After this column, I will begin to write about spring fishing, mostly, but I intend to hunt deer this week while it is cold and there is some snow on the ground.
I never thought that I would ever hunt deer again, but a young biologist from the Kansas City office of the conservation department called me and asked me if I would kill at least two deer off of my land in St. Clair county to be tested for Chronic Wasting Disease.
I only agreed to that after he said that if the deer tested negative for the disease I could butcher them and put the meat to good use. He also said that I could spotlight them at night or use bait. I may use corn as bait, but I wouldn’t shoot any deer with a night-light and I cannot believe they would ever permit that.
He also said that in doing what they are authorizing, they were hoping to thin the deer herd. But they are approaching their objectives all wrong, and while I talked to him, a man who had grown up in St. Louis, I told him some things he said he hadn’t thought about.
First of all, deer on my land are not overpopulated, and no one would know if any area has too many deer but those landowners who live there. Secondly, thinning any areas “deer herd” (herd being a term that really doesn’t fit deer at all) will have nothing to do with the presence or the spread of the disease. If it exists, it will spread among 20 deer just as easily as it will among 40 deer.
Why would they not know that? Why, if they feel there are too many deer in this state, do they restrict the number a landowner can take during the season to one per landowners tag, then require that landowner to buy the next one?
The “biologist” told me it didn’t matter what sex I kill or how old it is. I told him that in young deer, the ones born last April, May or June, the presence of the disease likely would be far less than if you were killing a 2-or-3-year-old deer, so it would be best to pass them up.
Also, if you want to thin the numbers of deer produced this spring, you cannot do it by killing bucks, you have to restrict your shooting to does at least a year and a half old. Research in several states shows that among does there is a lower percentage of the disease than in bucks, so testing 100 does will give you a lower result than testing 100 bucks, if that research is correct.
Very soon, bucks will begin to shed their antlers, and there are some landowners and hunters who will not know a thing about the age and sex of a deer at 100 yards unless it has antlers. The “testing” is to go on until the middle of March.
I won’t be collecting deer in March, if I can’t get a couple this week or next I will be hanging up the rifle and fixing up my tackle box. I urge all readers to read the research information I have placed on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.
Call me at 417-777-5227 or email lightninridge47@gmail.com. My mailing address is Box 22, Bolivar, Mo., 65613