BOB@BBT
11-11-2005, 06:06 AM
Freep-Deer hard to find up north
http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoor...0e_20051110.htm
ERIC SHARP: Deer hard to find up north
November 10, 2005
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
GRAYLING -- If you hunt deer in northern Michigan and thought firearms season was bad last year, wait until the season opens Tuesday. You'll probably think it's worse.
"Miserable," said Jim Barker of Garden City. "I've hunted northern Michigan 20 years, and I've never seen a fall when there have been so few deer around. I've been coming up to bow-hunt almost every weekend, and at night I've been driving around looking for deer.
"On a road by our cabin where I usually see 10 or 20, I'm lucky to see one. I think they just went way overboard on antlerless permits around here. The people who live here are telling me they haven't seen many deer, either."
Barker's family owns 120 acres of woodlands a few miles east of Grayling.
Jack Millikin owns Skip's Sports Shop in Grayling, a clearinghouse for deer information in the central northern Lower Peninsula. He estimates that deer numbers in the area are less than half of what they were at their peak a dozen or more years ago.
"They're not seeing many deer," Millikin said. "They're seeing some deer sign, but nowhere near as much as they used to. It would be different if it was just the (casual) hunters who were complaining, but I talk to the guys who know how to find the deer, and they're not finding many, either."
Millikin's estimate coincides with those of the state Department of Natural Resources. The DNR estimates that the whitetail herd is about 500,000 in the northern Lower Peninsula, far fewer than the 900,000 that roamed the area in the late 1980s and early '90s.
The DNR has issued liberal numbers of antlerless permits in the region since about 1995 in an effort to reduce deer numbers. The agency was trying to reduce damage to forests and farmlands and stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis, found in deer in the northeast Lower Peninsula.
In the Upper Peninsula, the number of deer and hunters also has fallen dramatically, but the reasons for the deer decline there are different.
"Hunters haven't really had much of an effect on the herd in the UP," said Rod Clute, the DNR's big-game specialist. "The key factors there are weather and habitat."
The UP herd is an estimated 350,000, Clute said, compared to 800,000 to 900,000 about 15 years ago. Clute attributed the decline primarily to a couple of severe winters in which as many as 200,000 animals died, and the maturation of forests to the point that they no longer are good deer habitat.
In that same period, hunter numbers in the UP have dropped from about 200,000 to 110,000, mostly because people from the southern Lower Peninsula can find better deer hunting near home. Even if the UP hunters enjoy a 50% success rate this year, the number of deer killed would be roughly half of the number of fawns born next spring.
Millikin said the lower deer numbers haven't affected business much "because a lot of people still like to come up north to hunt. It's more than about killing a deer. But if it goes on like this for a couple of more years, they may change their mind.
"There are so many things for people to do these days besides hunting. They do this stuff to have fun, and if they aren't having fun, they'll just go do something else that is fun."
Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.
http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoor...0e_20051110.htm
ERIC SHARP: Deer hard to find up north
November 10, 2005
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
GRAYLING -- If you hunt deer in northern Michigan and thought firearms season was bad last year, wait until the season opens Tuesday. You'll probably think it's worse.
"Miserable," said Jim Barker of Garden City. "I've hunted northern Michigan 20 years, and I've never seen a fall when there have been so few deer around. I've been coming up to bow-hunt almost every weekend, and at night I've been driving around looking for deer.
"On a road by our cabin where I usually see 10 or 20, I'm lucky to see one. I think they just went way overboard on antlerless permits around here. The people who live here are telling me they haven't seen many deer, either."
Barker's family owns 120 acres of woodlands a few miles east of Grayling.
Jack Millikin owns Skip's Sports Shop in Grayling, a clearinghouse for deer information in the central northern Lower Peninsula. He estimates that deer numbers in the area are less than half of what they were at their peak a dozen or more years ago.
"They're not seeing many deer," Millikin said. "They're seeing some deer sign, but nowhere near as much as they used to. It would be different if it was just the (casual) hunters who were complaining, but I talk to the guys who know how to find the deer, and they're not finding many, either."
Millikin's estimate coincides with those of the state Department of Natural Resources. The DNR estimates that the whitetail herd is about 500,000 in the northern Lower Peninsula, far fewer than the 900,000 that roamed the area in the late 1980s and early '90s.
The DNR has issued liberal numbers of antlerless permits in the region since about 1995 in an effort to reduce deer numbers. The agency was trying to reduce damage to forests and farmlands and stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis, found in deer in the northeast Lower Peninsula.
In the Upper Peninsula, the number of deer and hunters also has fallen dramatically, but the reasons for the deer decline there are different.
"Hunters haven't really had much of an effect on the herd in the UP," said Rod Clute, the DNR's big-game specialist. "The key factors there are weather and habitat."
The UP herd is an estimated 350,000, Clute said, compared to 800,000 to 900,000 about 15 years ago. Clute attributed the decline primarily to a couple of severe winters in which as many as 200,000 animals died, and the maturation of forests to the point that they no longer are good deer habitat.
In that same period, hunter numbers in the UP have dropped from about 200,000 to 110,000, mostly because people from the southern Lower Peninsula can find better deer hunting near home. Even if the UP hunters enjoy a 50% success rate this year, the number of deer killed would be roughly half of the number of fawns born next spring.
Millikin said the lower deer numbers haven't affected business much "because a lot of people still like to come up north to hunt. It's more than about killing a deer. But if it goes on like this for a couple of more years, they may change their mind.
"There are so many things for people to do these days besides hunting. They do this stuff to have fun, and if they aren't having fun, they'll just go do something else that is fun."
Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.