Is 3 pt RULE HURTING MULE DEER POPULATIONS?

[huntnphool]

Predator management, tag allocation numbers, antlerless harvest, season dates, ignorance of herd decline

There you go, in a nutshell. A handful of reasons, in my opinion the 1st and the last are the big ones although everyone of them are contributors.....

+1

[Humptulips]

I spent yesterday out.  I counted 4 bucks. I average 50.  most doe were not covered.  Doe themselves were way down in count. There were other indicators I wasn't just having an off day.

You should come to my neck of the woods. Four deer in a day let alone bucks would be a stellar day. I saw 10 deer in 7 days of hard hunting.

[UBA]

A bio that's been drinking the magic kool aid for to long.  Number 1 reason

[Mr Mykiss]

Tag allocation numbers...like an unlimited general season for archery, muzzy and rifle...in most units.

[WAcoyotehunter]

I think it's slop hunting, and is despicable, but NOT what is hurting the deer population in the Methow.   If there wasn't three point or better, the herd would be done!  Stick a fork in it. Done!    It's the only thing keeping a few deer alive.   A year like this year with essentially most of the upper age bucks harvested, and nothing but younger deer, and an over abundance of hunters.   There would be nothing to rebuild

Yep- the 3 pt rule is not the problem, people shooting illegal bucks is the problem.  people need to dentify their target.

[predatorG]

Seeing how mature mule deer bucks are the best for breeding does, maybe no rut permit hunts should occur in some of these areas where numbers are way down.  That might help keep some of the big boys around to spread their genes and have the most success in breeding and fawn survival.  Maybe no doe seasons should occur until the deer numbers go up?   

It all depends on what hunters are willing to live with and what WDFW is willing to lose on license revenue.  I suspect the majority of hunters aren't willing to make changes and WDFW doesn't want to lose license revenue.   

 

I enjoy being able to hunt deer every year... the killing a deer every year part is just a bonus, so at 1st thought I was not liking the odd/even every other year thing.  BUT I think I could get on board with every other year mulie hunting if the same was done for elk hunting.
This way a guy gets to hunt every single year and it would benefit both the mulies and the elk.

The question is, If mulie hunting is reduced/limited, how will this effect the blackie & whitey hunting? Seems these species would get hit a lot harder. 

I realize how old this thread is but it popped back up and I find it to be interesting, if not relevant. I think that limited Mulie hunting would be worse for white tails than blacktails. There really aren't too many "bad blacktail hunters". The bad blacktail hunters are the ones that get nothing, not the ones who blast away at them on a hillside. I believe blacktails are the most resilient species and the hardest to hunt. If we just made everyone that blasted unethically at mulies on a hill hunt blacktail for 5 years, we'd end up with a lot more quality hunters. 

[HoofsandWings]

Those Canadian genes are filtering into 101.  I started to see spikes that had large racks. Same with 2 points. The 3 and 4 points had heavy racks.
A few years earlier, the racks were much smaller. Yes you have to be careful when you see a big rack.