[liquidorange]

there should be an investigation on how they are handling the southern herd.where are the biologists?. ive never seen one in the field and you cant study whats going on behind a desk. i just cant believe the harvest numbers.i tried to tell them 3 years ago when you could walk miles and see 2 sets of tracks. i cant believe they ran the pines into a waste land.

 

[Dubs]

and it's only gonna get worse Liquid. They say the herd still too large.

 

[Patrick]

It is realy bad if you look at the #s back in 05 -06 season 1,095 deer were taken and this past season only 400 and its is even worse in zone 24. What do you think has caused such a decline in harvest numbers? The average harvest number since 1997 till 2007 ws about 600 to 900 deer Taken. Why such a big drop over the last few years or so? It has been managed the same sine 97 why all of a sudden the drop in numbers. I agree with you, just looking for some answers myself.

 

[chris n]

Personally I think it may be that people just dont want to hunt there anymore. I hunted there from 12-15 years old and now I hunt other spots because they are better. You need people in the woods to kill deer and every year it seemed like less and less were out there.

 

[BOOMSOX24]

in those zones yotes are a huge problem amongst other factors

 

[liquidorange]

Personally I think it may be that people just dont want to hunt there anymore

that is just a culmination of the obvious. i have hunted this zone for some 30 years. i put many miles on by foot. i have never seen it this bad. i sit probably 100-s of hours in the stand and the deer are just not there.its very sad its a management nightmare that you can only hold the state and not coyotes responsible for. = POOR MANAGMENT AND YET THEY TAKE OUR MONEY VERY GREEDILY.[mad] MAYBE the biologists should be fired. its just not right what the state has ignored in the southern parts of the state. there hoping it will fix itself. WHAT A SHAME AND THE DIVISION SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

 

[jimmos]

i remember it being pretty bad back in the early 70"s
don't think i heard five shots the whole six day season. that was then, don't know what going now maybe to many dirt bike

 

[Stickythehunter]

It's the farmers bitching about the deer eating the crops and then not letting people hunt on their land. They just bitch to the right people and have the zones reconfigured and allow unlimited does, there was always a group of guys out doing drives and shooting whatever ran. It just got out of control and killed off the population. I will say though, I saw more deer during turkey season than I did during deer season, so i'm hoping they're making a comeback.

 

[happybloodtrail]

I'd like to see a chart that shows the harvest number correlating to when baiting was made legal. Pines aren't like other places, the deer react to bait a lot more in the pines. And for a lot of guys in the pines, it's the only way they know how to hunt. Give the advantages to the hunter, and watch the population dwindle, at least thats my theory. You can blame yotes, but the yotes are all over the entire state, what makes these yotes in the pines any different? I'll tell ya, it goes right back to baiting, even when the deer turn nocturnal to the bait, there's other hunters on it all night long, yotes.

 

[deergetter]

One of the problems in zone 21 is way too many coyotes are living there .There should be a all year round season for them to cut the population down!

 

[liquidorange]

I'd like to see a chart that shows the harvest number correlating to when baiting was made legal. Pines aren't like other places, the deer react to bait a lot more in the pines.

i can tell you baiting was as big 20 years ago as it is today. people would do it legal or not. i dont think it matters today. liberal seasons and letting the strips and fields go to pasture aint helping. coyotes are just part of the picture.

 

[Bandgetter]

EHD hit hard last year.Did it affect that part of the state?

 

[GVS]

Do you have turkey? I know they say that the turkeys dont compete for the same food but when turkeys moved into our farm in upstate NY the deer hunting went to shit...

 

[Bestbrittany]

To many turkey in zone 21. Drive down 72 or 532 and they sit on the side of the road like deer.

 

[happybloodtrail]

Turkey? We're talking about a huge area, THE PINES. Not just a small peice of private property, where the turkey move in and the deer move to another small plot a mile away.
On the other hand, where I hunt in 15, we have both turkeys and deer all over the property, but thats probably because they are all getting squeezed into smaller and smaller patches of woods and are running out of places to go, so they have no choice but to co-exist.


I live in the pines and can walk out my door any time I want and not even need to drive to some prime hunting grounds. But with the lack of deer, I wake up extra early and drive nearly an hour to get to my hunting spots.
Whatever the reason may be, I believe the question was

where are the biologists?.

It's a very legitimate question. They should work on figuring out what the problem is and working to fix it. If yotes are an issue, lets have an open yote season all year long.

 

[NJBowman]

Guys write the Fish and Wildlife council. They think everything is peachy! I talked to one member 2 weeks ago and they think everything is fine. He said they only have been getting letters saying how great everything is(these must be from guys with prime private land) Better yet attend the ocean county federation meetings at Park Rod gun club. They usually have a biologist or member of teh F&W council in attendence. Voice your displeasure to them and put them on the spot while minutes are being taken.
We are trying to get someone from F&W to the UBNJ central region meeting Nov 23rd. Come out and ask these questions to them.

 

[liquidorange]

Guys write the Fish and Wildlife council. They think everything is peachy!

i got the biologist on the phone like 3 years ago. it was a woman and i got lied to. told me the harvest numbers were right on target when i called end of november and when the real numbers came out the next year it was the lowest in decades. i guess they just collect a check. ive never seen one in the woods. i spend time year round in the pines woods. i see the new jersey conservancy people but never a state biologist.

 

[Pinelands Hunter]

I've been hunting zone 21 for 20 plus years, I get to patrol this area, On midnights I've witnessed coyotes (packs of two) taking down an adult doe. I used to see alot of deer but have noticed the population go way down since the coyotes moved in and taken over. They are also killing multiple fawns and bringing them back to their dens in the spring. I think the deer population is down and the coyotes have added a heightened state of awareness to the deer herds. Shoot every coyote you see.

 

[jpiney43]

i agree kill every coyote you see in the pines dont ask yourself should i ask yourself is there more then 1.there hurting the deer pop.in the pines,if you dont think so ride around this season at the end of six firearm season and check the clubs out..there counts of deer have been droping.I THINK NJ SHOULD MOVE TO 1 BUCK A YEAR IN ZONE 21 FOR A COUPLE YEARS

 

[jkinlan]

lets face it. the deer numbers are down just about everywhere. this mostly the product of 6 months of hunting. i also patrol a large section of zone 21.the deer are gone. i think the state should do what they did in the 90's close permit bow in zone 21 every other year.