I was a Conservation Officer…

I was a Conservation Officer ( CO) for 25 years with MNRF and would like to submit following suggestions with respect to our deer review:

1) Controlled deer hunts should have specific tags for their hunts separate from regular hunts for hunters to apply for and purchase. As a former CO this will alleviate so many of the illegal tag games that hunters try so that they can keep their tag for the controlled hunt, tag is only valid for that specific hunt and time period.

2) Have promoted this for years and have never had anyone not support this, we should have Separate ARCHERY tags for purchase. As a former CO so many tag violations and transfers as hunters come to their traditional deer gun camps and want to have a tag for later archery hunting. In reality me the hunter shooting a deer at my camp in WMU 63 (two hours from my home) and one later with my bow where I live WMU 68 will have little/no impact on the respective deer populations within the different WMU's.
Now I go to deer camp with the objective of trying to keep my tag for later at home for archery hunting

With this archery tag I believe that such few archery hunters kill antlerless deer that the archery tag for PURCHASE is for antlered or anlterless.

With this increased opportunity and because archery hunting is not a camp type hunt I suggest NO PARTY hunting while archery hunting. Our big bucks need protection in the late season and I know that hunters under our current system are allowed party hunting and kill more than one sometime several big hungry bucks in our late archery season, this needs to end.

You decide if I kill this deer with my bow my season is over. Hunters will be happy with this change as most just want to be able to hunt and watch deer legally. ( Some units may not be able to sustain additional harvest, mangers/biologists to decide) In my WMU 68 it can support this as very limited gun camps and harvest, very healthy deer population.
So you can purchase a separate deer archery tag, only valid during the archery seasons, no party hunting allowed, archery season closes during the gun hunts ( Hunters will abuse the archery seal and attached to gun shot deer)

I believe these two changes will improve deer hunting opportunities , create extra funding for the special purpose account to help manage and protect our resources, and have limited negative impacts on our deer populations