...and there you have it!

[Black Bear Bowhunter]

Well as fairly new hunger I remember the hunter ed course where the guy teaching us was bragging that he shoots 9-12 deer every year. That was mind blowing and so I though I've to get several every year to be a "good" hunter 😵

2 years later that changed but maybe that's a point to start...

[Ringtail]

There is no need to be hunting deer in February. There is no need for unlimited antlerless. There is no need for 6 buck tags a year. 

[Ringtail]

For the record tho I do very much enjoy the earn a buck season in September. I take my only doe of the year then wait it out for antlers the rest of the year. Personally September is my favorite month of the year to hunt. More than November. 

[MZ7Extreme]

3 hours ago, hammer4reel said:

Imo  many hunters in Nj are lazy. They will shoot every deer they  can in areas even lacking in deer instead  of looking for a new spot that holds greater numbers. 

There are thousands of acres of public accessable lands that are virtually untouched .

 

.all within an hour of any hunters home. 

 

.a little research can go a long ways to finding a honey hole. 

 

Every wma or public land within an hour 0f me has been shot up... Seriously even in the hard to get to areas the deer numbers are nill. after 5 years I have watched a nice herd dwindle to nothing and when I let them  go to grow some fucktard who only gets out 2 times a year shoots the hell out of them because the $27 really breaks the bank and they need to.

I am currently looking for private pieces, I am done with public for now, this season really taxed me and I truly loathe NJ hunters.

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by MZ7Extreme

[BHC]

2 hours ago, thefirstndsecond said:

Well, I don't know what you or your buddies harvest. I know if I bought a license I am going to use the license to harvest what I am allowed to harvest by law.

See that is one of the issues with today's NJ hunters....kill, kill, kill cause the state says so, and I paid money.....well the state doesn't have us or the deer in their minds, they have $$$$, the insurance companies, and those farmers that claim to be poor....to own land in NJ you have to be well off to own 100s of acres you're wealthy plus they get huge tax breaks....they want the deer dead to make more money....they don't own the deer, the state does,  but the FARM BUREAU has come out recently to claim 140 deer per Square mile here in NJ, they have the funds to influence the useless Game Council  and those in Trenton

[MGHunter66]

Every wma or public land within an hour 0f me has been shot up... Seriously even in the hard to get to areas the deer numbers are nill. after 5 years I have watched a nice herd dwindle to nothing and when I let them  go to grow some fucktard who only gets out 2 times a year shoots the hell out of them because the $27 really breaks the bank and they need to.
I am currently looking for private pieces, I am done with public for now, this season really taxed me and I truly loathe NJ hunters.
 

There is a lot of public land available besides WMA’s. Some are packed with deer. If you need a bit of help pm me and i will point you in a direction


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[Pqreturn62]

I’ve hunted hard and smart long enough to know the herds are down. I make a pact with my neighbors not to shoot does outside of our zone 36 spots where deer sightings are almost guanrenteed. I don’t touch uninjured does in zones 3, 5, or 6 because I legitimately feel that our pressure on them has caused a sharp downturn in the herd health. Not just in terms of numbers but also in maturity of deer at harvest. About 10 years ago I harvested a zone 3 doe that dressed at 136lbs and we estimated was around 5yrs old. Today I pulled 5 different cameras (only do that in the rain so my scent washed away faster). I don’t have a doe over noteably 100lbs anywhere. I personally think hunters like us need to focus more on doe fertility and lactation quality in the spring than on buck development. I run 3-4 crude protein, calcium, phosphorus based mineral plots each winter/spring as the does are within a month or 2 of giving birth. I have started to see a turnaround in numbers during the spring and summer months, as well as what I beleive to be larger bodied yearlings by August, but I lose so many too state land bow hunters around me. Once again, legal and ethical, I have no issue with that. But if half a dozen ppl around me were interested enough in helping to revitalize the herd a little, it could happen in just a few years. 

 

Moral of of the story here is that if you commit a small community effort to doing, you can improve the birth stock of the herd around you and ultimately increase health and numbers of your breeding population. What you choose to harvest is up to you, but it can work if you get a few guys on board with it and have enough rigor to hold off your thirst for blood.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Pqreturn62

[dlist777]

4 hours ago, JHbowhunter said:

of course it's my opinion / preference.  I would like to see the deer get a break.  My only "scientific" reason behind it, is that deer would return to areas they get driven from and would more equitably disperse with less hunting pressure, thus making them more "huntable".   

 

I will gladly put quotas (real quotas per hunter per calendar year - not per weapon, per season, per permit, etc - a dead deer is a dead deer PERIOD) a head of length of season.

Since buck hunting is the overriding driving force for deer hunting, lets start with getting rid of 6 a year.  2 flexible tags, would have many good deer hunters done and sitting on the sidelines come 6-day.  

Any and all suggestions are on the table - not just mine. 

I could me missing  a nuance here.  I might be over simplifying things.  I was just thinking along these lines: let's say we kill 50k deer a year and we want it to be 35k.  Then just estimate the success rate ( assume 40 pct). Then issue tags accordingly ( 35k / 40 pct= 87.5k tags.  Estimate license sales and set limit per license to hit those numbers.  No need to change dates, weapons, etc.  That's where we start splitting apart....

Edited December 21, 2018 by dlist777

[Psehunter]

I hunt the walkill refuge since it's out my front door . Last year we got hit with ehd and lost alot of deer from with I heard. I could definitely tell that there is less deer this year and that is why I can't even count how many small bucks and does I have passed on this year . Once muzzy opened the place has sounded like a war zone and I have seen guys dragging g out spikes and fawns . I have not seen a deer in there since fall bow. I have stopped hunting in there for this year and I now drive to a different public land spot to try and get at least a doe...us hunters do it to ourselfs when it comes to lower deer numbers .it really amazes me that guys will shoot anything on a piece of land that was just hit with a disease and the number are already low.

[Lunatic]

Stop with the shorter season. Make it as short as you like it for yourself and let others do the same. It is not about  how long you hunt them. It is about how many you kill.

[Lunatic]

12 minutes ago, dlist777 said:

I could me missing  a nuance here.  I might be over simplifying things.  I was just thinking along these lines: let's say we kill 50k deer a year and we want it to be 35k.  Then just estimate the success rate ( assume 40 pct). Then issue tags accordingly ( 35k / 40 pct= 87.5k tags.  Estimate license sales and set limit per license to hit those numbers.  No need to change dates, weapons, etc.  That's where we start splitting apart....

Exactly!!

[Woodsman416]

If the state shut down baiting the harvest numbers would drop through the floor with the exception of six day possibly. Who would go for that?

[MGHunter66]

Stop with the shorter season. Make it as short as you like it for yourself and let others do the same. It is not about  how long you hunt them. It is about how many you kill.

mote times you get out more opportunities you have....No?


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[Lunatic]

9 minutes ago, Woodsman416 said:

If the state shut down baiting the harvest numbers would drop through the floor with the exception of six day possibly. Who would go for that?

That's for sure!!

[Lunatic]

10 minutes ago, maximus66 said:

mote times you get out more opportunities you have....No?


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Let me get my point across by going to extreme. If the bag limit was 1 deer per year would you care how long was the season? Set sensible bag limit, a true way to reduce the number of kills, instead of eliminating opportunity to hunt, in hope we kill less.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Lunatic