It may be a small sample size but I'm already talking with neighbors and others in our area...the opinions I'm hearing are the majority will not participate in the slaughter of the herd...Killing all the deer to prevent CWD from killing all the deer doesn't make sense to most folks I've spoken to...and slaughtering all you can obviously doesnt stop the spread...So I'm not sure what anyone else will actually do but I know I wont participate in the eradication efforts.
If they implement CWD rules in my area, I will change nothing. I already got rid of my salt licks years ago in preparation for this. I knew it was coming. I no longer do baited censuses in the CWD area. Other than that, no changes.
If I lived in the Memphis area, I'd probably totally forget about deer hunting in TN.
YOU may change nothing, but what you see while hunting will dramatically change.
This seems to be the consensus of the majority I've spoken to..."Im changing nothing"...I guess people in our area have the advantage of seeing what didnt work....we are not going to shoot CWD out...we are not going to stop the spread...stop the slaughter and manage the habitat...control what things we can control...or in other words...I'm not changing anything either.
Between us & adjacent lease we control over 10K contingent acres. They had that lease for 6-7 years and basically used our management plan from the start. I don't plan to do anything different than we've done the past 21 years & they've told me the same. We too did away with mineral sites & baited census 4 years ago. Surrounded by lots of 100-200 acre private tracts that don't allow hunting to start with. Feel pretty good that we'll continue to have 4yr + bucks to hunt for foreseeable future.
In areas where you have large agriculture tracts nearby it will devastate the older age classes. Allowing rifle hunting during archery and velvet is BS. I watch most of our target bucks over a mile from our hunting tracts in agriculture areas before they return. When your only hunting 4.5 year old deer or older this plan by TWRA is total BS. It's complete BS for the herd in general, why any deer hunter would ever back it or support it, and not fight against it is beyond me. I would refuse to pick up a rifle and hunt a deer in velvet but that would not be the norm around me.
That's an excellent question Bgoodman! Truthfully, we've backed off shooting as many does but seems it's too little too late. The does are scared to death and are more nocturnal than the bucks. Fifteen hunts and only had one, yes one chance to kill one. I passed. We are killing younger bucks with no antler restrictions present but overall we have killed fewer bucks too. In fact, we have killed fewer deer overall by 30-50% than in prior years to CWD. One thing that has changed is the kill ratio of bucks to does. Used to be 2 to 1 and more like 1 to 1 now.
I agree...except for ceasing habitat improvements...as they say "I've come to far down river to paddle back now" and I enjoy the habitat work about as much as the actual hunting...but I totally get and understand your frustration....Rifle during the velvet hunt and archery season is absolutely ridiculous.
100% if the velvet hunt wasn't ridiculous enough…
We've found a few dead heads. Not as many as you would think. But a CWD deer is 5 times more likely to die from other unrelated causes.
Yep that's what I've always said. Watching my dad go through it now and as bad as I want him out there everytime he's content with just going when he feels like it. I think it bothers me more than it does him lol. My cousin who is 26 and 10 years younger than me brings it up a lot and just can't figure out why he doesn't go. I told him I've seen it in a lot of people and it's a season of life as we all get older. Some lose it and some don't and that him and I will be there one day too. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Sit back, go when you want and think about all the memories over the years.
As we gain age, most of us will come to value the quality of the experiences over the quantity of those experiences.
Yep, we are taking advantage of the early rifle hunting, but aside from that really haven't changed anything with how we hunt. I have been more cautious with cleanup after processing deer though.
