Whitetail hunting is now a lottery / points game for residents and non- residents. Is that the future ?

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I hunt in Minnesota as a resident ,for the most part you can get a tag to hunt whitetails every year. I have family that are non- residents that come up and archery hunt. I realize there are states that have lotteries for non - residents and even some for residents . How is your current state situation? Thoughts, opinions, do you think predominant whitetail states will in the future have licensing systems similar to the West ?
 

*zap*

WKR
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kansas resident and will be getting a very reasonable cost lifetime license this year which is good even if I move out of state. Missouri is close by with otc deer tags....so, no problems for me at all.
 
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I believe there are way too many whitetails in most states to go to draw only. Arkansas and Texas have 3-5 day licenses as well as annual for non residents. Going to a draw for states like these will significantly reduced the deer harvested each year. There are already tons of over populated areas in both states. It would be a huge issue to go to draw for whitetail in most any state, in my opinion.


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Rich M

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Interesting, lottery public. Private buy an otc license. Was not aware of that
Thats how i understand it.

On most public areas we get 3-5 day quota hunts. The place i like to hunt is a 3 point draw at this time. (3 year wait for a short hunt) A few public areas have quota hunts, then open for a couple weeks or so.

Some public areas are open for the entire season. But very few. None within 2-2.5 hrs of where i live.

Private land and in areas, the flood plains of the st johns river are open all season just for having a hunting license.
 
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It's all supply and demand. Live in a crap state for hunting, get easy tags, yes, multiple. Go somewhere that's supposed to be awesome, more hunters than deer, going to need to limit it somehow.
 

Jermh

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Resident hunter in MO. Basically as many tags as you wanna pay for. Not that they're expensive. I'll usually kill a handful or so a year.

*edit to clarify that you can only kill 2 bucks a year, but basically unlimited does
 
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I have an Oklahoma lifetime hunting license and can shoot two bucks and 7 does every year. For non residents it’s OTC tags. I do like the idea of drawing for public land, but not for private.
 

Novahunter

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We basically have an unlimited bag limit on does in Northern Virginia. Early season starts first saturday of September, and goes until the last Saturday of March for rifle, with a spring archery season in April. Resident and Non-Resident tags can be bought and are unlimited.

Hardest part is finding land to hunt them as it's all private and getting more is getting developed every year.
 

FLS

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Thats how i understand it.

On most public areas we get 3-5 day quota hunts. The place i like to hunt is a 3 point draw at this time. (3 year wait for a short hunt) A few public areas have quota hunts, then open for a couple weeks or so.

Some public areas are open for the entire season. But very few. None within 2-2.5 hrs of where i live.

Private land and in areas, the flood plains of the st johns river are open all season just for having a hunting license.
Private and public buy the same OTC license In FL. You buy a WMA permit to hunt state land. There are quota and non quota WMAs. Quota are draw and non quota are open to anyone who purchase a permit. Hunt periods and limits are based on individual areas management objectives.
 

Macintosh

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In theory if you keep adding hunters or reducing critter population, then yes, you would need to go to a lottery at some point. In theory, if you want to maintain ecological function, youd need to do this for ANY activity at some point.
But, in many whitetail states that point is a long way off—even in “crappy” states you get not just a otc tag but multiple otc tags. I think realistically if anything like this happens in those places it’ll be due to wildlife population crash from disease or habitat loss, not from hunter numbers. Possibly just for public in olaces with very little public, but we’d need to quadruple-ish our population here for that to be an issue in northern new england, and they’ll still need to manage critter population on private. The hunter crowding/point creep thing is a western thing mainly that as far as I can tell is driven by the shift of population to those states and the growth in traveling to hunt as we have fewer hunters nationally but higher % for whom its a primary activity (and from the eastern seaboard kansas, IA and the like get lumped into that statement). that is not even remotely the reality in most of the eastern seaboard and midwest where hunter numbers overall are declining and deer populations are not.
 
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98XJRC

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Here in PA they limit the number of doe tags available and generate them in 3 phases. Doe population is also controlled by WMU and a certain number of tags are provided per. Typically you see the more mountain/"big wood" areas have their doe tags used up by the end of the first draw. I believe last year was one of the first where 90% of the WMU's had sold out of doe tags.

Also here in PA you are limited to 1 buck per year and a maximum of 3 doe tags. When we start seeing the number of doe tags available per hunter begin to drop I'll be concerned. Granted Maryland and West Virginia are practically begging for out of state hunters to come in and help with the population control.
 

Sooner

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I have an Oklahoma lifetime hunting license and can shoot two bucks and 7 does every year. For non residents it’s OTC tags. I do like the idea of drawing for public land, but not for private.
7? We can take 6 total deer two may be antlered. Unless you're talking about draw hunts as well. I'm all for OK going to a draw state on Non Res. Our non res tags are way to cheap.
 

fatlander

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Whitetails are so good at living in proximity to people, hiding in said proximity, reproducing, and being a nuisance, I don’t think you’ll ever not be able to whitetail hunt with a bow on private land in most states, east of the mississippi, as a resident. Public land is a whole different can of worms.

Damage (depredation) stamps are also a place I think each state should work to expand public opportunity. If a land owner wants depredation stamps, they must open their lands to walk in public hunting. Period. It’s the states resource and to stack deer up all summer with no intention of eating them while also not allowing people on your property that would during the fall is state sponsored wanton waste in its purest form.


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TSAMP

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Whitetails are so good at living in proximity to people, hiding in said proximity, reproducing, and being a nuisance, I don’t think you’ll ever not be able to whitetail hunt with a bow on private land in most states, east of the mississippi, as a resident. Public land is a whole different can of worms.

Damage (depredation) stamps are also a place I think each state should work to expand public opportunity. If a land owner wants depredation stamps, they must open their lands to walk in public hunting. Period. It’s the states resource and to stack deer up all summer with no intention of eating them while also not allowing people on your property that would during the fall is state sponsored wanton waste in its purest form.


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Stack deer up all summer....

Have you ever tried to get a depredation permit?
They don't come easy, even in iowa. They come out, assess your land, reccomend mitigation efforts, possibly even assist with materials and say let's monitor this.

On the flip side a family member has a small tree farm in Colorado front range. Has high fences and deer still get in, rutting bucks killed a dog and injured another. CPW assisted with vet bills I think..they also gave him a tag that year. In years since he asked again and was told to haze them out.

For the record he had someone else come and hunt with that depredation tag. Apparently it was transferable to other residents. Dang my luck.


Letting Joe Blow in likely would cause as much damage as the deer do.
 

fatlander

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Stack deer up all summer....

Have you ever tried to get a depredation permit?
They don't come easy, even in iowa. They come out, assess your land, reccomend mitigation efforts, possibly even assist with materials and say let's monitor this.

On the flip side a family member has a small tree farm in Colorado front range. Has high fences and deer still get in, rutting bucks killed a dog and injured another. CPW assisted with vet bills I think..they also gave him a tag that year. In years since he asked again and was told to haze them out.

For the record he had someone else come and hunt with that depredation tag. Apparently it was transferable to other residents. Dang my luck.


Letting Joe Blow in likely would cause as much damage as the deer do.

In the commonwealth of Virginia, they’re rather easy to attain. And yes, stack deer up all summer (or anytime of the year), day or night, with any weapon the permit holder sees fit.


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In the commonwealth of Virginia, they’re rather easy to attain. And yes, stack deer up all summer (or anytime of the year), day or night, with any weapon the permit holder sees fit.


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When I'm loosing crops, it becomes my responsibility to let strangers on my property?

No.
 
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