Poor hunting

I have been deer hunting for years and have seen the number of deer steady decrease since the implantation of this shoot whatever you want system. The number of pictures taken by game cameras have gone from several hundred per week to around 50 of the same three or four nocturnal deer. Hunting clubs with points and size rules bringing out spikes on a regular basis. The number of deer reported are by my estimation less than half of the numbers actually reported. Numbers of deer harvested is also on a sharp decline as seen on the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries websight. I cannot figure out if they are trying to kill all the deer or what. Just want an idea of what everyone thinks.

JMO hunting has become a who can put out the most feed sport (which I am guilty of). Back when my club could still run dog's we saw way more deer than now. The difference is instead of pallets of dog food there are now pallets of rice brand in there place. I don't think the number of deer has decreased. I think its more of a problem of feeding them to the point that they become completely nocturnal. I'm in no means saying I prefer dog hunting versus still hunting. I can only report what my boots on the ground have observed. We kill roughly the same amount of deer now than we did when we where dog hunting. However I will say that when we ran dog's the group would kill larger bucks on average than we do now. Because one things for sure nocturnal or not when he goes to stinking he becomes vulnerable to a hounds nose.

You're right Chris, the numbers reported in La.-Miss. game and fish magazine show many of the best wma's killed less than 35 bucks in 5 days of either sex. Whats more alarming are the lack of hunters. We lost uwma and the state is not gonna keep leasing thousands of acres for a handful of hunters.

...'da numbers are 'cooked' and 'well-done'...chew away Baby...cheers

After reading this I did some checking. For several years after TNWR was formed hunters killed over 5,000 deer each year. As the forest matured those numbers went steadily down. On the whole 1,000,000 acre WMA system they only killed 6,000+. in 2014. This is explained as the new normal due to mature forest lowering carrying capacity. Who's gonna pay the lease when deer hunters quit?