Anyone paying attention to Michigan?

[Hickory1991]

My family usually shoot a couple does for the freezer every year. We love the venison and process our own meat. Can’t believe the last few years the DNR were letting people buy 10 antlerless tags. Can phantom needing 10 deer. Guess they thought we have too many which we do in some areas, just not as many on public land. I live near I-69 in Lapeer County and am amazed by how many roadkill deer I see. Problem is it’s all private land with no access. Same problem in Oakland County. No hunting in most of it. You want big bucks go to my brother in laws house in Royal Oak. Has a couple monsters in his backyard every year. Nice to look at but no hunting.

 

[cj13]

Im based in zone 3 so my experience is there is a huge overpopulation of does, limited places to hunt, and mostly all immature bucks (2.5 or younger). The private has a higher concentration of does but there is still a lot of does on the public near me. We also see a lot of crop permit deer getting shot and buried in our area in the summer months. A combo tag with one buck license and one doe license should help both quality and population in my area.

I also understand my experience is different than those in the northern lower or UP but I dont see how a combo tag with one antlerless and one buck tag hurts any one region. It provides incentive to shoot more does in overpopulated areas like the southern lower. In the UP there is only antleress harvest in early archery or late archery (with the combo tag), I can't imagine doe harvest will increase much if any at all with this rule change. There will however be fewer bucks harvested in the UP so I would expect a slight increase in total population if anything.

 

[BR549]

Meaningful change would be something on the order of no bucks before November 15 to let the big boys do the breeding.
Culling the big ones (AKA APR) and letting the scrawny genetics to be passed on doesn't sound like a long term plan for success.