Deer rifle season for 8 weeks

[ChrisD]

I'm glad it has been withdrawn. I hunt with all 3 weapons and seasons. To me, it didn't make sense that a bonus buck may not be legal to take due to antler restrictions, and would have to be passed on, then would be legal to take with a firearm as an antlerless when it has shed. If that is the case, remove the point of restrictions in early season. I know that a shed buck is legal now in January with a bow or late gun, but the late firearm is 3 days, not 31.
My two cents would be all Sunday's open, expand early muzzleloader to 5-7 days, and allow bonus stamp to be used during the early season while keeping the two doe harvest in place. Then expand firearms to open the week in December between when it closes now, and muzzleloader reopens.

 

[Doco Overboard]

I'm glad it has been withdrawn. I hunt with all 3 weapons and seasons. To me, it didn't make sense that a bonus buck may not be legal to take due to antler restrictions, and would have to be passed on, then would be legal to take with a firearm as an antlerless when it has shed. If that is the case, remove the point of restrictions in early season. I know that a shed buck is legal now in January with a bow or late gun, but the late firearm is 3 days, not 31.
My two cents would be all Sunday's open, expand early muzzleloader to 5-7 days, and allow bonus stamp to be used during the early season while keeping the two doe harvest in place. Then expand firearms to open the week in December between when it closes now, and muzzleloader reopens.

Thank you, Or maybe just make the the two day late firearms a week long and add in a pistol season or additional opportunities/lotteries in problem areas where necessary.

 

[rob257]

I agree - Minor changes to your idea

Bring it on. My suggestion was to make the whole season weapon of choice, but this is a good first step. Deer overpopulation is deer overpopulation, buck or doe. I realize shooting a doe helps control populations than shooting a buck, but I don't think the number of "antlerless' bucks being killed will increase all that much. The number of hunters out at that time of the year combined with the small number of "antlerless" bucks will make the number of these harvested relatively small.

And as usual, the most vocal critics are the bowhunters. They complain every time another segment of the season is opened to muzzleloaders or gun hunters. The actual kills made by bowhunters each year is really quite small; the population will never be kept in check by them, they don't kill enough. You could make deer season bow-only, statewide, all year-round, and the population will still never be kept in check.

Every county should be opened to rifles and handguns where safe to do so. Access to more public lands should be increased. The "safety zone" should be decreased to a more reasonable distance like 50 yards. All good. None will have as dramatic effect as increasing time available to gun hunters, though.

I can live with the weapon restictions in place now. If the intent it to reduce/control deer population then do this. Add a two week antlerless season after the early Fall muzzleloader season for any weapon. Allow Sunday hunting in every county. If the does aren't bred the population goes down.

Rob

 

[dist1646]

I'm not sure how to link a Facebook post, but I read it from a post by MD Hunting Coalition.

Edit, This is from their (MHC) page:
Because of a combination of factors including the joint efforts of outreach by the Maryland Bowhunters Society and the Maryland Hunting Coalition, including this format (we reached over 22,300 with our post from Wednesday) and our face to face conversations with lawmakers and wildlife managers at Blaze & Camo Day on Thursday - AND - your overwhelming contacts with the sponsors, we can report that the pending legislation that would have expanded the deer firearms season to eight weeks, SB953 and HB1111, has officially been withdrawn by the sponsors.
Both MBS and MHC Benefits are coming up in March and both organizations deserve your financial support.

So, a pro-hunting group ( MHC) opposed expanding hunting opportunities??!!!

 

[kingfish]

They need to include airbows along with bows and crossbows. That'll make bow hunting a bit easier.

 

[Bisleyfan44]

So, a pro-hunting group ( MHC) opposed expanding hunting opportunities??!!!

Yep. Ridiculous, isn't it? The bow hunters whined, bitched, pouted, and stomped loud enough. Sad. Absolutely no science behind their stance, only the desire to have all the big bucks to themselves. What do you think the genesis is behind antler restrictions? The bottom line is the gun hunters would have been given the rut and the bowhunters ain't gonna have that. Whiny bunch of......

I hope every landowner and farmer in this state throws these DBs off their properties this year. Let 'em go hunt public land for a bit. Farmers can keep on getting crop damage permits and give them to folks who'd gladly control the populations for them.

 

[Bisleyfan44]

I am good with that as the allure of gun hunting was lost for me along time ago. But gun hunting helps grow the sport through new hunters coming into the sport. You're not gonna start new hunters with bows and ml. And in the end hunter numbers are gonna need to grow to make any difference.The problem these people are neglecting to consider is that once lead starts flying deer tend to go nocturnal so extending the rifle season to December and all of January isnt going to produce more kills.Absolutely untrue. It has been proven that expanding the duration of the season spreads out the concentration of hunters, allowing them more choice when they can hunt, not how often. Limiting season duration does nothing except crowd everybody into a smaller window, hence more hunters afield at a given time. Thus more lead flying and higher nocturnal activity.

100% agree, the belief that deer will start moving after 2 weeks of firearms is over is an unfounded fairytale. Kills occur when there is alot of people in the woods at the same time or they're being driven somehow to a successful hunter. That's why I believe firearms season should be reduced not expanded. Again, as stated above, this has the exact opposite effect. If you have say 100,000 gun hunters, you can either cram them all into 2 weeks or spread them over 8 weeks. Just because I gun hunt, I'm not going to hunt every day of the season, it just gives me more opportunity to schedule hunting time around life's other activities. I will hunt more days, but not every day. That's the mistake most of these "holier than thou" people make; they assume a 12 day season means you hunt all 12 days, so with a 56 day season means Ill hunt 56 days. Absolutely not true. And then supplemented elsewhere for the guys who cant make it. You can already bow-hunt nearly clean through the season. But bowhunters can NOT control deer number. They can be a part of the plan, but they lack the numbers and harvest numbers to make a difference. I'd bet the number of bowhunters who hunt January at all is half a percent of the total number of bowhunters at most. I spoke to 5 avid experienced hunters today and they all thought I was joking. They already see the decline in numbers local to me just from the cumulative effects of introducing cross bow and early MZ into the equation for a few years. That is THE GOAL. Reduced deer numbers.What I realized is there is not a stitch of ground on the mid shore that is not being hunted already, what do we need 4+ solid weeks of it for? To allow hunters expanded opportunities afield. Maybe where you are deer numbers are down, but the deer population is out of control statewide and the annual birthrate outpaces harvest numbers EVERY YEAR.Western Shore, problem area. No where to hunt I guess makes it difficult for people to drive or grow bushes in there yard. Maybe they should just create a new zone to attract hunters with a multi week firearms season. A minus or B plus or something. Give it 5 years and the problem will be solved.

In the end, this is going to be a hard problem to solve to everybody's ideal. Give farmers their way and deer would be eliminated totally. They are nothing but a pest to them. Give hunters their way and deer would be plentiful everywhere. Deer are a recreational pursuit that must continue in perpetuity. Balance that.

 

[Doco Overboard]

Heres something to bitch about, a dam flat tire on the tractor.

 

[namrelio]

Just make the season the Sat after Thanksgiving, till the first of Jan. During that time, you hunt with whatever you want to hunt with. Gun, bow, blackpowder, or whatever.

I know some on here will say I'm wrong, but a lot of bow hunters loose a lot of deer. I've had a few bow hunters I used to work with tell me how many they lost. Too many. Good shots, still lost them. I know, I know, loose them with a gun to. But not as many. They come out early around here and stick them arrows in some nice deer only to have them run of and never be found.

Give gun hunters a couple months to hunt and see if that reduces the herd any. At least the dead ones will be used.

 

[lazarus]

What about letting us use rifles for hunting period? In my part of MD, it's shotgun and bow only. Supposedly for safety purposes but I call ********. At the max end of the spectrum, 12ga 3.5" slug travels ~1900FPS, weighs 1.375 oz, and produces nearly 5000ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle. Remind me why your standard rifle suitable for deer is wayyyy more dangerous than that.

Because with the low ballistic coefficient your TYPICAL slug is traveling 1600fps and unless you were shooting a skylit deer, the slug will drop about 3 feet by 200 yards. Which means for practical purposes when being vaguely safe, a shotgun has amaxkum range of 200 yes if you miss. Even if you are being unsafe a foster slug has a max range of maybe 800yds before all its energy is effectively spent (might leave a nasty welt when it falls out of the sky).

Of course sabot rounds are allowed and those are absolutely deadly to a mile plus. So if anything if it is really about being safer, they need to outlaw rifled barrels for shotgun only areas. Which hopefully doesn't happen.

As for length. I wouldn't mind if they lengthed it a little. 3 weeks in December so it butts up with late muzzleloader and then that whole week after New Years through Saturday would be nice. More than that, nah.

Yeah, deer can be pests and can be dangerous, but I don't want them eradicated. They actually do do some good and of course many of us like hunting them so if the numbers dropped to a quarter, say, of what they are now. You'd have a lot of hunters who almost never had any success. I've hit them too. Heck, I am almost not here because my parents were nearly killed hitting one in rural PA years before I was born.

As it stands, in terms of injuries, deaths and vehicle damage, the amount they do is tiny compared to "driver at fault" accidents (not even including drunk driving or falling asleep st the wheel). Are the numbers too high? Of course they are, but I'd rather we not go back to the days where the limits are 1 per hunter between all seasons because the numbers are so low.

It would be nice if they opened Sunday hunting the rest of the state. As mentioned a lot of people can only hunt weekends. I am fortunate that I can often take a day or two off to hunt, but even if they didn't increase the weeks allowed, adding Sundays would still expand it a lot.

That and change all counties to 50yds for the archery safety zone.

 

[traveller]

Just make the season the Sat after Thanksgiving, till the first of Jan. During that time, you hunt with whatever you want to hunt with. Gun, bow, blackpowder, or whatever.

Yup, require everyone to check their harvest and close counties as they hit their harvest goals.

With an extended reason like that, I could actually see a restriction that closes public lands after 10am on Sundays as reasonable.

 

[fabsroman]

I'm not sure how to link a Facebook post, but I read it from a post by MD Hunting Coalition.

Edit, This is from their (MHC) page:
Because of a combination of factors including the joint efforts of outreach by the Maryland Bowhunters Society and the Maryland Hunting Coalition, including this format (we reached over 22,300 with our post from Wednesday) and our face to face conversations with lawmakers and wildlife managers at Blaze & Camo Day on Thursday - AND - your overwhelming contacts with the sponsors, we can report that the pending legislation that would have expanded the deer firearms season to eight weeks, SB953 and HB1111, has officially been withdrawn by the sponsors.
Both MBS and MHC Benefits are coming up in March and both organizations deserve your financial support.

This is utterly pathetic. Gun owners have internal issues, and it appears that hunters have internal issues too. Just utterly incredible.

I had to read that Facebook post three times to make sure I was reading it right. Yep, donations coming from me in, wait for it, wait for it, keep waiting.......

 

[Doco Overboard]

MHC looks like they have some pull. Anybody know a member? I never heard of them before, they just gave the slapdown to the farm bureau right quick.

 

[Doco Overboard]

Oh, liberal chicken neckers that speak different languages and shoot BP doubles at ritz crackers.

 

[fabsroman]

Oh, liberal chicken neckers that speak different languages and shoot BP doubles at ritz crackers.

I am trying to figure out what the heck that means. What are BP doubles? Almost sounds like a reference to clays shooting, but I cannot quite wrap my head around it.

 

[on_the_rox]

Black powder? Just my uneducated guess.

 

[fabsroman]

Black powder? Just my uneducated guess.

Yeah, I was going to go with "Bass Pro", but that does not make sense unless he is talking about shooting Bass Pro double guns (BP doubles) at clay targets (ritz crackers).

 

[Biggfoot44]

I'm guessing Vintage British Doubles, with damasscus bbls, proofed for 2 1/2in black powder shells.

Still wondering about chicken necks and Ritz crackers.

 

[jhcrab]

Since losing 3 properties to hunt in the last 6 years I have had NO luck gaining permission/access to any local properties to hunt. And I am not the only one having this problem. I hear hunters talk about controlling 3 or 4 or more private lands to hunt yet they won't allow anyone else the opportunity to hunt one of them (with owners permission). Gaining access is a big reason that the deer numbers keep increasing. As a safe, seasoned, retired 45+ year hunter the access issue, at least for me, has severely limited my chances to do my part to reduce the deer herd. I agree with others, more public land needs to be more accessible for hunting.

 

[BigDaddy]

I had a falling out with a friend who let me hunt on his property, so I have no where to hunt. I tried some public land in AA county, I had no idea there were that many hills and valleys in this county. If I shot a deer more than a couple hundred yards from the edge of the property I would have had to eat it there. Plus it was a pigsty of surveyors tape.

South Carolina has a season from mid August to January. The only thing that slowed, and slowed substantially their deer population was the natural migration of coyotes into the area. Deer hunting is an industry down there.

Killing them in farm country is one thing, but here in Severna Park and Arnold, there is is no place where it safe to use a shotgun, much less a rifle.