10:06am: Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval

Group pressing for changes in buck regulations in W.Va.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The 2015 buck season left West Virginia deer hunters wide eyed.  The advent of social media allowed hunters to show off some the biggest bucks ever seen on the whole in West Virginia.  Many killed the biggest buck of their life last year when all of the factors aligned to produce a tremendous opportunity to kill a big buck.

The 2014 season saw the kill substantially lower, which meant a lot of bucks survived and were available in 2015.   The 2014 mast conditions were stellar which enabled those deer which survived the hunting season to be in solid shape to survive the winter.  The improved nutrition also added to antler development along with an extra year of age in 2015.  The mast season of 2015 wasn’t as robust and hunters were finding more deer in open areas presenting better shots.  The 2015 rut stretched into the buck season which enabled hunters to capitalize more on the clouded judgement of bucks.  The final factor, which was a wild card, was fantastic weather for the first week of the season which kept hunters in the woods longer and exposed them to the potential to encounter one of those two year old or three year old bucks.

Now, as the DNR puts together the proposed bag limits and season dates for the 2016 season many would like to see the 2015 season become the norm rather than the exception.  An on-line group called West Virginia Hunters for Better Buck Management believes it’s an opportunity to gain some ground.

“We’d like to see a lower buck limit,” said the group’s leader Jeromy Rose. “Ultimately that’s what happened in 2014.  Mother Nature played the role of quality deer manager and lowered the buck limit herself.  We had the benefit of a bunch of deer have an extra year of life and we were able to hunt them in 2015.”

Rose, appearing on Northside Automotive West Virginia Outdoors, believed lowering the current buck limit from three bucks in a season to one or two would enable much better chances to kill a big buck.

However, the Division of Natural Resources doubts the change would lead to the success Rose’s group is hoping for..  They report only three to five percent of the hunters now actually kill more than one buck in a season.  Rose said while that sounds like a low number,  he is confident it could have an impact.

“You can take the five percent number and you have 300,000 hunters, that’s 15,000 bucks,” said Rose. “Five percent may not sound like very much, but 15,000 bucks is a considerable amount. That’s what mother nature handed us from ’14 to ’15.”

It remains to be seen whether the DNR will respond to the desire of Rose’s group or if they do to what degree they will implement the suggestions.  Largely because there is a body of hunters who don’t like the idea of managing deer just for the antlers.  Those who disagree with Rose would say nobody is forcing anyone to kill three bucks or to kill a smaller buck.

“That’s nice to say for you and me,” said Rose. “But I can’t make my neighbor do whatever I want my neighbor to do.   Many states have gone this way and it’s a trend of the future.  Lowering the buck limit it makes a more selective hunter.  It doesn’t take away opportunities, but it makes you more selective and we all have an older age class of deer to hunt.”

But that attitude hasn’t been well received by people like Steve Basnett of Calhoun County who also spoke on West Virginia Outdoors about the subject.

“That is the neighbors right on his own property if he’s not a particular trophy hunter,” said Basnett. “We have our rights and our choices and if we want to kill one buck a year, two bucks a year or three bucks a year, that’s our choice.”

The DNR has to weight the considerations of all and Basnett said it’s important to keep in mind not everybody hunts for a massive rack.

“Where I disagree with that group is we shouldn’t be forced into somebody else’s belief,” he said. “That’s what the DNR has set in place for us.”

The matter is expected to be discussed at the upcoming Natural Resources Commission quarterly meeting set for February 21 at DNR headquarters in South Charleston. The proposed regulations for the 2016 hunting seasons will be presented to commissioners at the meeting.





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