I completely agree with you on some of that and I have a very thorough understanding of what things truly look like on the ground around Montgomery Co as well as many of the surrounding ones. You’d actually be surprised at how small the “void” area is for Montgomery Co…..I’ve been called out to track deer for folks in some crazy places. Same goes for Auburn….The city isn’t a complete void area though it will effect the numbers some and should be taken into consideration.
You’re exactly right though in that there is a good amount of variation happening within each county and it shows that the Game Check system has limits on the amount of detail to what it can currently show. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it complete garbage……It’s a very good generalized comparison of each counties output and it also shows sudden changes in kill numbers very well which is really the more concerning part about this current discussion.
Sudden change it kill numbers?? Come on CNC. You bother to think that the decrease in kill numbers from last season to this season is almost entirely based upon the fact that most everyone was either not working, working from home, or conveniently out on multiple times during the season for two weeks of "Covid quarantine" vacation, and the truth of the matter is that on average, there were probably 50% more man days spent in the woods last season versus this season. Once again, not worth the paper it is printed on. And this is without even bringing up the lackluster/minimal participation and tens 10's of thousands, maybe even 100,000 deer that are never put into Chuckie check because people simply refuse to participate. It's garbage and statistically irrelevant for any type of analytical use.
Add to that list. Crappy weather for much of the season especially the early to mid part. Where I hunt prime time to be in the woods is Christmas to new year and that is also when people are off work to go hunting. That was also the worst hunting weather of the entire season. There will be season to season fluctuations. MANY factors can contribute to this. Making the assumption that one year drop in deer killed is due to any one thing, is ridiculous. One season does not make a trend.
