Welcome to The Doe Club
By Rick Spoerl
Well I did it. This year I finally shot a doe. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I have tagged two antlerless deer. But unfortunately what I thought were doe’s was really two button bucks. But not this year. What I thought might be a button buck turned out to be a big doe. It was a good harvest and some tasty steaks in the freezer. It was the only deer I saw up to 9:14 AM. And by the way, the only deer I saw while on stand opening weekend. You see this year I had only Friday thru Sunday off work, meaning I would have to leave after hunting Sunday morning. The old saying "if its brown it’s down" was definitely in order. So my son Sean and I gave it our best shot. To bad Sean didn’t score this year but last year he did get his first deer during the youth/zone-t doe hunt. He shot a nice doe and I think I was more excited then he, although he was shaking pretty badly when I walked up to his tree. He had put the deer down at forty yards with a well placed spine shot.
While my attitude about harvesting doe’s has most definitely changed, some die hard buck hunters just aren’t hungry enough to shoot the doe. At least not until the last day. The Wisconsin DNR’s estimate of 1.7 million deer might be a little high, but it really doesn’t matter, there are lots of deer out there. It becomes quite a chore for the DNR to come up with ways to bring the deer within population goals. It isn’t a matter of, if you want or don’t want to kill a doe. The DNR says you will. By implementing the "earn a buck" season this year in Wisconsin they are forcing you to shoot does, but for years they forced you and taught you to only shoot bucks. One minute they want the population to skyrocket, the next minute they want every deer out there shot. This is a factual statement as you can see what’s happening in the "CWD eradication zones", no not just doe's, all of them. Eradicate them all.
For a long time us old timers (40+) wouldn’t even consider shooting a doe. As the population of deer grew and more permits became available we would shoot them, but only on or near the end of our hunt. As the mid to late 90’s approached we started to see up to one hundred deer on opening weekend alone. Sometimes up to thirty in a herd. You guessed it. All doe’s. We now shot for our venison first and the buck second. Some hunters still won’t shoot the doe until the last day. And a lot of them go home with nothing. This definitely hurts the cause. If they would shoot the doe’s first, then maybe the stupid October zone-t would go away.
There really is no one to blame for the population of deer except for Mother Nature. The mild winters are probably the leading cause of "over population". But is it really over population. Who decides if there are too many deer? I saw four deer in the woods on opening day while others saw thirty. I don’t personally think there is an over population. I do think there are a lot of deer, but that’s a good thing. Is it the population of the deer that caused CWD, or some careless moron deer farm owner that let an infected animal into the wild? Is it wise to simply kill every animal in a 200 mile diameter? And if you do will you eliminate the disease. We’ll see. And does the disease even hurt people? No one knows. Their going by the old "better safe than sorry" theory.
I happen to be a bow hunter as well as a gun hunter and simply don’t agree with the timing of the October zone-t season. It has put a huge dent in my hunt. Thanks to the Wisconsin DNR our (my two sons and I) three day weekend buck hunt has turned into a pumpkin orange doe hunt. The youth hunt has turned into a joke. Being it’s on the same weekend as the zone-t doe hunt. Anyone of any age can shoot a deer that’s in a zone-t or earn a buck zone (which is nearly the whole state). So why even have a youth hunt. The kids can’t shoot a buck and they have to compete with thousands of adult hunters. There’s got to be a better system.
The point isn’t whether you shoot doe’s or you don’t, but that now it’s not your choice. If there are these 1.7 million deer in the state, and the majority of winters these days are mild, whether from global warming or natural weather trends, then obviously the habitat can support more deer. Shouldn’t the DNR up their quota levels now that the habitat can support more deer because of milder temps. If they did, it wouldn’t be as necessary to force deer hunters to shoot certain deer. Is it the car deer collisions, pressure from the insurance companies, crop damage complaints or large numbers of deer starving in case of a bad winter? Why can’t we have 1.7 million deer? Why not 2 million or 3 million? I agree somewhere it has to be controlled but I like seeing lots of deer. And I like a quality deer hunting experience. The bow hunt just doesn’t have the quality it used too.
If we do experience a hard winter in the future, then the deer herds will drop. Until then I guess I’ll have to stay in the doe hunters club.
Sean Spoerl's First Doe 2003
Rick's First Doe 2004
No Horns