The way it's collected in Illinois is a two minute phone call, it's an automated deal. You answer a few questions, give a few measurements and get a confirmation number. No big deal! And the locals up there that I hunt with never complain about having to do it. Nor do they feel like the state is totally out of line for having a legitimate way to know for sure what is being harvested.

Yeah, it does such a good job in the area I hunt up there. Lol. I guess that's why I quit going up there.

Well they know how much timber they have to begin with. If the data was only collected on the number of trees that were cut, what would that tell them? If they cut 57,000 trees was that too many?



They know how big their tanks are and can estimate how many gallons per day they sell. What if they only tracked how many gallons were sold and someone else was responsible for filling the tanks?



Again, you can know how many you started with, how many you have, at what rate they sell. If you don't know how many you started with but know you sold 3 and you don't know how many you have left, how many should you order???



What if the farmers knew how much land they planted but didn't know how much land they had available to plant? Did they plant enough? If they used 12 round bales of hay last month but don't know how many they have left or at what rate they were being replenished, then what good is that data? [/quote]



And I could show you that unless you have the right data, it is useless.



Unless we know how many deer we have to start with and how many we "need" to harvest to maintain the herd, then what good is it to track how many have been harvested?

WMA's have their own rules based on biologist input I guess. I have hunted WMA's and have never been happy with the number of deer I've seen. I have seen some good deer but never that many deer. Maybe the deer are there but the pressure is too much? I don't know???

I am in a club and we limit ourselves based on a variety of factors, include personal observations. I would rather hunt in our club than in all the "free" WMAs put together. If we are seeing a lot of does, we tend to kill more of them. If we are not seeing as many does, we lay off of them. We have higher fees and fewer members so we don't have the pressure that a lot of clubs have. Regardless, I figure most clubs limit themselves to some degree, some more than others. Reporting our harvest will not change how we manage our land. We work to improve the habitat for the deer. While we are not perfect, we do kill our fair share of deer. I only killed one buck and one doe last year? Was that too many, too few, or just right, based on the harvest "Data"???

good point. surveys aren't for everything. Maybe they should do a random survey of 1% of the US population to see who should be our next president...

I am in a club and we limit ourselves based on a variety of factors, include personal observations. I would rather hunt in our club than in all the "free" WMAs put together. If we are seeing a lot of does, we tend to kill more of them. If we are not seeing as many does, we lay off of them. We have higher fees and fewer members so we don't have the pressure that a lot of clubs have. Regardless, I figure most clubs limit themselves to some degree, some more than others. Reporting our harvest will not change how we manage our land. We work to improve the habitat for the deer. While we are not perfect, we do kill our fair share of deer. I only killed one buck and one doe last year? Was that too many, too few, or just right, based on the harvest "Data"??? [/quote]

Ding, Ding, Ding. We have a winner here. You are using actual DATA to manage your club!!!!!!!!!! The state is simply trying to gather data for a whole state so they can better manage the whole state. What works in Shelby County is not going to work in Jackson County or Dallas County. Harvest data is the first step into trying to get DATA specific to all areas of the state. Again, one phone call per deer or turkey ain't gonna overwork us.

The state doesn't know what the overall number of deer are so how can harvest data help with that?

Ok, Mr. State. I killed one buck and one doe last year. Was that too many, just right, or not enough? That is the harvest data, so tell me. 2 years ago I killed 1 buck and 2 does. 3 years ago, I killed 1 buck and 2 does. 4 years ago I killed 1 buck and 1 doe, and 5 years ago I killed 3 does. All of these came off the same property.

So, based on the data, how many deer should I kill next year? For the past 2 years I've kept some records on the number of deer I've seen while hunting so I feel that I am better informed about my club than the state could ever be.

If you want the result of State decisions on hunting quotas, hunt the WMAs.

Under the current conditions, I hunt in a club with a very healthy population of deer and turkey. I suspect that Game Check will not help or hurt where I hunt.

If absolutely knowing the number of deer present is require to make any decisions about deer management, every club out there should just chunk their Kill Book in the garbage, and every state agency in the country should just hang it up and go to the house. Might as well give up.

I'm sure you agree that we need some sort of overarching regulations to protect our resource? Given the complexity of our geography, land use, et. what should they base that on? Guesses? What Grandpa told them?

I'm not trying to be ugly, but I can see where a stage biologist trying to establish zones for does, etc would want something to go by.

mman,

Like you, I think site specific data on the actual property I hunt is the only way to set harvest parameters. I can show you 16 years of harvest data with observation data every 5 years on a piece of property in Perry County. We can each share our data with the State. But, that does not help them determine what the DATA is on the other end of the state. If they could get every club to submit the same type of data then there would be no need for Game Check.

I have made a couple of observations off the property in the past couple of years. The State finally appointed somebody with a Biology background (actually managed private lands and had a television series about how to IMPROVE your habitat and herd) as our Commissioner. In three years, he has had his Department go out and collect a lot of fetal aging study DATA and in turn used that DATA to change hunting dates that will allow most Alabama hunters to hunt the peak of the rut. A lot of people said our season closed too early, but, the DATA was used to adjust the season. Second, I have attended turkey meetings sponsored by the DCNR over the past couple of years and and both times Chuck Sykes has asked opinions on how to get good DATA for deer and turkey harvests from all parts of the state. If all I have to do is make a phone call then I am willing to do that.

95% of the threads are guessing what the data is going to say or what it is going to be used for. The first thing we have to do is collect the DATA before it can say anything.

But, don't ask me. I'm too stupid to quote back in the brown box on Aldeer. How are you highlighting the response box?

You don't have to know the exact number but you should have some idea as to the density of deer.

When you hunt an area, it doesn't take too long to figure out if the deer numbers are increasing, decreasing, or remaining about the same. You can't determine that just from harvest data. Many clubs today are very selective in what they kill. Harvest records won't tell the full story.

Of course we need regulations but even if all regulations were removed, I seriously doubt that the club I am in would change any of our rules.

I don't know what the right answer is. I see this as a possible step to get where we may need to be, but until someone can lay out a roadmap to where we are going, I will remain skeptical. It is a giant puzzle, but we only have or want some of the pieces. With so many clubs and private land owners being self regulated and with the State already controlling the WMAs, then I am wondering how useful will a game check system really be?

If all clubs were like yours and mine there would be no need for a game check system.

Call your District Biologist. Chuck said he was planning to attend several local meetings to tout Game Check. See when he is going to be in your area and go to the meeting. There was plenty of comment, question, and answer time at the turkey meeting. I want to help improve hunting state wide, not just on my piece of heaven.

Hit the quote button at the bottom of the post you want to quote

For yours, what I want to quote start with quote=Wade, [but has square brackets around it] and ends with /quote [also enclosed within square brackets like these, if that makes sense].

If this helps us out, then I will be all for it. I am just skeptical that it will provide any tangible benefits. Let's just say, the older I get, the more cynical I get.

Part of my job is analyzing data, so trust me, I love data. If I was a biologist, I would want all the data I could get, I understand that. They are in a no win situation and it is easy to see their frustration. They are obviously passionate about what they do but maybe their skin will grow thicker over time.

If we have to do this, I will comply and just hope it works

Testing my new quoting skill...

Well I be danged. 2414 posts later I did learn something new.

Chuck is one of the reasons I am hopeful and supportive of the state programs in recent years. I met him years ago when he was over a piece of property I hunted on and have followed him ever since. I believe him to be a person who truly cares about improving our resources and until he proves me wrong I am willing to support him and make a phone call or logging a deer on my phone app if that is what he says he needs.

If you feel that way then the right approach in my mind would be to have Mr. Chuck send one of the biologists out to your land and all the other folks in the area around you who are disgruntled and willing to do what it takes….and sign you guys up for their DMAP program. They can get all kinds of good site specific data while they’re there....way beyond what Game Check can provide... and then you guys can use this data to show up and lobby for changes at the CAB meetings …….The right way is not to force this on every hunter and landowner in the state or else because a few have issues. JMO

I have tried to get my club's landowner to enroll in DMAP,but he is not interested in it even though it is free and he has to pay his private biologist. Also the last time I checked my 100 acres was too small to be enrolled in the program. I really think it is the small landowners that have suffered the most over the past two decades because I can see where clubs and large landowners could use the current system in managing their land and if they had low numbers they would have no one to blame but themselves, but the small landowners surrounded by other small landowners really have no chance under the current system.
Btw I actually do not think it is the minority that see a problem with the deer density. I actually believe the minority is the hunters that have really good deer densities. I do wish there was some accurate way of getting the true number of deer a state has but that is impossible. So harvest trends and hunter surveys / observations are just some tools that can be used to monitor what is happening across the state.

I'm not disgruntled , not am I jumping up and down for major changes. I just don't get the resistance to the game check system. How in the hell is the honor system gonna do any good? Deer or turkey?

Does it not make one wonder why the DCNR has the traveling medicine show going around spending taxpayers dollars touting the great wonders of a MANDATED system, when they would not spend a nickel to educate the "public" (read that as peasants and you have the same mindset) about a voluntary system?

Sounds a whole lot like Nancy Pelosi saying "we have to pass it to see what's in it", no??

Is the "public" (yes, peasants here too) so incredibly dumb that the government can't educate us, so they have to MANDATE things and back it up with punishment for the "public" (peasants) to understand how great it is??

Just my little old opinion that any government department or bureaucrat should exhaust ALL options before proposing MANDATED compliance and punishment for their scientific experiments. Evidently that does not seem to be too compelling to many.

They've been pretty outgoing about the voluntary system since it was instituted. It's just that not enough hunters did it voluntarily -- after 80something years of not having any kind of check system at all -- so they wanted to make it mandatory (like other states).

They didn't do the traveling road show, but they didn't keep it a secret, either.

Never knew I was a peasant! Or incredibly dumb for that matter?? If only I could figure this deer hunting thing out. Their must be a bunch of dumbasses involved and working for the DCNR in Texas , Illinois , Kansas , Ohio ....... . Those democrats ruined the hunting In those states !!