# Is this legal



## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

If most guys ever looked at the number of crop damage (not DMAP) permits issued every year, and the estimate of the number of deer killed under them, they would be astonished at what a pitifully small number it really is.

I've heard countless stories, mostly grotesque exagerations, of farmers killing dozens of deer and letting them rot, or amish killing hundreds of them. I believe most of the time what we hear is sour grapes from hunters that haven't seen enough deer to satisfy their recreational desires.


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## Groundsize (Aug 29, 2006)

in my area of Gratiot county, which is a monster of a crop county if you know the county well. My area is low land habitat. It has tons of crop fields all around it. What I see is yes the deer do alot of damage to the crops, but ***** do just as much. The ***** by me seem to wipe out more corn crops than deer. My neighbor has 130 acres crop fields next to my land, he has crop damage permits and has yet to shoot a deer due to his work schedule and so forth.

Paul


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## MERGANZER (Aug 24, 2006)

Groundsize said:


> in my area of Gratiot county, which is a monster of a crop county if you know the county well. My area is low land habitat. It has tons of crop fields all around it. What I see is yes the deer do alot of damage to the crops, but ***** do just as much. The ***** by me seem to wipe out more corn crops than deer. My neighbor has 130 acres crop fields next to my land, he has crop damage permits and has yet to shoot a deer due to his work schedule and so forth.
> 
> Paul


 

IMO ***** do way more damage than the deer do. Deer eat off the ear while ***** knock the stalk over.

Ganzer


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## brdhntr (Oct 1, 2003)

MERGANZER said:


> IMO ***** do way more damage than the deer do. Deer eat off the ear while ***** knock the stalk over.
> 
> Ganzer


Deer feed on the corn plant from the time it sprouts until it is picked. Many times the damage due to raccoons is more evident, but a deer eats a lot of corn in an evening. Usually without knocking down the plant. My current hot stand overlooks about 2 acres in a 40 acre field where the deer never let the corn get more than knee high. The raccoons never even got a chance to mess it up. It isn't the only spot on that parcel like that. Also, if you check you won't find many cobs around that spot untouched by the deer. 

Farmlegend got it pretty close. Not saying the OP's scenario doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen often. 

Also, most of those farmers do allow hunting on their property, maybe just not the person that is doing the complaining. Our landowner tried the open it up for everyone to hunt route, and got more trouble than it was worth to him. HAP payments are usually way less than what a landowner is willing to take for the hassle of allowing the general public on his land. Those that use HAP land would do themselves a favor by spending at least a day or two/yr out there just cleaning up and being nice to the farmer. More often than not, a few years in the HAP program is more than a landowner wants to deal with.


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## mondrella (Dec 27, 2001)

Without todays farmers suppling the majority of the whitetails food source in this present time. There would be far fewer deer in this state than people realize. To get these permits a local biologist comes out and sees what is doing the damage and thus decides how many permits to allow. Our family farm has dealt with way to many deer since the late 70's. All summer long on any given night one could count 200 to 250 deer in all our fields each night. We were issued 20 kill tags. We still buy all the over the counter tags we can get each year. I don't remember the last time a doe tag went unfilled. We lease out part of the farm. The other part we keep for ourselves. This year it is hard to say what the grand total of loss will be with the corn still a long ways out to be harvested. Alfalfa alone came just shy of $15,000 of loss to the deer. This year there will be nearly 75 deer killed off this farm just like every other year in the past 9 years back in the mid 90's 100 deer a year was the norm. All that happens is deer for poorer habitat around this farm move in as you kill the local deer off. 

There are those that say open it up for others to hunt. Like others have posted it is not a option due to the way many people are. Been sued by a individual for breaking thier leg arguments over who is hunting where. Its not worth the headache. It is just easier to lease it and gain a little to help pay the land taxes each year. 

How many of you want to hand over $25,000 that you could put in your pocket. With just a simple bit of management. 

Not one deer goes to waste that is shot they are given to older nieghbors and those that are hard up.


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