Urban Bowhunting for Deer Management

[venado]

http://www.bowhunter.com/feature_articles/BW_business_0809/

[GF.]

Interesting that baiters git a deer for every 12 hours and non-baiters went 1:15. Even more interesting that other studies show baiters getting fewer deer per hour afield. Makes me wonder why anybody would go to the trouble and expense for 'normal' hunting.

Good for them that they shot so few bucks... Thaty's what it's really going to take, I think, to get non-hunters to take us seriously as deer managers - they think all we really care about is getting bone on the wall, and when they see us kill a buck, we just confirm the suspicion....

[Twanger]

My personal experience is that I can kill roughly one deer per week Of bow hunting twice a week for a sixteen week season. That's about one deer for every 5 hours on stand. This is over bait. We harvest approximately 92 percent does.

In the first half of the season I average more like 1 to 2 deer per 3 hour hunt, but later in the season it's more like one deer per 5 hunts. They get wise and their numbers grow fewer as the season wears on.

I am trying to expand our hunting to new areas so we don't burn our properties out so fast. We'll see how that works this year... Hopefully.

[GF.]

I also noticed that they said success rates were higher on smaller properties of 2 acres or less...

Do you think that's a matter of housing density being great enough to restrict deer movement to more predictable corridors?

Seems like often, in bigger patches of woods, you can find yourself in a tree that's maybe one chip-shot away from where you'd want to be in order to have a very high percentage shot on a passing animal.... But in thickly settled areas, often times a stand in the middle of a strip of trees leaves you with a chip-shot to either side, or the deer have to go out onto the lawns to get past you....

[DaveHawk]

Do you think that's a matter of housing density being great enough to restrict deer movement to more predictable corridors?

YEP

Unlike Walt , I hunt a place once a week maybe twice. I put out very little corn and I think only once last year I did not have a shot in a back yard.

[Twanger]

Dave - I think we operate similarly. We try not to hit a place more than twice a week.

We do however try to bait continuously if we're hunting. Sometimes we switch off feeders in some locations and start them up in other locations to save feed costs... particularly if we've driven deer nocturnal in one particular location.

Homes, yards, and strips of woods do define where the deer can roam and where you can reasonably shoot deer. Suburban landowners want the deer gone, but generally don't want them shot right on their manicured lawn. There are exceptions to this, but mostly they want to sign-up before the season and not see us again until after the season and then find out that we killed a bunch of deer.

Last year we killed 15 deer over the same feeder in one location and the landowner had no idea that we were even hunting 'down there in the woods.' Ideal from their perspective.

[GF.]

So... to hijack this just a touch, but maybe not....

Everybody always says to only hunt a stand when the wind is right for it; do you think that really applies in the 'burbs so much? Or maybe only to the SOBs (that's for Smart Old Bucks, mind you ;) )

[dave-t.]

If you get very far outside of a yard, you'd better be scent concious. Urban deer don't like danger scents just the same as any other deer. There are places that they expect human scent, and the woods/bedding areas ain't it. ;)

[DaveHawk]

GF if a deer can scent you and can not see you, then your a threat. There are some properties I hunt that the wind has to be just right or I get scented and no deer. SO when the wind is wrong and I know it will be wrong for a few days I through a can of corn out where I want to deer to come in from.

So yes funneling is a hugh part of back yard hunting.

[Chuck S]

The many aspects or angles as I said above to this article starts with: it's very similar to what the TV folks call an infomercial and I'd rather read hunting or other management stories where an advertiser may not be calling the shots. :(
As an info source I always look at these with a very biased eye as folks will certainly bend stats and more when advertising.:mad: Another aspect that draws a big frown from me and many others is that baiting deer isn't considered ethical hunting. :mad::mad:While it might make sense as a management tool, I'd much rather see folks hunting such a grand big game animal under fair chase rules. We've seen it more and more as Whitetail Deer hunting is becoming Whitetail Deer farming or ranching, complete with feeders, breeding stock, fences and more. As for me this is a very bad trend if many are led to believe, and that is precisely what is happening, that this is actually hunting.:eek:

Now for those of you who are actively trying to manage a deer area or deer herd, the article might be of some use :confused: although I refer to the Ad nature of the article and my very dim view of most Ads.

Another aspect though gets a kudo from me, :) as many fish and game managers, whom are paid to be impartial and good at what they do, should sit up and take notice, as this shows what a motivated manager or two can achieve as far as getting folks afield. With the proper motivation and instruction the numbers of hunters that would have been out hunting in similar areas could have been almost as high as the total that applied.

If these folks are on the level and they may well be, as far as the managers and writer/magazine goes this does show what archery and gun hunters can do if the proper direction is provided as far as game animals needing culling which is one important aspect of hunting.

[GF.]

But what you just said is kind of contradictory to reality...

You're giving these guys credit for 'motivating' people to get out there and take some does, but the reality is that they had a lot of people willing to do the dirty work and actually had to 'interview' and 'select' a privileged few.

Seems to me that somebody figgered out how to get paid to limit how many other folks got to do some hunting that a lot of guys were willing to do....


:confused:

Good work if you can get it, I suppose, but nothing that wouldn't get done if individual landowners would just open up their property to guys like me who show up with an honest face and a short bowhunting 'resume'....

Your tax dollar at 'work' once again...:rolleyes:

[DaveHawk]

Chuck, I suspect that most of these so called game shows that cull bucks have a high fence operation. The bucks they cull out are inferior bucks that were not shot during their prime or have inferior genetics.

Management of deer is just that managing the population. Culling a great number of doe's.