Florence County deer hunting reports

Anyone doing any good?

speaking of big old swamp bucks, my dad had the horseshoe stuck you know where last year, and got a 17 pointer. Never, ever seen a buck up there that big. he grossed around 180 non typical. neighbors across the road kicked him up sunday night thanks to the packers

All these Does we are seeing should bring out some of these big ol Swamp Bucks that have been staying hidden in the swamps for the last few years.More Does means more buck cruising for them. Good Luck.

I agree, they seem up by us also. Sad though that with everyone shooting the does and say a tough winter and we will be back to nothing again.

I hunt around Dunbar in unit 50 and populations are definitely up. We have a group of 7 to 10 does hanging around the cabin by us which is unheard of in our area in the past few years. I'm very excited to see the numbers coming back up

The proof of mismanagement by the WDNR is the feast or famine numbers.Excessive antlerless harvest followed by years of no antlerless harvest.How about some moderation? It is especially nice that over half of those antlerless tags are unsold .

I have mentioned this before on LL. You can bet the donated deer mostly goes to waste. What is not worked for is not cherished.

2806 tags boughten

Whoa, that's a lot of tags boughten!

It's all about the all mighty dollar. Do the math at $12 per tag sold and now you can figure out real quick why they do it. Makes me sick.

Or.........it could be three consecutive years of antlerless harvest being 40% or under of total harvest that has allowed the herd to increase to 20% over goal.

You can debate where the goal levels are set, but herd management is to that goal.

In a current "at goal" level........DMU 50 would have an ideal "mythical harvest" of ~1200 bucks and ~1400 antlerless.

Buck harvest was 1134 last year, and is likely to rise this year. Antlerless harvest the last three years has been way less than half the "ideal mythical harvest" of a goal situation. The herd has increased, and the antlerless permits are a reaction to that.

Also, antlerless harvest is a fraction of total permits purchased. Statewide harvest in total is just a fraction of licenses purchased......not to mention multiple tags.

5850 antlerless tags for DMU 50 seems REALLY, REALLY EXCESSIVE, to me.

It's all about the all mighty dollar. Do the math at $12 per tag sold and now you can figure out real quick why they do it. Makes me sick.

Usually these shooters are the ones who take all their deer to be donated or they just take off the backstraps and throw away the rest.

Yeah, see, that's just wrong, IMO.

I can see taking one or two deer to feed yourself and your family and maybe your immediate relatives who don't hunt or are not particularly interested in hunting. Like my sisters really enjoy venison and truly appreciate the neck roasts, which I don't particularly care for any way.

But just shooting deer to donate to the food pantry or worse yet, wasting the majority of the meat is a behavior I think we as hunters really need to do away with. I'd rather take the food pantry a case of canned ravioli than shoot a fine deer just to feed some stranger who probably won't even appreciate it. Particularly deer out of these hard-hunted northern units.

I feel sorry for you guys in DMU 50. When they gave out 11,000 antlerless tags in DMU 49A a bunch of years back it was a complete and utter slaughter. Sickening.

Don't worry DMU 50 hunters, most of us 45/49A hunters will just kind of "hang around the homestead". I for one am not going to shoot any antlerless deer this year except for maybe the one antlerless tag I got for 49A.

Just looked it up and there has been 2806 tags boughten and still 3044 available for unit 50.

I also hunt unit 50 and is there even 5000 people that hunt this unit??

I'm not sure how many people hunt the unit, but there are plenty of "hunters" out there who buy a bunch of extra tags so they can shoot anything and everything they see. Usually these shooters are the ones who take all their deer to be donated or they just take off the backstraps and throw away the rest. When you've got people buying multiple tags, the tags can be bought up awful quick.

I'm sure there will be alot people coming up this way to unit 50 for these tags. Public land will be filled with these hunters. Hope nobody gets shot.

I also hunt unit 50 and is there even 5000 people that hunt this unit?? Seems rediculous to me.