Public vs Private Antlerless tags

I attended the spring meetings in Marathon county this year and listened to the biologist present on antlerless goals and tag issuance for this year. This is the first year that there will be public and private antlerless tags. What surprised me was that in Marathon county, 15% of the antlerless tags were set aside for public land. The biologist explained that 12% of the land in the county is public, so 15% of the tags were set aside for this group. I thought the idea was to increase antlerless pressure on private land, but setting aside MORE tags for public would have the opposite effect. I then called the biologist for Portage County (where I own a farm) and asked her the same question. She said she looked at public vs private land harvest in the last 5 years. 7% of antlerless deer were historically killed on public land, so they set aside 15% of the tags for public. THIS IS EVEN WORSE! I own private land in these counties and we don't have a deer shortage on the land we own. I am afraid that with this type of tag issuance we will have too many deer shot off public land, and not enough on private. The Portage county biologist said they did this to make sure that public land hunters get a chance at an antlerless tag- this amazed me.

so you want to eliminate big groups of people ( which are usually family groups) from hunting together. so you want to take family out of hunting. to me that's what hunting is mostly about getting your family and friends and going out doing something together. I think as the years go on peoples priorities get more off track. so many groups of friends and families hunting parties already got broken up over the big bucks craze. because nobody wants somebody else to shoot their big buck. now you want to finish it off the rest of the groups because they might kill one or two deer extra a year. that's just wrong in my point of view. the only thing that would really change anything is limiting doe tags to raise the deer numbers up to a higher number then most lands can handle in the winters. like in the 90s.

theil you can eat your crap beef ill take venison and its people like you malleye that we need to get rid of because all you want to do is make it trophy hunting only it will never happen. ill fill my freezer period lots of deer out there. maybe you need to get out of the tavern and youll see more malleye

Beef is a pretty tasty meat if you want meat.

It sounds like you have it pretty rough. How do you keep them on the correct side of the line, period? Maybe you should sit on the line and chase them back to your safe freezer filling zone. I apologize, but your situation is exactly what this change is about.

malleye i hunt to fill the freezer if i let them walk it crosses the line and gets shot period. they would never go to a draw for a tag system because they would lose money

"and like my land i hunt on the edge of public and private so now i have to buy a public tag and a private tag in case it would stumble onto public land when it dies. seems like a racket for the DNR to make more money " Or, you could just refrain from shooting an antlerless deer if you are afraid it will "stumble" into an area you don't have a tag for. I have not seen where there will be antlered tags that differentiate between public and private. I have suggested, in the past, that we can eliminate group bagging, for law abiding hunters, by going back to the back tags that must be torn in half. Once your tag is torn in half, you are no longer able to carry a "deer hunting" firearm. Yes, coyote season would be closed for nine days.

Again, hunters will NEVER police themselves. An "easy" way to start to eliminate group bagging is to limit the tags (and lower the hunter density per mile) by having multiple hunting seasons (similar to Illinois, Iowa and Missouri). 1st gun, 2nd gun, and muzzleloader. Also, let start having hunters apply for buck tags like other states (or like turkey hunting in WI) to spread the hunters evenly across the available public land units so that some areas do not get over-hunted and or over-harvested. If you own private land, you will be awarded your buck permit for your land. Similar to how turkey hunting works right now. If all of the buck permits for a given area are not given out, a hunter could apply for a second draw tag for that area. For example, I could apply and get my landowner tag and then apply for a northern county if all of the available buck tags were not awarded. One would think that having the hunters spread evenly through the public land and spread out for two or three four or five days seasons, has got to help to eliminate large group drives and group bagging.

then prove someone else shot it i mean once the tag is on it unless the warden witnessed it there is no way he will be able to enforce anything. and like my land i hunt on the edge of public and private so now i have to buy a public tag and a private tag in case it would stumble onto public land when it dies. seems like a racket for the DNR to make more money

"even if group bagging was illegal how many people that do it would stop? and how many people would get caught? and how many group bagging harvest is totally legal now?" Just because a law is difficult to enforce doesn't mean there shouldn't be a law. How difficult is it to enforce group bagging for archery deer, which is illegal now? This goes on all the time, and what actual percentage of people get caught? Close to zero I would guess. In the public land areas I hunt, a large percentage of deer are taken on group deer drives, and every year at least a couple of the guys in each group shoot several deer and have others in their group tag them. If you don't have a group to hunt with, the average guy can't go out and shoot a second buck legally, but if you want to group hunt it is all of a sudden legal? I don't agree with it either.

even if group bagging was illegal how many people that do it would stop? and how many people would get caught? and how many group bagging harvest is totally legal now? it would be a tough law to enforce with little impact in the overall big picture. I bet the total percentage of hunters group bagging harvest is less then 5 percent of the harvest. I don't know how much winter range public land has for deer. I don't how many deer per sq mile can survive a bad winter in wi on public land. in my opinion is deer numbers are a little lower then what the land capacity but not by much on public lands I hunt. the little raise that the land can handle will only slightly be noticeable and hunters wouldn't be any happier. the land I bow hunt most of the deer are out of there by early December and its miles of land that go barren. the deer move to a wintering range for the winter. you have to look at the big picture and how many deer the land can actually handle in a hard winter. in the north where I gun hunt its mostly mature forest and mature woods can only handle low deer numbers.

I think you missed the point of his post. If I shoot 2 deer, I tag one and you tag one, the statistics show that both of us shot 1 deer. So technically we would fall in that 93%, but that's not really true.

I can't believe group bagging was never addressed as eliminating it would go a long in alieviating some of the pressure public land gets, especially in the south with all the deer drives that occur. But again looking at the big picture, 93% of hunters tag one or less deer. How big of a problem is it really?

"I don't have the exact number but something like 93% of hunters shoot one deer or less and it's like another 4% shoot two or less. It was in the 2013 regs if anyone has them available. I don't think the three or so percent that shoot (register/tag) more than two are all that devastating when looking at the big picture. " I could be wrong, but I don't recall seeing anywhere on a registration tag that asks whether the person owning the tag or another hunter killed the deer. Remember party tagging is legal in Wisconsin and a lot of people don't buy another tag until the "party" supply runs out. I would really like to see group bagging eliminated. This would help keep those greedy hunters mentioned in another post from shooting every deer they see and putting someone else's tag on it.

"Unfortunately the greedy hunter still lives. They think they need to feed their family with venison only. " I don't have the exact number but something like 93% of hunters shoot one deer or less and it's like another 4% shoot two or less. It was in the 2013 regs if anyone has them available. I don't think the three or so percent that shoot (register/tag) more than two are all that devastating when looking at the big picture.

Check out this Outdoor Life article from May of 2013. http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/big-buck-zone/2013/05/new-whitetail-scale They discuss Wisconsin in the second paragraph.