I agree but also shooting anything with 3" antlers isn't helping either which is what I saw this year.
I'm not sure I understand so I have to ask. Shooting yearling bucks isn't helping what exactly? Population recovery? As long as the post-season buck to doe ratio is above 15:100, IDFG (and other agencies) has documented that the does are being bred and population growth is not improved by having more bucks on the landscape.
Is it not helping trophy quality? Yearling (1.5 yr old) bucks have always made up ~50% of the buck harvest ever since IDFG began keeping records. That is why we often see a jump in %4pt in the harvest following a bad winter. It's not because there were more older bucks, there were just fewer young bucks because they died as fawns the previous winter. Antler point restrictions, APR, for mule deer have been shown to have a short term benefit in the first 1-3 years and then it tends to be detrimental to trophy quality in the long term. My worry is that any attempt to use APR in the short term after a bad winter would be very difficult to reverse after a couple years because public perception continues to misunderstand and support APRs as a long term solution. If we want more big bucks we need more deer, that means good habitat protection and mild winters. Several of Robby's recent interviews on the Rokcast have done a great job of describing APRs, winter survival and population growth.
Except that hunter crowding/pressure has been measured by IDFG and U of I and is something they have been working to address, they took a big 1st step with the NR tags going by unit, and I am afraid that at some point they may bow to the public pressure and go to a controlled hunt only model which opens a whole new can of worms into how we run our draws and possibilities of a point system. In the meantime you have a lot of us residents who have been here a long time who want to be able to continue to buy deer tags over the counter and hunt every year. I am just a guy who loves to hunt, trying to raise some kids who I also want to see be able to hunt in the future and I fear the direction I hear public sentiment heading towards controlled hunt only and think that maybe there is a happy medium where we can all hunt every year still, and ease crowding and pressure to a point that it is still enjoyable
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I appreciated the effort put into that hunter congestion survey. I think what IDFG did to spread out NR pressure was a good move. However, in general I think that the questions and responses to those surveys are too subjective, and I take the results with a grain of salt. Each question was based on how each individual "perceived" things like crowding, hunter numbers, non-residents, access, etc. I find it interesting that over 50% of respondents blamed non-residents as the factor that "most contributed" to the amount of congestion they experienced. That is simply not possible from a shear numbers standpoint. It is/was definitely a contributing factor but cannot account for all the pressure.
I'm one of those guys that doesn't like to see even 1 other hunter in the field, but is that a reasonable basis for perceived congestion? How many other hunters should I be willing to see on any given day before I am justified in feeling crowded out? I don't really know the answer. Like I said, I don't like seeing anybody, but the amount of people I see on regular basis hasn't negatively affected my success rate so I guess I'm not being objectively impacted by crowding, even though I feel subjectively impacted.
I also agree with your concern about those voices who are calling for all mule deer hunting to be via controlled hunt. There may come a time when a zone structure for mule deer becomes necessary, I just don't think we are there yet. I think there are other things that can be done to reduce actual pressure before we get there, many of which were discussed in the Mule Deer Management Plan and having to do with season structure.
