YukonDall, brilliant idea, and Daxter I like your approach. I have been thinking about implementation. Would this work?
Exclude the LE hunts, they remain one year tags, with the draw held every year. I would also exclude the youth tags which have their own draw, keep them on an annual basis so new youth hunters have a chance.
For the rest:
Utah issues 2 year deer tags, Season dates August 01, 2009 through July 31, 2011, for example. Tag is valid during any legal season for the region, weapon, sex, applied for. Tag fee would be exactly double the current fee. Once the tag is filled, you are done for the remainder of the two year period. Logic would dictate that there would likely be a substantially lower harvest the first year, since many hunters would elect not to shoot small bucks, with one more year to hunt.
The second year, there will be a substantial increase in 2.5 year old bucks. I would guess you would still see a pretty big harvest of young bucks, but older bucks are always more difficult to harvest, and you now have fewer hunters after them the second year. The quality of the hunt would be substantially better, with less hunters, but even so, I think the total number of bucks killed the first two years would be substantially lower under this system than the current system.
Now you get to the third year, and start the second cycle, and the buck/doe ratios are up substantially, and hopefully that has resulted in better fawn survival, and you are on your way to a quality deer herd, and quality hunting experience, without limiting opportunity.
A secondary benefit could be that a lot of the hunters who passed on small bucks the first year have such a great time on their hunt the second year they elect to continue to let the small bucks go. No way to know that, but I think it is a natural progression that a lot of hunters make as they get older, particularly when they get to participate in some quality hunts.
I have been sending suggestions ODF&W about things they should consider doing here in Oregon to stop the downward slide of our deer populations. Going to have to figure out how to incorporate this into what I am pushing.
Thanks guys.
Scoutdog