The online spring Hearing questionnaire is accessible from noon April 10th till noon on April 13th on the WIDNR website. Quite a few interesting proposals fielded this year, one being the purchase of a new Grouse habitat stamp similar to the stamps already required for pheasant and inland trout. Another is a proposal to expand the current gun deer season from nine days to sixteen days, with an earlier start date.
Gary

A stamp for pheasant, a stamp for turkey, a stamp for waterfowl... now a stamp for grouse too? Exactly what will a small game license buy you without all the stamps? I'm voting no.

Voting yes on the deer season expansion. It used to be a tradition to go to deer camp, the week of Thanksgiving. The traditional deer camps up north have been fading away quickly with the demise of the deer population in the northwoods. That tradition is now all but lost. No sense in keeping the old dates either. There's so few deer up here in the "big woods" - that have been taken over by packs of wolves in recent years - it could take you 16 days just to actually see a live deer. Michigan has been 16 days for as long as this old fart can remember. Nov 15-30 every year. I now hunt in the U.P. & WI.

ymmv

The DNR is why the camps in Sawyer Co. got closed down.  Myself, I'd rather put up with fewer deer if it means fewer hunters.  a 16 day season would be OK.  That would give more people a better chance of getting time off work, etc. to get out.  So many seasons there isn't any snow till the last few days - if at all.  Grouse stamp?  Sure, it they give away the small game license for free.  Then they'll brag about keeping the cost of licenses down.

How did the DNR close down deer camps? Curious, because the camps here have gone by the way side mostly as the old guys died or quit due to age, or private hunting land was sold to developers. DNR had nothing to do with it. Some of the camps I'm familiar with have/had retired DNR guys in them. The younger crowd wants hotels and swimming pools, not a cabin with no electricity/plumbing or tents & campers. And they want to see lots of deer. When they go 6-7 days without a deer sighting, they don't come back. They don't have the patience, they want action.

When I hunt in MI, it's just me on private 62 acres, but the cabin next door has about 6-7 guys, all old farts too. I socialize with them, but don't hunt with them, they all hunt in the nat'l forest. One of the benefits of the 16 day season in the U.P. is it speads out the hunting pressure. Because it's a set date of Nov 15th, 5 out of 7 years it opens on a weekday (not factoring in leap years). The busiest time in the woods is the weekends of course, and if the season opens on a friday, that day too.  There's very little sign of other hunters on weekdays after the first weekend, except there's a small surge of activity at Thanksgiving, mostly locals. The "deer camp" guys are all gone back home by then. Mostly us old retired guys in the woods on weekdays.

Camps were all on County forest property, which the County let the State manage in return for tax breaks.  State decided that because of the camps presence, they were depriving the public of hunting land because no one was supposed to hunt within 100' of a dwelling.  County offered
to substitute whatever amount of land the State said was involved but DNR said no.  They gave everyone 5 years to remove the camps.  During that time, an extra $500 a year was tacked onto the leases and put into a "removal fund".  If after 5 years the camps weren't removed, the state would remove them.  If they were removed by the owners, the money would be returned (after an inspection of the site, of course).  Thing is, where we were, the only other hunters we saw were occasionally someone from one from one of the other camps.  County lost at least $10,000/yr. just from the leases.  The County decided it wasn't worth the effort to go to court over the whole mess.
There never was a lot of deer in the area.  I think I hunted a couple years before I even saw a deer in the woods.  For most of us, the deer were secondary in importance.  We just enjoyed being up there in the woods away from everything for 9 days.  Getting a deer was a bonus!

I didn't know you could actually build something permanent on public land. You can't do that around here! If you set up a camp on public land in Nat'l Forest, you have 14 days to stay in one spot, then it must be removed... or moved to another location. County forests follow same rules AFAIK, I don't know what the state forests do. They might not allow camping outside of designated campgrounds. Don't know, never hunted in one. Permanent deer camps with cabins or permanently parked trailers are all on private land around here (here being Vilas, Oneida, Forest counties). There are scattered 40 acre parcels within the Nat'l Forest, county forests, and paper company lands that have had deer camps on them for decades. I know of one that is down from 8 guys to 2 guys, due to deaths and old age disabilities. And those 2 survivors are both now past 80. I've been invited to join them, but I've been with the guys I hunt with for 25 years. I do occasionally use their shooting range and have a gate key. When they're gone, that camp is gone too. Unless the widow of the owner sells it to another hunter who starts it up again.  



Ditto. The deer are secondary, but seeing deer is of some importance. If you go years without anyone in camp seeing any deer, you start to wonder why you're there sitting in the woods all day freezing your ass off. It gets to the point where the hours spent in the woods, and not in camp playing cards & drinking beer, become less and less. Instead of "deer" camp, it becomes "beer" camp.

eta: The hunting over the past 15 years has been similar to, or even worse than, it was in the 70s & 80s. Few deer in the big woods. Deer populations exploded in the 1990s, and it was a strange occurrance if you went a single day without seeing any deer.  Mostly due to a string of very mild winters. The DNR started giving out doe tags like Halloween candy, we had some bad winters, and then the wolves arrived to clean things up for good. Deer numbers crashed in mid 2000s, and have stayed low since. Younger hunters who didn't hunt in the lean years in 70-80s got spoiled. Now, when they don't see the same number of deer as "the good old days" of the 1990s when they started, they go hunt further south, abandoning traditional northwoods deer camps.

I heard from the locals in northern WI where I used to hunt, that new deer camps are being set up earlier, but with crossbows. Gun-deer season is almost a waste of time in that particular area.

True here too. The traditional gun season dates are after the main rut. Crossbow hunters, mostly former gun season hunters, are cashing in on hunting during the rut by switching to crossbows. They miss out on it with the late gun season dates. Traditional bow hunters aren't happy about it at all. Starting gun season earlier when the rut is still on is a good move, IMO.

The camps were in Sawyer Co. and in the 60's they started a program where they issued 100 permits for deer camps on county forest land.  There was an annual lease fee ($10/yr. to begin with for use in deer season and $25/yr if you wanted to use it year around) You were allowed to use it anytime if you were doing maintenance there.  Naturally, anytime we were there, we were doing maintenance.  Fees crept up to $25/yr for everyone, then $50, then $125, but we thought it was a great deal at even higher prices.  The first camp I hunted in was an old logging camp on State property a guy from Thorp built.  I was built in the late 40's or early 50's.  He quit logging and because my Dad and several of his brothers and buddies, also from Thorp, were friends with him, they started deer hunting out of it.  That went on till the mid 60's, when they went up to do some work on the camp and there was a letter posted on the door from the DNR that said they were going to be tearing the camp down, so move out anything they wanted to keep.  Fortunately, it was about that time when Sawyer Co. started their program, so that's when the new camp got built.  Before they started building on the Co. land, they had found a piece of land for sale nearby.  They gave the info to a realtor in town to check out for them, and the jackass went and bought it for himself instead.
Needless to say, he wasn't thought of too highly in town afterwards.

Yup.  There were a few years there where we filled up by midseason.  I also remember the days when the DNR went nuts with the doe tags.  From not ever seeing hunters, all of a sudden there were a few that we ran into on the fire lanes that were from Green Bay, LaCrosse, Milwaukee, etc..
They asked where all the deer were - they figured that with all the tags that were being handed out, there was a population explosion.  We laughed and told them there weren't any up here.  They were a little miffed for being played by the DNR.  Following year, it was back to the normal deserted woods.

They should try a year or two of October is archery season, November is firearm season. I wonder what kind of effect that would have on hunter numbers and deer kill numbers?

Year round squirrel season....

Don't forget your squirrel stamp.

State or Federal?

If you're only after resident squirrels, just a State will do, but if you get into the migrating variety, you'll need a Federal as well.   (probably shouldn't give the DNR any ideas)

I'm old enough to have been deer hunting IN N. WI in the early '70's.
Hunted with my uncles who grew up in Fifield.
"beer camp" describes hunting with my uncles.
Up all night drinking and playing cards, up at 8 in the morning, make breakfast, sit around and think where to hunt today.
One would say something to the effect of "remember Billy Larson from down the street shot a buck that one year out by Myers landing? Thats where we should hunt to day."
Of course that was back 30 years ago, so back in the '40's.
We pile into the van, get to the spot wander around in a half assed drive.
Nobody sees a deer.
Back to camp we go for lunch.
A game of cards breaks out after lunch and thats the end of deer hunting for that day.
Was very discouraging for me and my cousin who both really wanted to shoot our first deer.

Later I would hunt in the Glidden area with my son at my wifes sisters husbands relation.
A few deer were shot each year. It was good hunting setup and the guys were not drinkers.
Unfortunately the guy who own the place got caught by his wife fooling around and the divorce and sale of the land ended that.
That was in the '2000 area time wise.

Hard to say if the hunting was better cause the hunters were much better and more dedicated to the task.

LOL. I've seen some camps like that, but that was never our M. O. To be perfectly honest, I've never, not once, seen a card game in any camp I've taken part in, and there have been 4 over my 59 deer seasons. Hunting with family in 60s in Juneau Co., 70s up in Mercer area with family & friends from a rod & gun club, 80s in Pembine area with guys I worked with and from same club, and nicolet from '91 until today. I began in '93 with what are now my 3 best friends (brothers), their dad, and 2 of their sons. Very serious and very good hunters, every one of them.

Drinking? Hell yes. I've spent many mornings in a tree stand (or groundblind, before tree stands were legalized) with a bad-ass hangover. But I never missed being in the woods at daybreak, and never drank until after sunset. We didn't hit the bars for lunch. In the 70s, we stayed at a lodge on Turtle Flambeau & hunted paper company land.  B&B type place with breakfast & dinner included, and a brown-bag lunch to take to the woods. It had a full bar open to anyone, and also had a few pinball machines and a pool table. We took the place over, rented every room. I shut that bar down many a night (snowmobiled there too), but was up eating breakfast a few hours later, and in the woods by shooting hours. There was 8 of us in that group, most from a rod & gun club I belonged to. My cousin and I, in our 20s, were the youngest. If there was snow, he & I hunted strictly by tracking. Get on fresh tracks, stay on them until you caught up to the bedded deer. We got most of the deer in camp trhat way. Most of the others were in their 40s at that time, a few were 50+. Everyone was either a roofer I worked with, or a truck driver.... a rowdy bunch, but hunting was a serious matter to us all. Owner of the lodge was a lifelong friend of my parents, and an ex-roofer too. We hunted there from '71 to '81.

In '82, one of the roofers in the group, a guy I worked with every day for years, bought a 40 east of Pembine off Kremlin road. His uncle owned the 40 next to it. So we moved over there. More deer, private land with permanent stands. Everything surrounding us was county forest. Camp was 3 camping trailers and the uncle's Pace Arrow motor home ... which I had to drag out of the mud or snow almost every year with my 3/4 ton 4x4 GMC pickup. We were miles from any town, and would make a trip down to Beecher every 2-3 days, to a country club with public showers. Showers were $3, or if you stayed for dinner, they were free to deer hunters so we always stayed.

In '91 I moved to Eagle River area, I now hunted less than 5 miles from home, met the group I'm with now in '93, hunted with them ever since. Not just deer, but also bear/turkey/grouse/ducks/geese/coyotes. They all stayed in one lakeside cabin, a mile from me. Father, 3 sons, 2 grandsons. I'm the only non-family member ... by blood anyway.  The father no longer hunts, he quit at age 85 (now 93). They now have 4 year round homes up here, 2 owned by one brother who lives here full time now (retired, from West Allis). He rents one out as a vrbo, and lives in the other on the shore of the same lake, on his own 5 acres. The original "camp", cabin with 11 acres is still owned by the dad, but is now used mostly by youngest of the brothers and his son. The oldest of the 3 brothers has a lake cabin also, on 5 acres, on same lake. We've taken a few "driveway deer" from those 21 combined acres, in addition to most of our hunting out in the Nicolet. Got some ducks & geese off that lake too.

My daughter gave me a copy of "Hunting Camp 52".  It's a story about a camp in the Hayward area from the 50's on.  I enjoyed it because it reminded me a lot of our camp and was a pretty interesting read.  If you haven't hunted from a camp, it'll give you an idea of the sort of shenanigans that go on.  Our first camp was  #40-something I think and the one my Dad and my buddies built was #97, so they got in at about the same time our group did on the 100 permits made available.  Good times.

Small world, Have a friend that has a place east of Beecher on Z. Go up there bird hunting. He recently has retired and doesn't use the place as often.
Spent lots of time there in the summer fishing on the Menominee river.
Ate at Mary's place many an evening after fishing.

Have an Uncle who moved to Eagle River in the late '70's/early '80's from West Allis to a place on Catfish Lake. After a few years he moved to some land north of Eagle river on 45. He moved south (Dousman) in the 2000's.

Had an Uncle who lived just over the border from Land O' Lakes in the UP, he died of a car crash many years ago.
Back In the '80's had lots of relation all around the Harshaw, Rhinlander, Eagle River and Land O' Lakes area.
Some are still there, haven't seen them in decades.

That's me with the Mauston, Juneau county area. Grandfather was born & raised there, the family has been there since the 1850s. 2nd & 3rd cousins galore. Haven't seen any of them since the late 1990s. Last I heard, one moved to Marshfield, another to Appleton, one was in Sun Prairie. All the 2nd & 3rd cousins are nearing retirement age, already there... or dead.