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Deer Harvest Trend

brock ratcliff

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Mike Rex has again posted this chart on the other forum. The thread is titled "Our DoW". He starts the thread stating what a difficult job our DOW has to do, and what a fine job they have done. He also points to this chart to demonstrate how the herd has "boomed". He goes on to say that he will delete any anti-DOW post, the point of his thread was not to be argumentative...yada, yada. I of course commented and was deleted immediately. I was not argumentative regarding the greatness of the DOW, I simply read the chart for what it actually says, and made note of it. Since my rare post over there was deleted so that Mike Rex could keep the thread all "pro-DoW'', vs actually seeing the facts as they are demonstrated by this chart, I thought I'd put it here!

The peaks are easily explained. The contention is our herd was exploding from the late 80's until 2009. I contend that is incorrect. What is shown by this chart is our kill increased due to expanded opportunity and tags. Here is an example; notice the slight boost around 1988. We were allowed to harvest a 2nd deer for the first time in Ohio's hunting history. This was implemented in 11 of Ohio's 88 counties. The rise was not huge, but noticeable. 1994, a second tag was available for the first time statewide, created quite a bump in the short term. Please take note that after just a year or two with additional tags, our kill dropped again indicating that the herd was reduced, since seasons and bag limits stayed stagnant for a couple of years. Notice as we approach 2000 the slight increase - Sunday hunting was implemented on a limited basis along with youth shotgun season. 2002, Sunday hunting is implemented across the state with no restrictions on land use, therefore doubling available hunting days for many sportsmen and women. As the regulations remain the same, essentially, for two years at a time, the graph appears like a stairway. Each time a new, more liberal regulation is put in place, the graph bumps up incrementally. Example, add a "bonus weekend" with shotguns, kill goes up... Make it legal for a hunter to shoot 6 does, kill goes up. Add cheap "antlerless only" tags, kill goes up...

I have spoken with Tonkovich personally several times. I explained the 10 deer in a woodlot line of thinking clearly, and he only stated, "Well, if we are killing too many, the harvest trends will show that"... Guess what, the harvest trends show it! Our harvest stats have gone down each of the last four or five years, yet he seems to think it is mostly the fault of lazy sportsmen...maybe a little to do with weather.

That is my interpretation of what this chart actually shows us.

And MIKE REX, welcome to my sandbox. I don't think you'll be deleting anything here simply because it may show that your BFF, Mike Tonkovich, has not done such a fantastic job for sportsmen!
 

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MK111

"Happy Hunting Grounds in the Sky"
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SW Ohio
Good job. Just goes to show how bad censorship is to the overall results. Don't like someone's view just delete it. Another reason I like this site. I always say "if you don't know the answer or don't want to hear the answer don't ask the question".
 
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It's clear there is no real 'discussion' over there unless a person's post is full of compliments for the OP or the DOW.

My biggest thing is there are people out there who know their deer numbers are low in their area yet they insist on filling (or attempting to) tags simply because the ODNR says they can fill that many. Their clear disbelief that something is wrong and that if the DNR says they can so they must know best is what the problem is. Sure this may be a problem in just my part of the state, heck maybe even in the one square mile we own land in, but it's a problem. Some how they (ODNR) need to spread the word to these sheep and get them to understand that just because you CAN get 3 tags for your county you may not want to fill them all if you start noticing a reduced deer herd.
 

Gern186

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NW Ohio Tundra
Not to sidetrack this thread, but has Mrex been around this place lately? I don't remember seeing much of him in the past year or so.

The explanation you have Brock makes complete sense, with that being said, if we keep going like we are, what year do you predict the deer herd to become non-existant in Ohio or to the point where it should be just 1 or 2 deer allowed again? Serious question.

Maybe this doesn't pertain to the total harvest, maybe it does.....but show me a year where more guys and girls from the TOO community have harvested more mature bucks than this year than any other year....and we still have over a month of hunting left! Ohio has some damn fine hunting no matter how you look at it, with the opportunities to kill mature deer that we have now, it was nothing like this 20 years ago in my opinion.
 
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brock ratcliff

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Not to sidetrack this thread, but has Mrex been around this place lately? I don't remember seeing much of him in the past year or so.

The explanation you have Brock makes complete sense, with that being said, if we keep going like we are, what year do you predict the deer herd to become non-existant in Ohio or to the point where it should be just 1 or 2 deer allowed again? Serious question.

Maybe this doesn't pertain to the total harvest, maybe it does.....but show me a year where more guys and girls from the TOO community have harvested more mature bucks than this year than any other year....and we still have over a month of hunting left! Ohio has some damn fine hunting no matter how you look at it, with the opportunities to kill mature deer that we have now, it was nothing like this 20 years ago in my opinion.

I think the time is NOW, for one tag in areas. Like Fayette, for example. Northern Highland too. The area of Ross Co that I hunt can handle 2 tags. As the graph shows, what really knocks down the herd and increases hunter success is opportunity. I don't think for a minute that Fayette County should have the same number of days available to hunt as Coshocton, etc. I don't think we will ever run completely out, for the simple fact that people will quit hunting before they are completely gone.

In relation to what things were like 20 years ago, I made the statement that we had many, many more deer then to Tonkovich. He said, "No way". Thinking I may have been blinded by rose colored glasses, I looked up the stats. We killed 600 deer in 1995 in Fayette Co. We kill around 300 now. That is with more opportunity and better equipment than we had in 1995. We were still a 4 deer county until a couple of years ago, and were killing <300 deer. That is not an indicator of a DOW that is paying much attention. It took a good wheel squeaking to get Tonk's attention on the matter. In fact, when Fayette checked in 83 deer for all of gun season a few years back, Mrex sent me a text to relay from Tonk that he would be looking into a tag reduction for Fayette. A little late, IMO.

From a personal level, I have it pretty good right now. The landowner(s) I hunt on know darn well what has happened to our deer population in the area. They make a living off row crops. We don't have enough deer to do any damage! I have somehow wound up with the good fortune of being the only person hunting a fairly good size piece of the best habitat in the county. I'm not shooting any baby makers there, and over the last couple of years it has started to rebound...but it isn't an overnight fix!

Knowing what we had (admittedly just in my area), and knowing what we have now, I find it extremely frustrating to watch the DOW pat themselves on the back. I am thrilled to see others noticing a decline, at last. Even in deer dense counties, people seem to be less than happy. 20 years ago, I don't remember anyone complaining about our deer herd. Not the case today, and I don't think the complaints are coming from folks that just want deer hunting to be easy.
 
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hickslawns

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Look what the cat dragged in. Hello Randy!

Thank you for posting this Brock. I had forgotten there was another site. I appreciate you making me realize how good we have it on TOO. People can speak their minds, good or bad. Hunters become educated. Some learn new words, while others realize their thought process was in line with others in realizing the deer herd is on a decline.

I won't bash MRex or Tonk. False propaganda they are spewing will do enough to damage the opinions others have of them. I will cordially say hello if I ever go back to the Deer and Turkey Expo. Free country. Let them say what they wish. IF they feel the ODNR is doing the right things, let them say it. I don't have to agree with it. That is what is great about this country. We can say what we want. That is also what is great about TOO. We can say what we want without being censored like a communist society.
 

swantucky

The Crew
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Swanton, Ohio
Don't get me wrong, I like Mike Rex. Only met him the one time and he seemed like a good guy. He went out of his way to try and put guys on deer our first year down at Stroud's. I can't remember why I made that sign other than it amuses me! :pickle:Tonk seemed o.k. but he is about like a political spin dr.

As far as the deer population it varies alot even in the same counties....one area I hunt here in nw Ohio has almost no deer, behind my house is devoid of deer, we have not killed any this year and maybe one last year. It is amazing how quickly they disappeared back there. Another bowhunting only property 5 miles away we have more does than we ever have. In southern Ohio in New Lexington even with the bad weather the deer numbers seemed down but this was only my 5th year hunting there so I don't have a long history to go on.

Lucas county doe permit numbers have been liberal for many years, it has not changed the number of deer car accidents one bit. In the areas you can hunt the deer get decimated, but in the areas that don't allow ANY hunting they continue to keep the road kill numbers up so they keeps issuing way to many permits.
 

Kaiser878

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ohio
While I'm not screaming deer decimation worries.... I have beef with the DNR about their choice of appointed employees.

I am willing to see less deer If that means consistently seeing more and larger bucks. The problem is the Amish around the areas I hunt are morons and kill to kill.... IMO Amish are probably the biggest threat to the deer herd in Ohio.

I don't know Tonk.... while I do know mike... I respect the man... I don't know how you couldn't... he's obviously doing the right things.... and his success shows it.

I can't help but fear what a lot of you guys are seeing. And I don't want it to happen near me. I do know the 700 acres by my house gets raped by Amish.... and it shows..... there are few deerr there. But I was able to consistently keep track of most every good buck on that property.... unfortunately none were quite big enough....
 

bowhunter1023

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Well done Brock. Your OP is a great synopsis of where we've been and how we got here. You know, for a dumb redneck you're pretty smart! ;)
 

brock ratcliff

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Well done Brock. Your OP is a great synopsis of where we've been and how we got here. You know, for a dumb redneck you're pretty smart! ;)

That's right, tell your friends... :)

I wouldn't claim to be overly bright, but I'm not dumb enough to buy the DOW's story that our herd grew by those leaps and bounds. I firmly believe if we had worked under the same regulations for all those years, our kill would have remained flat, or at the very least increased slightly due to the rising popularity of archery hunting. Imagine what our gun season kill would have been this year, with this current herd, if we still hunted just 6 days and were allowed just one deer! I don't know how the DOW can honestly say they believe the herd is SO large. It certainly wasn't estimated to be so enormous until Mike Tonkovich took over in 1996 and declared it to be too big, thus; kill 'em all! Granted, our herd may have been expanding and needed a trim, but I don't believe it needed cut as deeply as it has been. At least not in my area, and I don't say that because I think there should be a deer behind every tree. There never has been that many here. 600 is the HIGHEST kill we've ever had, that isn't a lot of deer, and that was harvested clear back in 1995!