Here's a long held thought by myself:
As many know, in summary the southern half of the state has ridiculously strong deer numbers but the problem has always been a lack of public land and/or getting permission to hunt anywhere-so in that regard the overall DNR goal in many of these counties is to reduce deer populations (which never really seems to drop due to lack of pressure).
However, in many of the northern counties deer populations and density is still very low-I'm talking about Ashland, Bayfield, Douglas, Forest, Etc....
So my question is this:
Why are we issuing yearly licenses to out of state residents in these counties if locals already have a hard time filling tags? ...and before you jump all over the idea consider that Iowa no longer issues a license every year to out of state hunters and Illinois does not either I believe. Forgive me as maybe this is incorrect, but I was under the assumption that you are put in a lottery system and not guaranteed to draw tags at all or specific dates in Illinois for like a 3 day season?
Why not treat them as they treat us? -especially when we need less pressure in some counties.
*Note-I'm not blaming the low herd numbers on hunting pressure-most people should be aware that the winter kill a few years ago was brutal. BUT helping those deer populations rebound can be better accomplished with less hunting pressure.
Your thoughts?