By DAN DURBIN - Special to GM Today

April 17, 2008

In fact, when you include the October youth hunt, Wisconsin hunters could find two weekends in October where they are forced to wear blaze orange even if they are hunting turkeys, ducks or geese.

Greg Kazmierski of Waukesha is president of SCI's Dairyland Committee and is spearheading the push.

"SCI is taking the lead to represent deer hunters who were let down by the Conservation Congress and some other conservation groups that ended up supporting EAB despite public opposition on question 44 of the 2005 spring hearings," Kazmierski said. "The early October hunt affects several types of hunting, not just bowhunters."

The season has been under criticism because it takes place in late October, just as the whitetail rut is getting rolling, a time of year when most bowhunters want to be in the woods. They think the extra activity in the woods causes deer to do more of their rutting activity after dark, when they aren't huntable.

"The DNR wants this season and it is unreasonable," he said. "According to our constitutional right to hunt, the DNR is limited in that they can only act with reasonable regulations, which this isn't. The DNR needs to justify to the NRB that this change is needed."

One reason the season is unjustified, Kazmierski said, is "that the DNR doesn't really know the true population."

"When they calculate the deer population, they don't even take into account the deer that die from nonhunting-related means," he said. "They don't subtract deer from the population that are killed by cars, poaching, wolves and other things. That can be 15 to 40 percent of the population in a deer management unit."

SCI also thinks the DNR is putting the season back in even though they led hunters to believe that if they killed enough does to reach a 2:1 ratio of does to bucks that the season would not be back.

"We hit the goals the DNR asked of us," he said. "We had a statewide harvest of two does to every one buck. And in 2007, we had the second highest harvest ever. How many more deer do we have to kill?"

SCI wants the DNR to restore Wisconsin's gun season to the way it used to be before chronic wasting disease and special seasons.

"Back in 2000, without EAB, hunters were issued two antlerless tags with the purchase of a deer license," Kazmierski said. "When they did that, we had an all-time record harvest. People were not forced to kill does. It worked well because people already had the tags in their possession so if they wanted a second doe, they could do so without having to run to the sport shop and buy an additional tag."

To see the full resolution, go to www.sciwi.org.

Kazmierski said anyone who supports SCI's resolution can fax the signed resolution to the NRB at (608) 266-6983 through Monday. A person also can call the office at (608) 267-7420.

There also will be a meeting at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the State Natural Resources Building in Madison, Room G09. Anyone wanting to testify must register by Friday by calling (608) 267-7420.

"We want hunting to get back to the way it used to be," Kazmierski said. "The public doesn't want this hunt and we have proven that we can kill plenty of deer without EAB or October gun hunts. The only way we can stop it is by letting the NRB know it. Deer hunting numbers are declining at a higher rate than other forms of hunting. These unreasonable regulations are contributing to that decline."

(Dan Durbin writes a weekly outdoors column for The Freeman. Call Durbin at 644-7940, or e-mail him at ddurbin@bastdurbin.com if you have a story idea.)