from hunter harvest?
No, generally speaking.
I believe even in East TN, all deer hunting should be "either-sex".

The human hunter harvest can be managed by annual bag limits x the number of hunting days.
If the deer population actually needs growing, then you have an annual limit of 1 buck & 1 doe, with or without a shorter deer season. Perhaps such is needed in much of East TN?

But get rid of the over-populated bear & pigs, and there will be better fawn recruitment.
Improve & make your habitat more diverse, you will have better fawn recruitment.
We will never get rid of coyotes, but you can minimize their predation on your deer by improving your habitat.

A robust, healthy deer herd is what I find most appealing to the most people.
Not too many, not too few, but super healthy.
And, with this great herd health, better fawning habitat, you minimize coyote predation,
even if you never trap or kill more coyotes.

You generally cannot have that great "herd health" with buck-only deer hunting.

Your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...
I agree and that's why I was not advocating for buck only but reducing the antlerless opportunities. Cutting the arcery limit on antlerless to 2 and reducing it to 1 in muzzleloader while entirely eliminating it in gun season should help the deer herd on the upper Cumberland Plateau better recover.
 
BSK said:
Not necessarily! My situation is unique in that my place is directly adjacent to a Federal Refuge. This Refuge used to have two or three weekend quota hunts. It had a reputation for producing some huge bucks, so it was a very popular quota hunt to apply for. But because the big deer herd was eating all the crops grown on the Refuge to feed migratory birds, the managers decided to "lower" (i.e. decimate) the local deer herd. They implemented an Earn-A-Buck program where hunters had to kill an antlerless deer before they could take a buck. And because these were just weekend (actually, 3-day) quota hunts, hunters had to quickly kill their antlerless deer - any antlerless deer - so that meant does, fawns and sub-legal spike bucks were decimated so hunters could hunt for a big buck.

If this program wasn't bad enough, they started it in 2007, when our local herd was decimated by EHD. Within a few years, the deer herd on the Refuge was wiped out. What they didn't care about was all of the neighboring properties that also had their deer herds wiped out. Yet they continued the program for a full decade, ending after the 2017 season. Since then, does have been pretty off-limits on my place. If someone NEEDED a doe for meat, then fine, but as a general rule, our place became buck-only. And it still is. However, we are finally, 6 years later, seeing the doe population rebound. Normally, deer populations rebound fairly quickly (through increased fawn production) after a population is knocked down. However, ever since the 2007 EHD outbreak, fawn survival across the Southeast has been vastly reduced. We went from regularly seeing 75-120% fawn recruitment to 20-30%. This sudden greatly reduced fawn recruitment across the Southeast is still one of the great mysteries I have yet to decipher.

But keeping doe harvests low - while trying to rebuild a knocked-down deer herd in today's environment - is biologically sound.
Click to expand...
I was not aware that fawn survival rates were reduced by EHD but I can believe it. Combine that with an increase in predation and it will be very difficult for the herd to recover. We need reduced antlerless opportunities in the northern plateau counties of Campbell, Fentress, Morgan, Pickett, and Scott. The northwestern corner of Anderson County could qualify as well.
 
348Winchester said:
In my two hunting areas in Morgan/Scott counties we lost 2/3-3/4 of the herd. The herds are recovering albeit slowly. I have imposed a no doe shooting policy on myself.

The increase in bear, hog, and coyote populations are keeping our fawn recriutment low. I would like to see increased opportunities on bears.

The state in its infinite wisdom has kept the antlerless bag limits too high in our area. There should be no antlerless deer taken with a modern gun and maybe one allowed with a muzzleloader.

Protect the does and the herd will grow!
Click to expand...
2017 Both deer I killed that year had sorry looking hooves. I saw one good buck with what I call a Bullwinkle style rack who was walking so slowly. I felt bad for him. His Hooves must have been causing him incredible pain.
 

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