My rant,supplemental tags,sunday hunting and poachers

[Jay T]

Shoot I hunt east of Edm and I have yet to see a drop in deer population. The 5 guys pilling out of a truck and each getting 5 tags. Nothing to say that they are getting all 5 deer. I know guys that have 1 deer down this year. They still have 4 more tags unfilled. Between my hunting partner and I we had with our draws 17 tags. We have shot 8 to date. The last one a big muley doe is going to be donated to his mom and sister.

Truck hunters are a big problem out here as well, just when you think you are far enough away from the road some clown drives by through the field in front of you. I have talked to some of these guys who have not seen a deer all season. Well, no wonder, get out of your truck and get off the beaten path. So as far as dropping populations I haven't seen it. I for one REALLY like the sunday hunting. As a father of 2 very busy kids Saturday and Sunday are my only days I can get out.

If people keep thinking that the areas areound here are shot out I guess that means more deer for me. Go ahead stay in those trucks!!!

 

[honkerhitter]

I live right in the same area, and deer #'s are down , The dnr and there blitz 3 yrs agofor cwd made a huge impact. Also handing out tags like candy, moast guys I know do not need 5 animals just to eat, 6 if you get a muley draw. I was preaching to guys I hunt with and any one that would listen to not fill there sup tags just for the sake of shooting an animal. I could see having it set up so a youth tag could get 1 doe and 1 general tag. maybe the same for all hunters but 6 tags come on? when I was a kid you got 1 tag and you put some effort into filling it. I my self had 4 tags this year and filled 2, I took a nice dry doe for sausage meat, and my WT buck. I have a muley doe draw, and one supp tag to hang on the tree, and it doesn't bother me in the least. There was some pretty good deer taken here this year, but over all pop is down .

 

[icehunter121]

For our areas they seem to be fine. For your areas and your purposes they aren't. If, as you say, your zones have 97th ST and Jasper in them, then the supps are serving a bigger purpose than helping your hunting. They are taking numbers down to reduce human-deer conflicts.

You started this thread off as a rant that was directed Alberta wide and then as we started to chime in with differing opinions you narrowed the focus to just a few zones east of Edmonton. In my zone the hunting is fine and the supps are not a big issue. Not the best ever nor the worst. In you zone they may be a problem. I don't know. But if your want rules changed then make sure you speak only for the areas you hunt and not those of hunters in zones you do not frequent.

My mistake. In the original post I should have put down the zones east of edmonton.I apologize for that error.

 

[Ardent]

I hate supplemental doe tags. Up in this country the deer have a hard enough time surviving the deep snow, wolves etc without MEAT hunters dumping does.

All we need, it's happened in the recent past, is one tough winter and 70% of the herd can be killed off. We got off extremely lucky, weater-wise with the winter of 2009-10, which brought the deer herd back up in numbers.
Hopefuly we get another good winter for the deer herd this year.

Anyway, I hate the killing of does for sausage meat.

Back to the original point, seems like somebody musta been poaching your deer/elk for profit. Can't wait to hear more info on that case. f**kers!!

Well that's interesting... I never thought I'd start hearing trophy hunters try and step on top of meat hunters and feel better about themselves. I do both, and took a doe this year on our acreage, and also trophy hunted in the spring. We are swimming in deer, more than I've ever seen. The WMU has a doe cull on, I like doe meat, and I'm more than happy to take part.

To the thread in general, if one likes to hunt, one needs to live outside the city, or take time off and travel. Hunter's within 2 hours of an urban center larger than 50,000 are indeed going to have a hard time in many instances. The insurance thing isn't the worry, I believe, it's the danger on the highways to motorists. I don't agree that killing all the deer off's the answer either, but it's not as pure dark business as it sounds I don't think.

 

[diemaco]

No idea what the deer populations are like out in Alberta, but look at what happened in some parts of Ontario the last few years. The MNR was offering up to 8 supplemental doe only tags in some areas! Combine that with a couple rough winters, a surge in coyote population, and a slow response by the MNR to reduce quotas: lots of areas have significantly lower populations than we've been used to. Levels are on the rise again but nowhere near where they were and will likely take a few years with favorable conditions to get back to where they were.

 

[Pudelpointer]

I posted earlier about a shift in attitude towards deer. I think the following post that was just posted on another forum is a perfect example of this:

"Has anyone had the experience for hunting along the east border between Ab and Sask? I am wondering how big impact of the CWD is in those areas, and are you hunting there just for fun? or their meat is ok too?
Thanks. "

Thanks to ASRDs Dillbury BS and associated culling / supplemental tags, deer are seen as no different then coyotes by a lot of people.

Something to think about.

 

[Camo tung]

Ice: The area I drive through is N on Hwy 36 W on Hwy 14. Are you not up in around Wx, Viking, etc? (200 series?) Anyway, on some of the back roads (I try all sorts of shortcuts to Edmonton) I see piles of animals. I recall driving by Paint Earth Mine (I think it is a mine I have never stopped and checked) and there must have been at least 100 whitetail running around there. It was crazy. Just to give you perspective - I was driving through the 200 series to Edmonton 3x in the dark and every single time I barely missed a deer. After the third time I called it quits that was 2008-2009. I warned off my friend not to do it and sure enough his girlfriend hit a deer on the second time she came down to Med Hat for a visit. If you are saying your area is hunted out, I believe you but with all the animals I am seeing I am sure it won't be long before they start coming back into your area. I was talking to a CO at Cooking Lake and he told me that the Whitetail deer pop is so large that it is pushing out the Mulies and it is at the point where they have to do something about it as F&G was concerned for the mulie population.

Not sure where Ice is hanging his hat but I have to agree with you. There's a reason why the WT season runs to Dec 20th this year in some of the 2's. Just spent 2 days "out that way" D) and it was just dirty with deer, both whites and muleys. Headed in to the local cat chow mein place for dinner and there were locals moaning about no deer. Hard to figure out what they're doing wrong 'cause I'm not that quiet hunting on foot.

 

[icehunter121]

Ice: The area I drive through is N on Hwy 36 W on Hwy 14. Are you not up in around Wx, Viking, etc? (200 series?) Anyway, on some of the back roads (I try all sorts of shortcuts to Edmonton) I see piles of animals. I recall driving by Paint Earth Mine (I think it is a mine I have never stopped and checked) and there must have been at least 100 whitetail running around there. It was crazy. Just to give you perspective - I was driving through the 200 series to Edmonton 3x in the dark and every single time I barely missed a deer. After the third time I called it quits that was 2008-2009. I warned off my friend not to do it and sure enough his girlfriend hit a deer on the second time she came down to Med Hat for a visit. If you are saying your area is hunted out, I believe you but with all the animals I am seeing I am sure it won't be long before they start coming back into your area. I was talking to a CO at Cooking Lake and he told me that the Whitetail deer pop is so large that it is pushing out the Mulies and it is at the point where they have to do something about it as F&G was concerned for the mulie population.

Ya I live in Viking.Right in 2008 they had Sunday hunting if I can remember right and I know in 09 you could start to get all the supp tags and this year its the same thing.It doesnt sound like its going to change out here and the supps are here to stay.So about the time you were just missing deer is the time they opened it up.As for the paint earth mine I have never heard of it but recall there being a county called paintearth ,just cant place it right now.

Cooking lake should fall in the Strathcona county and isnt that still shotgun and bow only? An thats if you can get permission and from what I have read thats pretty much impossible.I have read stories of the residents there #####ing about the deer eating all the trees and gardens but yet they deny access to any one to hunt them.
Residents there were even #####ing that fish and wildlife should be paying them for all the damge the deer were doing. They got laughed at. When I was going to NAIT the sun would be coming up just as I hit Tofield so one morning after seeing herds of deer I did a head count on my way to school. Packed up a spotting scope and binoculars and started counting deer. The best I had in a 1 week period was 171 deer right off the hiway.That was in a 45 mile drive to the city limits.

in the 4 zones around me the best we ever had in 1 late day of preseason scouting was 157 deer,but that was 10 years ago. Now if you can see 20 or so deer in a day you are doing really good.Last week a friend of mine started at daybreak and just drove for 2 hours to count deer...he seen 3 in total. You can say that after a month of hunting every thing is shell shocked and hiding,but the mulies will still come out cause thats the way they are,but not a lot of them around either.

 

[canadian hunter312]

1) killing off some doe's is BETTER for the herd
2) sounds like poaching is more to blame than extra tags
3) you're crying because you only see 20 deer in a day
4) an overpopulation of deer is worse than low numbers
5) deer change habits and evolve. you should follow suit if you're not seeing any


its sounds like you guys have been spoiled out there with really high numbers and now you're crying because you'll have to work for deer. cry me a river

 

[Suka]

OT, but we stay overnight at Viking on our way home from moose htg. Pretty good chinese over the curling rink.

Don't worry, we don't hunt within hundreds of miles of you.

 

[icehunter121]

OT, but we stay overnight at Viking on our way home from moose htg. Pretty good chinese over the curling rink.

Don't worry, we don't hunt within hundreds of miles of you.

Benny puts on a pretty good feast eh. For breakfast try food with flair on main street. Good ol home made cooking.

 

[Big Jon]

What I seen in the Peace country...

After a few years of really aggressive anterless mule deer tag numbers/seasons there was a distinct drop in deer numbers. It was slightly more difficult to get one than just heading out the door and saying your going to get a doe. Rather than going for a drive and seemingly seeing a dozen deer every few quarters you had to put in a little more effort. The deer were actually acting like they had to hide...holding out in coulees and draws, wooded areas. Once you got away from the "easy to shoot out" areas there were plenty of deer.

 

[RoscoeT]

wildlife management,,,,yup we managed to shoot that zone or 4 out,table fare,yup the table is fair game to chew on if you are hungry enuff,tradition,,well lots of years ago we couuld take a drive and see all sorts of deer,but tradition took care of that many years ago,now we just talk about it.Still think the sups are great??

Lot's of guys filling tags in all WMU's.
If you're not then don't blame the sups.

Hunting in a CWD zone (ie. lots and lots of tags issued) I stopped counting at 60 deer in an afternoon.

 

[firemachine69]

Well that's interesting... I never thought I'd start hearing trophy hunters try and step on top of meat hunters and feel better about themselves. I do both, and took a doe this year on our acreage, and also trophy hunted in the spring. We are swimming in deer, more than I've ever seen. The WMU has a doe cull on, I like doe meat, and I'm more than happy to take part.

To the thread in general, if one likes to hunt, one needs to live outside the city, or take time off and travel. Hunter's within 2 hours of an urban center larger than 50,000 are indeed going to have a hard time in many instances. The insurance thing isn't the worry, I believe, it's the danger on the highways to motorists. I don't agree that killing all the deer off's the answer either, but it's not as pure dark business as it sounds I don't think.

The irony is it tends to be the exact same people who ##### about insurance rates.


Well we got you beat out east.

We got high car insurance and low deer population!

 

[woodchopper]

I suspect that F&G has been told not to bring up the CWD issue. They had enough complaints a few years ago with the cull they conducted. Political suicide..... So no more CWD culls but its ok to blame the insurance companies, nobody likes them anyways and hey it will help with that other little problem

They still want to reduce the deer population to about ZERO


I like my suplemental antlerless tags and Sunday hunting, I shot 2 yearlings, young and tasty, but didn't fill my general tag. Saw 2 nice big bucks but they saw me first

 

[tactical870]

I hunt for two reasons. I love to hunt and I like to eat venison. I have no respect for TROPHY hunters who just kill big bucks. If you don't enjoy eating them then give it up. I've shot my fair share of big deer (you can see the last 3 years on my thread) but I take meat deer too. Lately I'm trying to take more buck fawns and weaker deer that are unlikey to survive. Also I shoot coyotes whenever I can.

 

[Demonical]

^ I'm that guy.

So what about those guys that simply hunt big mature bucks and pocket their tag at the end of the year, if they haven't been able to get a big old buck? That's what I did again this year. I've got more tags then big bucks...

I know lots of guys that shoot the first thing with knobs on it's head; guys that shoot does and guys that only shoot a deer sometimes every 10 years cuz they haven't seen a book deer.

I don't tell other people how they should hunt or think. I do what satisfys me, and me alone.

Who gives a #### what you think...

 

[YGF]

i odnt see any problems with hunting on sundays....... i am actually reall really glad that you can now becasue of work and everything i would usualy only be ablt to get out fri night and a full day hunt on sat. so the sunday hunting actually helps me as i dont have to take as much time off work to get out in the field. dont get me wrong i love hunting but unfortunetly i cant pay my bills with deer steak! wich is also why having supplimental tags is nice that way there is a little more meat in the freezer rather then spending money at the grocery store...

 

[hal53]

Yup I can drive 1 minute from town and in one of those CWD zones.Right from here to the sask border is totally wide open. And the border is at least a hour from me.It first appeared as CWD but then with some culls all these tags were opened up.So why was that when they only found a few cases of CWD? An why was ins companies telling us years ago that they wanted all the deer shot and fish and wild life is telling us that it was the ins companies.

Seems like it was to try and place the blame elsewhere then quietly open up the whole population to get shot out...and that is exactly what is happening.I havent hunted deer in about 10 years now so these are my observations from a side liner. I never trophy hunted in my life but went for the meat and the sport of it. But when you really look at it...what family really needs 5 deer to live on.? There gets to being a point of getting meat and providing,but it also gets to the point of trying to look ,like a macho hunter and providing for say the wifes parents,kids etc etc. I thought hunting was about hunting and not just going out a filling 5 tags for the simple pleasure of looking like some kind of hero.

An if i may I will say one thing,next year will be even worse.Once again this is my opinion...but if hunting is supposed to continue in the future this other crap has to stop now. Otherwise deer hunting will go the way of the dino's and your grand kids will grow up dreaming about hunting deer,but there wont be any left in Alberta to hunt.An for you folks that dont have supp tags and even Sunday hunting...if this proves to work as it has been doing,you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be the same in a zone near you...then you can look at the lost hunting opportunities and go holy s**t...yup its happening...

^^^^ very true!!!...all of it...saw 2 deer all fall in my area, 5 years ago would see 10-15 a day...