Oregon’s change to controlled archery deer

[WRO]

This pretty much sums up how I feel....
Example of the new tag numbers are tiny...
Beattys butte rifle: 138 tags
Beattys butte bow: 55 tags

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Guys who hunt beattys butte archery based off surveys.. 10 (roughly)

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[bpurtz]

If you look down below there’s a couple threads about this already. Reading into those it seems like everyone wants to blame the predators. Typical.

Part of the issue stems from the lack of predator hunting. Folks just don't seem interested in it. Out of all the guys at work that hunt, none of them carry a cougar/bear tag with them.

Bear & Mt Lion are a major predator problem in Oregon. Success rate on Bear is 7% and Mt Lion is 2%. Bears can't be hunted over bait and Mt Lion can't be hunted with dogs - there will always be a couple guys who have success, but the predator populations are out of control - 6000+ Mt Lion that each consume 50+ deer or elk per year.

I've bowhunted Oregon for 40+ years and only seen 6 to 7 Mt Lion - not one has presented a shot. Like WapitiBob said effective predator control is off the table in Oregon so choose your weapon, hunter distribution across units, and tag reductions are the unfortunate outcome.

 

[wapitibob]

Unfortunately, those are the only tools they have. Add to that, only about 8% of their budget comes from the general fund so they're locked into the current license and tag numbers to stay funded at current levels without price increases. So, when you have tag numbers staying at current levels, hunters demanding their "opportunity" stays the same, and a Deer herd at 50% of historic levels, it doesn't take much imagination to see how this looks in 10 years.

 

[MeatBuck]

Possible rant incoming... take it with an open mind.

Sounds like the human is more the problem than anything else. Take man from the equation and there’s no equation at all.
We as hunters have to choose if we want to sit around and let some agency of numbskulls tell us how, what, when and where we can or can’t hunt or gather or even protect our own food sources. Just because man created these problems for themselves doesn’t mean we have to stay this path.
The term poacher is something most guys struggle with. Some see it as a bad guy who kills for fun or for the trophy. Some see it as a hateful guy who just shoots an animal to see it dead. Some say it’s a greedy guy that kills for profit. Etc. If it weren’t for guys not wanting that term used to describe them, I doubt anyone would even follow hunting regulations. A guy who needs meat in the freezer to feed his family becomes a “poacher” whenever he harvests an animal outside the boundaries set by someone else. Or one who kills a few more predators than he has tags for. To me it’s all in how you view the situation.
All that aside, if we all just step back and look at the big picture and that is the fact that human beings are ruining the earth purely by reproduction. There’s nothing slowing the growth of the human population and that fact alone should be enough to make you understand that everything (we touch) environmentally based is going to be negatively effected no matter who or what we blame or how we try to fix it.
The only way to fix this is to control the human population. We all know that with modern medicine and the lack of common sense otherwise known as the human fairytale way of life, that the human population will only continue to increase and everything in the environment will decrease until, like all things before us, we parish from the earth. By then there won’t be a game population to manage or mismanage as the case may be.
It’s a strange and unsettling reality but it’s one we are living every day.
Get off the internet and go out and enjoy what we have while we still have it.
[End rant]

 

[Hoodie]

I constantly see people throwing out the 6000 cougar population figure. If you go by that, and ODFW does, then Oregon has the highest population of cats in the US.

Here's the thing: ODFW includes juvenile cougars in that figure. To my knowledge they are the only state game agency to do so. The reason they're the only agency to do it is because it doesn't make a lot of sense given the high mortality rate cougar kittens are subject to (just like the high mortality rates juveniles of any species are subject to). I imagine that if they counted the way other western states do, the numbers would be much more comparable.

I hunt in an area with plenty of cats. I cut tracks all the time out scouting or hunting. I've stumbled upon several kill sites. I'm NOT saying we don't have a lot of them. I'm NOT saying we aren't well over objective. I'm also not saying that voting away hound hunting didn't remove the only realistic way for hunting to function as a management tool for them.

I do think a lot of folks see the 6k number and assume that we have something like triple the cats of any other western state, which is almost certainly not the case.

What I'm not sure of is whether people throwing that number out know about Oregon's unique method of counting cats or whether they just neglect to mention it to paint a crappier picture. I say that, again, acknowledging that we do have a lot of cougars, and that they are certainly PART of the mule deer population decline.

 

[elkliver]

IDK who hunts Oregon, but if there are a bunch of cats I would have a coat if I lived there.

Planned on starting here in SD this year but stupid covid is probably going to get in the way.

FAT Camp...come on up and assist with some cat killing! Yes there are a bunch! Drew on one Bow season but didnt get a shot

 

[Baddog]

I constantly see people throwing out the 6000 cougar population figure. If you go by that, and ODFW does, then Oregon has the highest population of cats in the US.

Here's the thing: ODFW includes juvenile cougars in that figure. To my knowledge they are the only state game agency to do so. The reason they're the only agency to do it is because it doesn't make a lot of sense given the high mortality rate cougar kittens are subject to (just like the high mortality rates juveniles of any species are subject to). I imagine that if they counted the way other western states do, the numbers would be much more comparable.

I hunt in an area with plenty of cats. I cut tracks all the time out scouting or hunting. I've stumbled upon several kill sites. I'm NOT saying we don't have a lot of them. I'm NOT saying we aren't well over objective. I'm also not saying that voting away hound hunting didn't remove the only realistic way for hunting to function as a management tool for them.

I do think a lot of folks see the 6k number and assume that we have something like triple the cats of any other western state, which is almost certainly not the case.

What I'm not sure of is whether people throwing that number out know about Oregon's unique method of counting cats or whether they just neglect to mention it to paint a crappier picture. I say that, again, acknowledging that we do have a lot of cougars, and that they are certainly PART of the mule deer population decline.

They have no idea how many cats are out there.

 

[Hoodie]

They have no idea how many cats are out there.

Yeah, I don't see how they could with any degree of accuracy. But their estimates would be more useful if they counted the way other western states do.

Of course ODFW could probably do many things more usefully if they'd do them the way other states do.

 

[Baddog]

I had a friend about 15-20 years ago that was a contracted pilot for the odfw. At that time they had collars on a few cats that they had captured with dogs. They would follow the cat around and say this cat has a home range of 40 miles divide that into the mountain range square miles and get the number for the range. Seems pretty flawed in my simple mind. I don’t really know how you could accurately count them though, pretty tough task on such an elusive critter.
They would also do the deer counts in November and December. Well deer have moved a ton by then compared to September/October hunting seasons, some units are completely covered in snow and zero deer that time of year. Always thought that was a interesting way to set numbers for units.

 

[Hoodie]

In one of the units I hunt ODFW just states that traditional counting methods (like winter range flyovers) don´t work. Itś a heavily timbered unit. This year apparently they´ve started running trail camera surveys for deer population estimates.

Funny thing is they cut tag numbers for that unit the year before based on a ¨rapid population decline.¨

The unit next door has winter range more suitable for counting deer from a plane, and they cut tags there at the same time. Iḿ pretty sure they just lump the two units together even though the deer in my unit use completely different winter range, summer in totally different habitat, and they admitted they didn't really have a good idea of how many there were.

 

[Dirtscoots]

I understand a lot of the opinions in this thread. I have mixed feelings on the topic. I’m an avid bow hunter for elk, mostly my complaint is if I am elk hunting an eastern unit I would like to have a deer tag in my pocket just in case. Is what it is. My issue is why is it just the eastern side that needs managed? I live in an area that is general rifle and archery for both elk and deer. It is getting more and more a joke every year both rifle and archery season. Am I the only one with concern that the eastern units requiring a draw will only push more people to the coast for an already overcrowded hunting experience?

 

[Hoodie]

I understand a lot of the opinions in this thread. I have mixed feelings on the topic. I’m an avid bow hunter for elk, mostly my complaint is if I am elk hunting an eastern unit I would like to have a deer tag in my pocket just in case. Is what it is. My issue is why is it just the eastern side that needs managed? I live in an area that is general rifle and archery for both elk and deer. It is getting more and more a joke every year both rifle and archery season. Am I the only one with concern that the eastern units requiring a draw will only push more people to the coast for an already overcrowded hunting experience?

You hit the nail on the head as far as the west side goes.