Those western oregon dates are a damn shame if they pass. The population is already way down AND people are shooting spike deer now. Won’t be but a few more years and public land will be barron. We hunters need to wake up! Just because they say we can ….doesn’t mean we should.
It makes absolutely no sense… it should go the other way, I don’t know what they are trying to do.
I love this state, but the writing is on the wall that I won’t live here much longer, fishing and hunting has always been my only recreation, and I feel the organization that is supposed to maintain that is becoming more incompetent at a steady rate… I would like to see rifle season end earlier, and start late archery earlier, relieve some of the rifle season pressure, and not allow rifle hunting through the very most vulnerable timeframe for bucks.
Isn’t the whole concept of different weapon seasons to let hunters use more advantageous weapons during times when they are harder to kill and less advantageous weapons when they are easier to hunt?
In 2024 are we going to see rifle elk season the last week of September? That seems to fit their illogical trends.
It’s so dumb, and I can’t imagine how they came to this decision.
This isn’t coming from someone who selfishly wants a better archery season, I have rifle hunted deer 7 of the last 10 years, I just want to see a hunt able population of blacktail in the future.
My main question is why? I can’t imagine a logical reason to push rifle deer season further into November… if we had an overpopulation of blacktail, it would make sense, but as it is, nothing that odfw has done in regards to blacktail makes any sense at all the past few years.
Will it be fun rifle hunting deer until November 10? Of course, but that excitement seems very short sighted… unfortunately, many hunters probably support the decision, which is disappointing… they will probably be the first to bitch when everything goes to a draw and it’s hard to find a buck.