Never Shoot the Wrong Antlerless Deer Again

By Glen Wunderlich

Charter Member Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA)

Now that deer Chad Stewart of Michigan’s DNR has implored hunters to take more antlerless deer in the Southern Lower Peninsula, it’s imperative to identify the most suitable animals in the herd to maximize results.  Although taking fawns is typically not on the agenda, some hunters make the mistake of thinking they are larger than they actually are and sheepishly wish they’d have held off.  Fortunately, the National Deer Association (NDA) has compiled an educational video to help identify specific traits of does afield so that ethical hunters can get the best bang for their buck.

Glen Drags Out a Good Doe

Although the NDA states there’s nothing wrong with taking a fawn, I disagree – especially, if it’s a buck fawn.  If one’s goal is to reduce the herd or to balance the ratio of bucks to does, taking a buck, whether immature or a whopping 10-pointer, it amounts to one animal from the herd.

On the other hand, by taking a doe, it has a compound effect on the population over the lifetime of a female breeder.  Obviously, even removing a doe fawn from the herd fits the bill, but there’s not a heck of a lot of meat as reward for the effort.  When one considers the cost of the tag plus processing, the cost per pound of venison is remarkably higher; there is no discount for tiny deer!

Before getting into specifics, a good binocular is highly recommended to define subtle differences; it’s far better and safer than relying on one’s scope.  Make sure to add a good binocular harness that’ll keep the glass clean, dry, and ready.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what would be the value of an instructional video?  To find out, the NDA in conjunction with Chief Conservation Officer and wildlife biologist Kip Adams and The Bearded Buck (an Outdoor Entertainment Company), has produced a video to teach viewers how to separate adult does from younger does and doe fawns from buck fawns.  To view the new video, visit NDA’s YouTube channel here where you can also find the 2022 video on Aging Live Bucks in the Field.

The 18-deer quiz at the clip’s conclusion allows viewers to practice what they’ve learned throughout the video. Here, viewers are provided a few seconds to identify wild deer afield.

“The ability to separate antlerless deer into two general age groups – fawns and adults – is obtainable for all hunters with a little knowledge and some practice,” said Adams. “The three key characteristics are body size and shape, head size and shape and animal behavior. This is especially pertinent when you have a group of deer in front of you during hunting season. Estimating the sex and age of live antlerless deer is a great skill for hunters.”

Having two or more deer together can help to distinguish size, because hunters are able to compare them, while the difference is more noticeable in early season.  I can tell you that I’ve made the mistake of thinking a lone button buck was a good doe and I never want to make that mistake again.

Already, I’ve begun to use my newfound education to size up any and all deer I’ve been observing and it’s been an exciting change in viewing. We owe it to the betterment of the herd, and ourselves to put this valuable wisdom to work in our repertoire of hunting tactics.

Hunting, Wildlife

The St. Marys River fisheries and challenges of managing across jurisdictions

By DAVE FIELDER
Fisheries research biologist
Michigan Department of Natural Resources

 

“…it appears that most of the key fish species remain abundant and in good health

The St. Marys River is the connection between Great Lakes Superior and Huron. Virtually the whole of Lake Superior drains through this “connecting channel” feeding Lake Huron and the lakes below.

This important waterway also defines the boundary between the easternmost end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the province of Ontario.

The river flows for 75 miles and includes an enormous variety of habitat types. There are rapids, fast-moving reaches and large islands, but also lake-like river reaches.

Despite being mostly Lake Superior outflow, the water is relatively warmer and includes cold-, cool- and warm-water fish species.

The challenge

To manage fisheries, biologists need up-to-date information on the status of fish populations, their trends in abundance, how much reproduction is occurring, age structure, etc. This is usually obtained by way of periodic netting surveys.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources routinely conducts these assessments across the state and Great Lakes. However, when it comes to the St. Marys River, there are special challenges.

The gear of choice is variable-mesh gillnets that catch a cross-section of fish species reflecting the whole fish community. By using different sizes of mesh, most all ages and sizes of fish can be sampled.

Such a netting survey might include from six to 20 net sets in most Great Lakes situations, but in the St. Marys River, because of the diversity of habitat types, it requires 44 net sets.

For assessment purposes, the river is divided into eight different reaches, each getting five or more net sets to adequately survey the area.

Partners

This enormous effort is too much for any one government agency to conduct on its own, but another feature of the St. Marys River is the large number of agencies that share the jurisdiction.

Besides the state of Michigan, there is the province of Ontario with its Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. There are also federal agencies on both sides of the river, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The Biological Resources Division of the U. S. Geological Survey is another federal agency involved, as well as the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

There are also two Native American tribes: the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and the Bay Mills Indian Community, both of which maintain their own fisheries departments. There are additional groups involved, including local universities and other entities that similarly represent resources to help with fisheries assessments.
While each agency has a slightly different mission or perspective, they all hold some interest and responsibility for the stewardship of the St. Marys River fishery.

This rich yet complex suite of interjurisdictional representation offers an opportunity to share the large netting survey with many partners. This coordinated approach to assessment has now been used to jointly conduct the last seven surveys.

To facilitate the coordination of this work, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission organized the St. Marys River Fisheries Task Group in 1997.

The group is an international organization intended to help coordinate fishery management across the Great Lakes and to help bring partners together, so it was natural for the group to be formed under the commission.

The membership reflects all the same agencies and partners that have been joining to conduct the survey about every five years.

The group coordinates other work too, including a periodic creel survey that interviews anglers at the end of their fishing trip to find out what they caught and to generate estimates of harvest and catch rates. The netting survey and creel survey were last conducted in 2022.

Target species

The netting survey provides information on all species encountered, but the focal species are walleye, yellow perch, smallmouth bass, northern pike, cisco, lake sturgeon, and any salmon and trout caught.

A total of 37 different species were sampled in 2022. The survey also doubles as one means to determine if any new invasive species might be present.
Creel survey workers conducted over 1,000 angler interviews last year and included four flights a week by airplane to count boats, which is necessary for estimating the amount of fishing effort and harvest taking place in such a large river.

Results

Analysis of the survey findings from 2022 are still ongoing, but it appears that most of the key fish species remain abundant and in good health. Mortality rates, growth rates, abundance of mature females to reflect reproductive potential and other details are gauged. Results are compared to previous surveys.

The fishery measured by the creel survey is similarly robust, reflecting the diverse habitat types and fish community. Yellow perch and walleye are among the most-harvested fish, with numbers sometimes as great as 60,000 walleye and 100,000 yellow perch taken during the open-water fishing season.

The St. Marys River is one of the few places in Michigan that cisco can be predictably caught, and while patchy, total harvest in some years can be as great as 150,000 fish.

The amount of fishing effort on the St. Marys River (across all jurisdictions) amounted to 64% of all the fishing effort in the Michigan waters of Lake Huron that same year. The St. Marys River has quickly grown a reputation for outstanding and diverse fishing and is now routinely part of professional walleye and bass tournament circuits.

An exciting trend on the St. Marys River is an increasing number of young lake sturgeon caught in the netting survey. This native species was once greatly abundant in Lake Huron but suffered from overharvest and habitat degradation during the 20th century, reducing the population to a small fraction of original numbers.

Much effort is going into lake sturgeon recovery in Michigan, and the St. Marys River is one of the bright spots, with increased numbers captured in the river over the last five years. When captured in the netting survey, the fish are internally tagged with a passive integrated transponder, or “PIT tag,” that will allow that individual fish to be recognized in the future if encountered again and then released back into the river.

Costs

In 2022, the netting survey cost $140,000 and the creel survey $250,000 to conduct. Fortunately, these costs are spread across the participating agencies of the task group, which reduces the burden for any one partner.
This survey series is only conducted periodically, to maximize the information while minimizing the cost. The real value is in the critical information obtained, which fishery managers then use to make decisions. These data have been used to evaluate harvest regulations, fishing seasons, stocking decisions and more.

Invasive species

A great deal more fisheries work takes place in the St. Marys River in addition to the netting and creel surveys.

One example is the intensive surveillance for invasive species led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conducted most every year in partnership with others to cover all waters of the river.

Multiple methods, including trawling, electrofishing and netting, are used to search for invasive species to determine trends and whether any new invasive species have become established.

The invasive Eurasian ruffe, a perch-like fish, has become established in parts of Lake Superior and, in recent years, the St. Marys River. There is considerable concern over effects it may have within the river and if it ever reaches downstream waters, such as Saginaw Bay.

The St. Marys River is a conduit for international shipping, with freighters passing through the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie between Lakes Huron and Superior. This means the river is especially vulnerable to colonization by new invasive species, since many have been transported into and around the Great Lakes in freighter ballast water.

Quite possibly the most significant invasive species in the St. Marys River is the sea lamprey. This parasitic, eel-like fish feeds on lake trout and other fish in the open waters of Lake Huron.

Sea lamprey, however, spawn in rivers, and their juveniles will live there for about the first three years of life. The USFWS and Fisheries and Oceans Canada expend an enormous effort, both logistically complex and costly, annually to control sea lamprey in the Great Lakes.

Agency staffers use a selective lampricide to kill the juveniles in the streams and rivers before they can mature and become parasitic. It was discovered in the late 1990s that the St. Marys River was one of the major contributors of sea lamprey to Lake Huron. However, the river is too large to treat with lampricide using traditional methods.
A great deal of research and mapping took place to pinpoint the hot spots in the river where the juveniles resided in the sediment, and using a granular form of the lampricide, which sinks to the bottom, the specific problem areas in the river are targeted and treated.

, sea lamprey numbers have been brought down in Lake Huron to, or near, target levels.

Thriving resource

The St. Marys River is a tremendous resource, but that fact can get lost on many people because of the abundance of water Michigan enjoys. The rapids in the Canadian Soo are a spawning destination for migrating steelhead, Chinook salmon, lake whitefish, lake sturgeon and many more species.

The river has attracted anglers from all over the world and was one of author Ernest Hemmingway’s favorite places to fish.

The St. Marys River still faces many challenges.

Beyond the potential for invasive species, the area around Sault Ste. Marie remains one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Areas of Concern for pollution. The river itself has also been greatly modified by heavy channelization to accommodate the large iron ore freighters that navigate it every day and hydroelectric facilities that provide power to both Michigan and Ontario. This alteration also changed the natural fish habitats in many parts of the river.

With the aid of the survey work coordinated by the St. Marys River Fisheries Task Group and with the cooperative multijurisdictional projects occurring in the river, fishery managers are well positioned to meet the challenges of a new century for protecting the important and extensive fishery in the great St. Marys River.

Find out more about fisheries in Michigan.

Check out previous Showcasing the DNR stories in our archive at Michigan.gov/DNRStories. To subscribe to upcoming Showcasing articles, sign up for free email delivery at Michigan.gov/DNREmail.
Fishing

Federal Ammunition Announces New Hi-Bird Upland Loads with Fiber Wad

Federal Ammunition announces a new line extension to its popular Hi-Bird upland game hunting product line. Hi-Bird Fiber (Paper) Wad’s cellulose wad construction helps minimize plastic left in the field, yet still offers the same hard-hitting performance as the original.

Hi-Bird | Federal Ammunition (federalpremium.com)

“The patented design of the fiber over-powder wad creates an effective gas seal, and the paper shot cup is designed to prevent barrel/shot contact and improve pattern performance,” said Dan Compton, Federal Shotshell Product Line Director. “Additionally, the overall fiber/paper wad system design helps reduce a shooter’s environmental impact on high-volume shoots.”

The new 12-gauge, No. 5 load’s high velocity (1,330 fps) and specially formulated lead shot produce downrange energy and pattern density that efficiently takes down birds at all shootable ranges. It’s available in 25-count boxes with an MSRP of $24.99. Read more

Ammunition

NSSF Praises Congress for Bipartisan Rebuke of President Biden’s Hunter Education Attacks

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praised the U.S. Congress for the swift and overwhelmingly decisive vote to rebuke President Joe Biden’s unprecedented move to defund scholastic hunter education and archery programs available for youths. The U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 5110, the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act, in a 424-1 vote and the U.S. Senate hot-lined the legislation, passing it by unanimous consent. The legislation, introduced by U.S. Reps. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) is now headed to President Biden’s desk for consideration.

The White House has not signaled whether the president will sign or veto the legislation. However, Congress approved the bill in a rare and overwhelming veto-proof majority. Should the president veto the legislation, Congress could override the president’s veto and enact the law.

“This is a tremendous victory for true and proven firearm safety, as well as a reminder of how Congress can unite to protect the American public from special-interest driven agendas,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This should have never been an issue. Congress never wrote into the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that hunter education and archery programs were ineligible for funding. That was a unilateral decision to appease gun control and anti-hunting special interests. It was an unforced error that the Biden administration refused to acknowledge. Congress, as the representatives of the people, has spoken and spoken loudly and clearly.” Read more

Gun Control

Buck Knives Offers Bird Hunting Tips

Buck Knives, Inc., a widely recognized global leader in the hunting, outdoor, and everyday carry (EDC) knife markets, offers up these tips to mourning dove and upland hunters across America:

*Scout early and often: When hunting doves, remember that as weather changes and food sources diminish, the birds change flight and feeding patterns. Scouting for flocks of doves roosting in trees without leaves will tell you where they are gathering, and observing will often reveal where those birds are going for food or water. Quality binoculars aid in this effort. Remember also that dove hunting seasons are open beyond the opening day or weekend.

* Pause often: When hunting upland species like ruffed and spruce grouse, walk slowly and pause often. During midday periods, these grouse often rest in trees and often times the birds will sit motionless and watch as you walk past. Pausing can cause the birds to panic and take flight—and reveal their presence. When you pause, be ready for action. Always remember to load your shotgun!

*Choose the right knife for your after-success chores. Read more

Cutlery

Take a Bite Out of the Chill While Waiting for a Bite on the Line

When winter hits, outdoor activities do not end. With the cold weather comes a wide range of unique activities that many enjoy. In the northern part of the United States and Canada, ice fishing is a wildly popular activity. The amount of preparation and time spent ranges wildly from person to person. But one thing is clear; it is cold.

THAW helps combat frigid temperatures by offering a wide range of dual-use items to keep users warm. When ice fishing, temperatures can dip wildly low. The Heated Seat Pad provides an alternative to sitting on cold plastic, nylon, or ice. With an optional rechargeable battery bank, the Heated Seat Pad can provide warmth for your derrière for up to 5 hours while offering plenty of comfort with the 2-inch padding. The waterproof construction makes this an excellent choice for the ice fishing hobbyist. Read more

Fishing, Hunting

No silver carp eDNA in new St. Joseph River samples

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources announced that no silver carp environmental DNA was found in a Sept. 6 resampling of the St. Joseph River.

Following notification that one of 220 samples taken on the St. Joseph River in June by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service contained eDNA from invasive silver carp, the area was resampled.

A total of 220 new samples were collected from stretches of the river between Lake Michigan and Berrien Springs, and according to the USFWS, none of the samples tested positive for bighead or silver carp eDNA. These species of invasive carp are not known to be in the Great Lakes basin, and this sampling provides an early detection process for their potential presence.

Testing for eDNA involves collecting water samples throughout a river or lake and analyzing each sample for silver or bighead carp genetic material. Repeated sampling is used to verify results and to assess whether the detections may have come from a live fish. Read more
Fishing

9 Great Prizes in Project ChildSafe’s Firearm Safety Sweepstakes

The Project ChildSafe® Safety Sweepstakes is underway to raise funds for Project ChildSafe, a national firearm safety education program that helps save lives and keeps families and communities safer. Project ChildSafe is a program of NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association.

The sweepstakes is open to everyone! Enter today for a chance to win one of the following nine prizes:

    • Vault Pro Silver Eagle Series SE-740 Gun Safe; MSRP: $4,900, shipping included
    • Bass Pro Shops Gift Card; Value: $2,500
    • Celerant Cumulus Retail POS Software (12 months); Value: $2,200
    • Franchi Affinity 3 Turkey Shotgun; MSRP: $1,200
    • OpticsPlanet: Headrest Safe (2 His & Hers); MSRP: $978
    • Ruger 6927 Rifle; MSRP: $630
    • Brazen Sports Watch; MSRP: $550
    • GTM/CZY-02 Vintage Messenger Bag; MSRP: $210.95
    • Yeti Tumbler; MSRP: $40

Read more

Contests

Dorsey Covers How Ballot Box Biology Bypasses the Expertise of State Wildlife Officials

Is the traditional role of state fish and wildlife agencies coming to an end? That is increasingly the question as some of the nation’s most important–and often controversial—issues are no longer being decided by wildlife professionals whose charter it is to manage natural resources for the greater good. Instead, animal welfare groups and others have staked a clear strategy to circumvent state agencies through the referendum process. That is, if you want to ban mountain lion hunting or introduce wolves to a state, you have only to collect signatures from a population generally easy to sway with emotional media campaigns and overwhelm your opponents on election day– poor outcomes for people and wildlife be damned.

Some 26 states across the country allow citizens to propose legislation through the referendum process, part of the signature reforms of the Progressive Era—a form of so-called direct democracy where the people, not special interests, are supposed to make governing decisions. Instead, referendums have become rife with special interest influence. The referendum process has been especially embraced in the West where some of the country’s most challenging wildlife issues reside—including battles over what to do about burgeoning mountain lion, grizzly, and wolf populations. Read more

Hunting, Wildlife

Vortex Introduces Impact 4000 Ballistic Rail-Mounted Laser Rangefinder

NEW ALL-IN-ONE BALLISTIC PROBLEM SOLVER FOR PRECISION COMPETITORS AND OPEN-COUNTRY HUNTERS

With proper tools and training, hitting long-range targets with repeatable accuracy under pressure comes down to total control of the variables—range, ballistics, and environmental conditions—that impact the trajectory of your bullet.

Meant for precision shooting and open-terrain hunting, the new Impact® 4000 Ballistic Rail-Mounted Laser Rangefinder takes the guesswork out of long-range shooting with quick, accurate ballistic corrections— everything you need to generate point-and-shoot solutions without coming off the gun. Read more

Optics
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