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Why No Private Land Antlerless Hunt for 2024-25

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DayDay

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Why is there no 5-day antlerless hunt on private land this season? I'm wondering what the motivation was for not offering the hunt this season. I have not read any discussions on the change during proposals presented prior to the rulemaking. I've come up with some of my own ideas as possibilities.

1) It may be an attempt to get hunters to shoot does rather than pass them during the season with the goal of more does and less bucks killed.

2) The hunt was for private land in Unit-L only in the past (also CWD Unit when it came into being). Maybe it was removed for simplification of regulations.

3) Maybe it was a concern over fairness between public land hunters and private land hunters.

I'm curious if anyone has run across an explanation on this.
 
MickThompson said:
No idea but I've seen plenty of shed and half rack bucks the last week of the regular season as it is.
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Thanks. I wondered about that as well; maybe I shouldn't have dismissed it so quickly.

TWRA Harvest Report for the private land antlerless hunt dates last season (JAN 8-12) shows 1485 female, 86 antlerless male, and 74 antlered male were taken. This includes CWD counties which were open for antlered and antlerless deer; it appears that the bulk of male deer were taken in these counties.
 
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I've seen many bucks without antlers in early January. Realistically, it'd be hard to tell the difference between an antlerless buck and a doe for the average joe.

Though, they probably removed the private antlerless hunt due to the simplification of season dates after they removed unit CWD this year. Either way, it's a bummer for sure.
 
Jcalder said:
Why would you need an extra 5 days to kill antlerless deer when you could kill 3 a day starting way back in September.
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Here are some of my guesses.

Some people only want one deer or one more deer during the season and prefer that deer to be a buck. The final 5-day hunt gives them an opportunity to shoot a doe that they would have passed up waiting for a buck that never showed. They get the meat they want for the season.

Some people (or groups) may want to shoot multiple does but feel doing so during the season would disrupt the patterns of bucks they are hunting.
 
When i listened to the meetings when they were setting the seasons, from what i understood was that the participation in that hunts was minimal at best. I know a couple of the commissioners didn't like that proposal because they took advantage of that hunt but the overall consensus was the participation was minimal.
 
OakHillHunter said:
When i listened to the meetings when they were setting the seasons, from what i understood was that the participation in that hunts was minimal at best. I know a couple of the commissioners didn't like that proposal because they took advantage of that hunt but the overall consensus was the participation was minimal.
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I guess this falls in when considering the simplification of regulations.
 
DayDay said:
I guess this falls in when considering the simplification of regulations.
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Yeah their was a lot of conversation about that doe hunt and unit cwd and all the special things they was doing for that unit and when it came down to the numbers the average deer harvested per hunter was very close to what it was pre cwd (around 2 i believe) and like you said simplification was easiest to remove the outlier hunts like the doe hunt and the cwd regulations.
 

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