Since Bess hasn't responded to my 1967 stats offer, I'll just do what I can to show how the deer were managed per the 1967 proclamation and the harvest stats.
-(1)-The whole state was open to either sex except a few Control units.
-(2)-The General Hunting season was either sex Oct 21-Oct 31.
-(3)- Archery Season was either sex Aug 26-Sep 10
-(4)- The resident hunting license sold for $5 and included a General deer hunting tag and you could just buy them OTC from the nearest sporting goods store or, in some cases, service stations or grocery stores. They were unlimited so you didn't have to get in a long line worrying about whether you'd get one or not. And you could buy them the night before the hunt or even during the hunt.
-(5)-In addition to your general deer tag, you could also buy a Control tag. Those were for specific units and had quotas.
-(6)-OR you could buy a statewide archery tag. Both the Control tags and the archery tags cost $5 and had to be applied for by mail and delivered to the DWR office no later than 5:00 pm Aug 21, 1967. (Any oversubscribed unit had a drawing.)
-(7)-Here's a good one! We had 77 hunting units! And many of them were regulated with Bucks Only, Early Seasons, Late Seasons, Antlerless, Short Seasons, Extended Seasons, Tribal Rules, and Separate Archery Seasons. Some had quotas and some didn't.
-(8)- There were no units managed for big bucks!
It took some reading just to sort the hunts out and apply for them. And the proclamations were printed on newspaper stock in color all folded up, which didn't make it easy to read (or print).
Now for the harvest stats: I'll just give you the totals:
Hunters Afield--172,584
Bucks Killed-----55,798
Does Killed------34,255
Total Deer Killed--90,053
That's a lot of deer killed! Did it cause the numbers to dive?
-Nope! 10 years later: 1977:
Hunters Afield---208,761
Bucks killed-----67,664
Does killed------751
Total Deer Killed--68,415
-20 years later: 1987:
Hunters afield---210,516
Bucks Killed-----66,515
Does Killed-----7,760
Total deer Killed---67,291
Fewer does killed made a difference, but the number of bucks killed made no difference at all. It wasn't until the bad winter of 1993 that we saw the numbers fall. And the numbers haven't come up since then because we started managing for trophy bucks and larger buck to doe ratios.
And so, we're now down to about 65,000 hunters afield and dropping. Not enough bucks? We need higher buck to doe ratios? "Slip sliding away"
I can't wait to draw a buck tag in Utah...sooo many Bucks they need to be thinned out!
I guess everything I've read and seen is false!
