Here is my take on this.
The main groups that go to the meetings are bowhunters and trophy hunters. Bowhunters and trophy hunters are a very organized groups. In my opinion, a lot of the rule changes in the last few years have favored these groups. I talked to two guys last week and one said it would be good because we would have big bucks like Illinois and the other said good it will keep the crazy gunhunters out of the woods during more of the rut.
Me, I bowhunt, firearm hunt and muzzleloader hunt but I am one of those guys that get teased by most people for shooting a small buck or does. I love to hunt and have for 27 years but we eat two deer a year and I shoot any full grown deer that walks by. Bottom line I love to hunt, I do not hang my manhood on how big of a buck I shoot.
The new rules give the pre-rut to the bowhunters as it does now, but also the best part of the rut. Now you can shoot deer anytime of the season but my sightings are best during the pre-rut and rut and half of that would be taken away from the gun hunter. The week between Christmas and New Years is good and bad. I always see less deer that time of the year and everyones schedule is really busy that time of year. The good thing is a lot of people have that week off if family duties allow them to get out. I do like the two days in October. I do not like loosing a weekend in gun season because the way I look at that is shortening the season by 1/3 for me. I say this because I do not take time off to gun hunt but do hunt every weekend so it is cutting my number of days to hunt by a lot epecially when you shorten ML season also.
I do not like the proposed rules just like I do not like the one buck rule. If decreasing the population is the goal why not allow a buck to be killed in archery seasaon and gun season like in the old days instead of worring about having trophy bucks.
Anyway, I hope I did not ruffle any feathers, just giving my opinion on the subject.
