2pt minimum

[coachcw]

PS: that "you can't eat the horns" quote makes me sick. But if all you spike killers are truly proud of yourself for killing a deer that's dumber than a bag of skittles, to each his own. lol

I could have done without this comment, now you are putting yourself on a pedestal. The last thing we need to do is divide and judge our fellow hunters. We need to respect each others opinions and stay united to fight the anti's and preserve our rights. Saying the a meat hunters opinion makes you sick is extremely offensive to me and a lot of other fellow hunters. Respect is the key to good discussion, which this thread had up to that point.

good point and any one that baits deer in or hunts so called back yards could be lumped into this group . my main reasoning for point restrictions and permit only is to build a herd and to atempt to control the total harvest by all usser groups , when it comes time to cull herds i'm ok with youth and senior , dissabled hunts .

[Dhoey07]

The problem with carrying capacity of deer, is the same as with turkeys.  A ton on private property and not enough on public land.   

[JPhelps]

Here is what my simplified version of conservation looks like.  You can either maintain, increase or decrease your herd.  Many factors contributed to this equation.

Increase numbers:
*Breeding (the only way to increase numbers)

Decrease:
*death from Hunters
*death from Predators
*death from old age

We now try and balance that equation.  Let's proceed with the notion of increasing the herd size.

We need as many does as possible to get bred which gives us an increase.  We must then balance the amount of deer that get killed by hunters (after adding in the projection of predator and old age deaths). 

Pretty simple.  So in order to allow everyone to hunt every year you would think there would need to be a spike restriction.  These young bucks have zero escapement skills.  You let them become one year older and their chance for survival increases exponentially.

Plus when you kill a doe think about It.  Let's say she and her offspring were all a single doe (that reproduced every year).  In 8 years that one doe would be responsible for 128 other deer.

We need kids to stay interested and help recruitment so alloe kids 14 and under kill spikes and that's it.  No does and No spikes for anyone else.  ALL USER GROUPS.

Also to add to my theory that we as hunters have a HUGE impact here is a little case study in my backyard.  After the big floods in Lewis county in 2007, weyco closed its ryderwood tree farm down to motorized access.  I will assume that the predator population, deaths from old age and breeding were constant pre and post flood. 

Before the flood the area was way down on deer and especially older age class of bucks (avg 4 deer a day maybe).  When they opened it up to employees to drive in 2010 the deer hunting was phenomenal!  There was an increase across the board.  More does, more fawns, more bucks and WAY MORE mature bucks (3.5+ years old). I don't have exact numbers but the deer killed that year were bigger and more plentiful than ever before.Not to mention the late buck season wasn't even needed.

Which brings me to my next point.  As much as I love hunting those four days in November , I also believe it needs to go away. It is in the best interest of our declining deer herd.

So to everyone that believes that killing does and spikes is needed please feel free to prove me wrong. I think If we want to continue to hunt every single year something needs to be done to better balance the conservation equation not a budget.

[headshot5]

Take out/manage the predators (coyotes etc).   

[poohdog]

I agree 100%  with JPhelps the numbers in Grays Harbor are down. 4 years ago I would see close to a dozen deer a day, passing on smaller bucks. Now  I am lucky to go out and find 3-4 a day.  I got skunked for the first time ever this year on not seeing a single deer one day.

[Bullkllr]

Interesting thread. Many good points made.
Something to keep in mind regarding the issue as a whole is that the biological answer to harvesting spikes is that killing a spike is arguably going to have the least impact on the overall population of any deer that could be killed. The argument for this is that throughout any deer's life cycle the mortality from any cause decreases from birth to as old as the deer gets. Fawns are more likely to die than yearlings, yearlings are more likely to die than 1.5yo, 1.5yo are more likely to die than 2.5yo, etc. So taking a spike than it less likely to live to see the next season anyway, is statistically less damaging to the population than killing an older deer that would be much more likely to go on to breed successfully. Same arguement could be made for younger vs. older does.

That said, I'm not sure it would really make a difference either way. I think were at a point in Western Wash. where there a lot of factors having a bigger effect on our deer population than whether we shoot spikes or not.

I know the Vail/mini-spike thing has come up a few times. Do you really think a few city yahoos shooting spikes on 4 weekends a year is a limiting factor in that tree farm that has to cover 1000 square miles ?

[bobcat]

Take out/manage the predators (coyotes etc).

That is next to impossible, and is not going to happen. We as hunters have virtually no effect on the number of coyotes out there. Bears and cougars? Same thing, no way to keep numbers down without hound hunting and baiting as management tools.

So that leaves us, and how many deer we take every year. This is the only thing we can control, so I think eliminating all doe harvest is what is needed.

[PolarBear]

 
Take Vail for example.  The harvest numbers of decent bucks has dropped to almost nothing over the past few years.  There are not a ton of predators up there.  Look at the number of does and yearlings that are shot in Vail and you will see why the hunting is getting worse.  Places like Vail should have a point restriction and zero doe permits for a few years at least to try and get the numbers back up.  I know a lot of guys who have hunted up there everyday over the past couple of weekends that haven't seen a single buck of any size.

[Curly]

 

[JPhelps]

Fawns are more likely to die than yearlings, yearlings are more likely to die than 1.5yo, 1.5yo are more likely to die than 2.5yo, etc.

That is my exact point.  We help them through that first year (by implementing a point restriction) and then as they get older they continue to do better on their own.

Also how do we get an increased number of older bucks if all of the spikes are shot?  I'm sure shooting spikes does have an effect on overall population and an even bigger one on getting a healthy population of older bucks.

[kentrek]

Interesting thread. Many good points made.
Something to keep in mind regarding the issue as a whole is that the biological answer to harvesting spikes is that killing a spike is arguably going to have the least impact on the overall population of any deer that could be killed. The argument for this is that throughout any deer's life cycle the mortality from any cause decreases from birth to as old as the deer gets. Fawns are more likely to die than yearlings, yearlings are more likely to die than 1.5yo, 1.5yo are more likely to die than 2.5yo, etc. So taking a spike than it less likely to live to see the next season anyway, is statistically less damaging to the population than killing an older deer that would be much more likely to go on to breed successfully. Same arguement could be made for younger vs. older does.

That said, I'm not sure it would really make a difference either way. I think were at a point in Western Wash. where there a lot of factors having a bigger effect on our deer population than whether we shoot spikes or not.

I know the Vail/mini-spike thing has come up a few times. Do you really think a few city yahoos shooting spikes on 4 weekends a year is a limiting factor in that tree farm that has to cover 1000 square miles ?

  loads of factors to consider,esp when everyone is seeing the same decrease over the entire west side..personally i think its a habitat issue..i have no scientific data to back me up,just observations..

need more secluded habitat,like already said when there's hard access the deer pop explodes

but if not shooting deer till there a certain age is proven ( more then observations) to be better for deer then great,hunters should do it then regardless of what the book says..maybe they should try an shoot spikes only an permit for older bucks in a few more units..kinda like they do on the east for elk

[grundy53]

Here is what my simplified version of conservation looks like.  You can either maintain, increase or decrease your herd.  Many factors contributed to this equation.

Increase numbers:
*Breeding (the only way to increase numbers)

Decrease:
*death from Hunters
*death from Predators
*death from old age

We now try and balance that equation.  Let's proceed with the notion of increasing the herd size.

We need as many does as possible to get bred which gives us an increase.  We must then balance the amount of deer that get killed by hunters (after adding in the projection of predator and old age deaths). 

Pretty simple.  So in order to allow everyone to hunt every year you would think there would need to be a spike restriction.  These young bucks have zero escapement skills.  You let them become one year older and their chance for survival increases exponentially.

Plus when you kill a doe think about It.  Let's say she and her offspring were all a single doe (that reproduced every year).  In 8 years that one doe would be responsible for 128 other deer.

We need kids to stay interested and help recruitment so alloe kids 14 and under kill spikes and that's it.  No does and No spikes for anyone else.  ALL USER GROUPS.

Also to add to my theory that we as hunters have a HUGE impact here is a little case study in my backyard.  After the big floods in Lewis county in 2007, weyco closed its ryderwood tree farm down to motorized access.  I will assume that the predator population, deaths from old age and breeding were constant pre and post flood. 

Before the flood the area was way down on deer and especially older age class of bucks (avg 4 deer a day maybe).  When they opened it up to employees to drive in 2010 the deer hunting was phenomenal!  There was an increase across the board.  More does, more fawns, more bucks and WAY MORE mature bucks (3.5+ years old). I don't have exact numbers but the deer killed that year were bigger and more plentiful than ever before.Not to mention the late buck season wasn't even needed.

Which brings me to my next point.  As much as I love hunting those four days in November , I also believe it needs to go away. It is in the best interest of our declining deer herd.

So to everyone that believes that killing does and spikes is needed please feel free to prove me wrong. I think If we want to continue to hunt every single year something needs to be done to better balance the conservation equation not a budget.

I totally agree. I also think the Ryderwood tree farm closure is a great example.

[Basket Rack]

Which brings me to my next point.  As much as I love hunting those four days in November , I also believe it needs to go away. It is in the best interest of our declining deer herd.

I could not agree more and have thought the same thing for years.  There is no reason given the present state of our southwest WA deer herds to have the late buck season.

[bullcanyon]

So there is a bunch of us on the same page.  How many of you have contacted the wdfw and let them know how you feel?  Nothing will get done unless they know we support the changes. I've been emailing them for several years asking for these exact changes.  Granted nothing has been done, but I still send emails.  If more people do the same I think they might make some changes that help get the blacktail herds heading in the right direction.  I know I received no negative impact by emailing them.  So hit em up....

[FLIZZ]

PS: that "you can't eat the horns" quote makes me sick. But if all you spike killers are truly proud of yourself for killing a deer that's dumber than a bag of skittles, to each his own. lol

I could have done without this comment, now you are putting yourself on a pedestal. The last thing we need to do is divide and judge our fellow hunters. We need to respect each others opinions and stay united to fight the anti's and preserve our rights. Saying the a meat hunters opinion makes you sick is extremely offensive to me and a lot of other fellow hunters. Respect is the key to good discussion, which this thread had up to that point.

you are right.  I apologize sir. I do believe however that the majority of spikes that are killed, are killed by road hunters. Which I do not respect. that is all.