# 2004 Michigan Deer Harvest Survey Report



## Tom Morang (Aug 14, 2001)

Click on the link for the 2004 Michigan Deer Harvest Survey Report.....tm


http://www.michigan.gov/documents/report3444_135086_7.pdf


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Hallelujah! A bit behind schedule this year. Thanks for the head's up, Tom.

Time to crank up the spreadsheets!


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## Tom Morang (Aug 14, 2001)

You're welcome Farmlegend. Lots of good stuff in there - as usual......tm


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## fairfax1 (Jun 12, 2003)

I've been waiting. And waiting.

Came within a hair's breadth of calling the DNR this morning but a neighbor stopped by to schmooze and I forgot.

Mucho gracias.


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

There's some interesting info there. Newaygo county was by far the most heavily hunted with 26,300 hunters. No other county was even close. The NWLP had quite the dip in muzzleloader numbers. Overall success appears to be noticeably higher in the SLP.


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## jk hillsdale (Dec 7, 2002)

Most surprising thing to me is that over 75% of the muzzleloader harvest is antlerless - very interesting.

I also didn't realize that the number of archery hunters is greatly reduced from where we were in the late 90's. I had been under the mistaken impression that archery hunting was still growing in popularity, but it's actually quite the contrary.


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## Ferg (Dec 17, 2002)

Increase in Military purchases - wonder what the story is there?

ferg....


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## Liver and Onions (Nov 24, 2000)

[email protected] said:


> There's some interesting info there. Newaygo county was by far the most heavily hunted with 26,300 hunters. No other county was even close. .........


It will be intersting to see if the high number of hunters return this year since some hunters from that area have reported fewer deer sightings and the antlerless permits have been lowered. Some hunters are always ready to compain about the DNR, but never take any responsibility for their lack of seeing deer themselves.
Interesting.....p.13 Harvest Numbers from '63-'04. Doesn't look like a lot to complain about.
.....4.3% of hunters took 2 bucks.
.....87% of the deer are taken on private land. One could make a case that the DNR should sell more land in the NLP & UP to improve the hunting.
.....Page 32-- Percentage of hunters harvesting 5 or more deer...UP(.1%), NLP(.1), SLP(.5), Statewide(.6%). Am I missing something or reading this wrong ? How can that be possible ? Probably a typo.... .2 or .3 sounds about right.
..... We almost never mention the DMU(County) where the most deer are harvested. 
..... Will the mandatory check-in people be happy with this report ? Probably not, they will probably never read any of this information. 

L & O


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

I'm satisfied with the report.
I've witnessed noticeably less hunters over the last couple years in northern Newaygo. And our place was pretty much ground zero of the heaviest hunted area's of the heaviest hunted county. I know mile sections that had over 60 hunters on them on Nov. 15. With 26,300, Newaygo still averages 31 hunters per sq mile. However, there is now noticeably less deer too. For example, at the peak heyday 12-20 years ago, shots heard on Nov. 15 were probably one every 30 seconds until Noon. I'm totally serious. To the point where you said there isn't that many deer in the world. But there was a gob of them back then. Anything less than 40 deer seen on gun opener would have been deemed "slow". But over the last 2 seasons, it's been so quiet that we joked that we thought that maybe we had the wrong day, with a shot here and there every 5-10 minutes until around 9am, then it really died down. The majority of hunters are our camp saw zero deer on gun opener. Up until a few years ago, someone getting skunked on sightings on Nov. 15 would have been as conceivable as seeing an pink elephant talk.
To be perfectly honest, even less hunters in Newaygo county would be welcome news to me. Many of the "quality" issue's I'm for are very difficult to accomplish when you have twice as many hunters and as many as 4 times as many hunters as other DMU's. For example, Hillsdale only has 11,000 hunters, Jackson 18,000 and Allegan 15,700. With lower hunter numbers, things like higher antler standards aren't as needed. Nor the is concern of over harvest of doe's. I wouldn't mind if Newaygo remained the county with the worst pressure, but I'd love to see our hunter numbers around 18,000-20,000, instead of over 26,000. Luckily, more hunters staying in the SLP will probably grant my wish. Anyone have the data of how many hunters were in Newaygo in the past?


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Of course, making an exception of Newaygo and splitting it in half so the 2 new DMU's use M-20 and/or M-82 as the border would help things too. IMHO The new DMU that was southern Newaygo should have a lot higher antlerless quota's due to the rich soil and orchards and private farmland. Basically, set higher quota's where the most deer and private land are located.


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Top Five DMU's, Gross Harvest

1. Montcalm 14768
2. Jackson 13512
3. Barry 11849
4. Newaygo 11359
5. Lapeer 10950

Median was Roscommon(072), 4437


Top Five DMU's, Hunting Effort

1. Newaygo 24191
2. Jackson 23687
3. Lapeer 23027
4. Montcalm 21942
5. Allegan 21607

Median was DMU 452, TB Core Area, 14421


Top Five DMU's, Hunting Success Rate (Hunting Effort/Deer Harvested)

1. Menominee 1.396
2. Montcalm 1.486
3. Ionia 1.744
4. Jackson 1.753
5. Mecosta 1.771

Median was Ottawa, 3.347. Interestingly, DMU 452 was above median in success rate, at 3.097. Yup, that means someone hunting in 452 was more likely to score than a hunter in Lenawee, Oakland, Saginaw, Genesee and Berrien counties. 

Hunters in maligned Lake County (3.839) still connected at a higher rate than hunters in Berrien(4.858), Bay(4.976) and Muskegon (4.389) counties). 



Bottom of the heap was my home DMU, 082(Wayne), at 27.327.

My hunting county, Hillsdale, which is considered by many to be a high-success rate area, scored 2.327 in the hunter success rate ratio, well worse than deer hunting success hotbeds such as Newaygo (2.130) and Ogemaw (2.230).


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## Adam Waszak (Apr 12, 2004)

Still not sure who it is that they talked to from Newaygo unless it was all southern.

AW


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Farm, as you well know, it isn't the quanity, it's the quality. 
And Hillsdale's 11,000 hunters killed 3650 bucks and 4200 antlerless vs Lake's 19,900 hunters killing 2300 bucks and 2400 antlerless. I think Hillsdale has a little better success.


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## Liver and Onions (Nov 24, 2000)

Well done farm. Charting that even a football coach would be proud of.
So with all of this information, is anyone going to actually check out a new hunting area based up what is printed here ? Probably not many. Everyone is still going to hunt close to home or go back to the general area that you have been hunting even if the deer numbers are way down. 
Is anyone going to look for a lease or land to buy in the high harvest areas ?

L & O


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## BDL (Dec 17, 2004)

Good job FL with the breakdown. 


Though not in FL's stats, my area is on the low side in harvesting and high in hunters in comparison to the SLP. Makes me happy I spent time this summer working on the food plots and timber management program. Fewer hours on the forum and trout stream while spending more on sweat equity will hopefully payoff!


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Liver and Onions said:


> .....87% of the deer are taken on private land. One could make a case that the DNR should sell more land in the NLP & UP to improve the hunting.


Funny that you should mention this. Not long ago, I composed a long introductory post to start a new thread, about this very subject. I decided not to post it, because I suspected it would be an uncomfortable topic that could conceivably tick some people off. I believe I saved it in a msWord document, and I'll see if I can dig it out.


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

[email protected] said:


> Farm, as you well know, it isn't the quanity, it's the quality.
> And Hillsdale's 11,000 hunters killed 3650 bucks and 4200 antlerless vs Lake's 19,900 hunters killing 2300 bucks and 2400 antlerless. I think Hillsdale has a little better success.


I didn't say that the success rate was higher in Lake than Hillsdale, but the success rate was clearly higher in Newaygo County than in my neck of the woods.

Newaygo: 11,359 deer harvested in 24,191 hunting days (1 deer harvested for every 2.13 days of hunting effort)
Hillsdale: 7,809 deer harvested in 18,170 hunting days (1 deer harvested for every 2.33 days of hunting effort); Newaygo hunters experienced successful harvest at 9.3% greater rate than Hillsdale hunters.


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## poz (Nov 12, 2004)

farmlegend said:


> I didn't say that the success rate was higher in Lake than Hillsdale, but the success rate was clearly higher in Newaygo County than in my neck of the woods.
> 
> Newaygo: 11,359 deer harvested in 24,191 hunting days (1 deer harvested for every 2.13 days of hunting effort)
> Hillsdale: 7,809 deer harvested in 18,170 hunting days (1 deer harvested for every 2.33 days of hunting effort); Newaygo hunters experienced successful harvest at 9.3% greater rate than Hillsdale hunters.


FL 

:lol: :lol: :lol: YOur starting to sound like the guys from lake county with this complaining about the succes rate in hillsdale.:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Yeah, I know, Poz, dang DNR kilt all the does, they're slaughterin' em, it's a massacre, walked through the snow all winter and never cut a track... :lol:


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## Adam Waszak (Apr 12, 2004)

Actually in Northern Newaygo I did finally cut a track in muzzleloader season but no other deer or tracks seen for the deer season. There are once again no deer this year and there shouldn't be decent numbers of anything for the next 10 or 12 years so my advice is stick to the SLP and avaoid Newaygo County by all means there is just nothing there anymore. I wil continue to hunt there and keep ya'll posted every year but you'd be better off in other areas because we haven't seen any deer to speak of in months  


Think that'll help Bob?  

AW


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Had to exclude DMU's which did not conform to county size, since I don't have square mile figures for each DMU.

1. Barry 21.31
2. Montcalm 20.86
3. Jackson 19.11
4. Ionia 18.64
5. Lapeer 16.74
6. Mecosta 16.31
7. Midland 15.59
8. Isabella 15.49
9. Arenac 15.32
10. Calhoun 15.26

Some of these numbers are amazing to me. Imagine, legal harvest of over 20 deer per square mile - countywide! There must be some sections that are double that. The counties at the top of this list must have areas within them with over 100 DPSM.


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## Adam Waszak (Apr 12, 2004)

farmlegend said:


> The counties at the top of this list must have areas within them with over 100 DPSM.



ALMOST HEAVEN HUH?

Just pullin yer chain FL but it would be fun for a few seasons and a pocket full O tags :lol: Great info you are extracting FL

AW


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Farm, don't take me the wrong way, I'm not arguing with you. I know what you mean?  I guess what I'm suggesting is that what some deem "success rate" others may see as "inability/unwillingness to pass". In a way, "success rate" possibly could suggest "brown it's down". I think there's a reason why MDNR waved off all antlerless permits in Lake county. It's precisely because the "success rate" is going to be higher here than in other DMU's. Those tags are getting filled around here at a higher rate IMHO. High enough to put the brakes on them for this year. At least from my point of view, most of the stories I hear from the SLP are "saw 6 bucks, passed 5" or even more. Or "saw 3 bucks but held out for a bigger one and ended up with a doe". When the stories I hear from here are more like "I shot the only fork I saw because I knew I'd probably not see another one and if I didn't kill it, the guy on the next ridge would". So the cold stats can be a bit misleading. It's easier to pass a buck when you assume you are likely to see more. So, "success rate" could be lower because hunters passed instead of harvested. More people will be a bit more likely to shoot the one buck they see if they believe that's their one crack at it all year. Know what I mean? Make any sense? I'm not discrediting the numbers, they are what they are. And I do fully believe the numbers. But like any other stat, there can be much more to it than just the numbers. And I'm not saying that my suggestion completely holds water either, but I am suggesting that certain parts of the state are not equal in all aspects and that "hunter satisfaction" may be as good an indicator of what's going on as "success rate". However, "satisfaction" is too intangible to put into a graph and harvest numbers are tangible.


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Good post, Bob, and I understand.

However, I've never heard anything at all like:


[email protected] said:


> "saw 6 bucks, passed 5"


from any of the guys that hunt nearby my farm. :lol:


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## Trophy Specialist (Nov 30, 2001)

Thanks for posting the link to the report. I just concluded reviewing the 2004 report and I even compared the numbers to last years (2003) report and was pleased to see that all the numbers jived. What I found interesting is that the total hunter numbers went form 740,529 in 2002 to 743,471 in 2003 to 712,894 in 2004. Talk about bouncing around. I wonder if the economy and high fuel costs impacted total deer hunter numbers last year or was it other factors?

I also noticed that youth deer hunters rose from 18,520 in 2003 to 19,947 in 2004. Acording to those numbers youths are being recruited at a good pace. The report also indicates that senior deer hunter numbers are on the rise.


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## Bob S (Mar 8, 2000)

Trophy Specialist said:


> I wonder if the economy and high fuel costs impacted total deer hunter numbers last year or was it other factors?


The Monday opener was probably the biggest reason for the decline from 2004.


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## Nick Adams (Mar 10, 2005)

farmlegend said:


> ...since I don't have square mile figures for each DMU.


If anyone has a link to 2004 antlerless tags sold, by DMU, I'd like to see it.

DMU......Total Acres
====================
001.......302,361
003.......538,926
004.......256,755
005.......335,746
006.......235,138
007.....1,134,009
008.......369,047
009.......287,181
010.......222,321
011.......371,385
012.......332,387
013.......459,401
014.......325,224
015.......248,915
016.......509,180
017.......508,657
018.......367,962
019.......367,423
020.......360,289
021.......937,195
022.......494,229
023.......370,548
024.......309,607
025.......415,464
026.......329,973
027.....1,123,207
028.......313,534
029.......365,541
030.......388,191
032.......536,319
033.......358,570
034.......370,941
035.......311,128
036.......694,820
037.......369,428
038.......462,667
039.......371,177
040.......364,884
041.......557,654
042.......369,980 (does not include Isle Royale acres)
043.......367,244
044.......424,018
045.......222,502
046.......486,913
047.......374,409
048.....1,295,620
049.......851,108
050.......309,632
051.......356,655
053.......326,216
054.......365,294
055.......586,847
056.......337,712
057.......366,993
058.......357,376
059.......460,966
060.......311,452
061.......337,431
062.......551,163
063.......580,236
064.......349,328
065.......367,752
066.....1,317,184
067.......366,409
068.......319,450
069.......336,572
070.......369,122
071.......438,287
072.......370,954
073.......465,520
074.......456,327
075.......333,286
076.......616,907
078.......345,941
079.......520,801
080.......398,672
081.......461,994
082.......411,201
083.......367,974
115........41,359
117........86,375
121.......188,162
122.......101,731
135........51,190
145........14,403
149........23,651
152.......250,451
155.......169,824
173........56,331
174........14,234
245..........3,431
252.......189,586
255.......296,570
452.......360,323
==================
Total..37,078,455

-na


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## Nick Adams (Mar 10, 2005)

.........Hvst/...Hunters/..Days/
DMU...SqMile..SqMile.....Deer
======================================= 
LP 
008.....20.5....27.2....16.8
059.....20.5....26.3....15.4
038.....18.7....24.9....17.9
034.....18.4....22.5....15.0
044.....16.5....25.4....20.9
054.....15.9....27.5....17.0
037.....15.4....19.7....14.8
056.....15.4....24.0....21.3
006.....15.3....26.3....20.2
013.....15.1....18.2....15.8
012.....14.8....15.9....13.7
018.....14.6....32.7....24.0
047.....14.3....25.1....22.9
026.....14.0....32.9....25.6
062.....13.2....30.6....25.6
065.....13.0....28.7....22.0
030.....12.9....18.4....18.2
023.....12.7....19.0....17.4
078.....12.3....19.4....20.9
079.....12.2....20.9....20.7
053.....12.1....24.2....21.6
033.....12.1....17.4....18.6
019.....11.3....20.3....20.4
029.....11.2....15.7....16.0
067.....11.0....24.5....21.4
075.....10.8....12.3....15.6
076.....10.7....16.3....16.5
081.....10.3....16.9....20.9
014.....10.2....14.0....18.9
041.....10.1....20.0....24.0
003.....10.1....18.7....24.0
173......9.9....24.4....22.4
080......9.7....14.1....20.6
035......9.4....22.8....24.9
064......9.2....19.9....23.7
032......9.0....14.1....15.5
074......8.9....18.7....29.3
070......8.9....18.4....26.5
039......8.8....15.8....20.8
452......8.3....22.6....24.8
043......8.2....34.7....37.6
025......7.9....17.3....29.9
051......7.7....22.8....26.3
072......7.7....28.7....34.5
061......7.6....19.0....34.5
057......7.5....20.3....27.2
001......7.0....19.1....24.7
046......6.8....12.3....23.2
083......6.6....24.5....35.6
073......6.5....12.7....26.9
063......6.5....14.2....27.1
015......6.3....14.1....25.2
060......5.9....20.4....27.4
115......5.8.....9.7....14.1
071......5.8....13.0....20.6
004......5.7....13.2....23.7
024......5.6....11.2....21.3
020......5.3....20.5....37.9
068......5.0....22.9....36.7
005......4.9....13.7....26.4
011......4.8....10.5....28.9
009......4.5....10.2....25.8
245......4.5.....9.0.....9.1
174......4.4....11.6....13.1
010......3.9....14.4....37.9
050......3.8.....8.5....26.2
040......3.5....18.7....53.4
028......3.5....15.3....46.6
069......3.4....14.6....34.1
045......3.4....11.7....39.7
135......2.8.....8.1....20.1
016......2.7.....9.9....35.8
058......1.8.....8.8....59.2
145......1.1.....1.1.....7.1
082......0.4.....2.1....79.8

UP
055.....11.0....15.8....14.7
155......9.8....20.6....21.0
022......8.5....16.6....18.1
149......7.4....13.4....14.1
122......7.0....10.2....19.3
121......5.1....12.2....24.8
255......4.9.....8.5....15.9
252......4.2....10.3....25.8
117......4.0....13.4....24.6
017......3.0.....8.9....30.8
049......2.7.....7.4....27.5
036......2.6.....5.7....19.2
021......2.5.....8.1....31.0
152......2.4....12.4....51.9
066......1.9.....6.1....32.1
027......1.7.....4.9....24.8
007......1.5.....5.6....39.3
042......1.3.....5.4....50.8
048......0.5.....3.0....53.5

-na


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Nick, those numbers add some depth to the raw stats. And they seem to make sense to me. For example, it would take a hunter twice as many days to kill a deer in Lake county (38 days) than it would in Hillsdale (18 days). That sounds about right.


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## Liver and Onions (Nov 24, 2000)

That 3rd column is for days hunting per kill ? That doesn't sound right to me. That sounds way to high........hours hunting per kill would sound seem a bit low, but would reflect the kind of hunting success that we have on our set-up.
I've searched for the 2003 Deer Harvest Survey Results to make some comparisions and came up empty. Anyone know where to find that ?

L & O


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Nick, in reviewing your numbers, I noted that I used the wrong hunting effort column; I used the "confidence limit" number!

Excluding island DMU's, here's the revised hunting success rate top ten.

1. Branch 13.7
2. Menominee 14.7
3. Isabella 14.8
4. Ionia 15.0
5. Montcalm 15.4
6. Huron 15.5
7. St Joseph 15.6
8. Calhoun 15.8
9. Gratiot 16.0
10. Sanilac 16.5

Statewide median is about one deer for every 24 days of hunting effort.


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Liver and Onions said:


> That 3rd column is for days hunting per kill ? That doesn't sound right to me. That sounds way to high........hours hunting per kill would sound seem a bit low, but would reflect the kind of hunting success that we have on our set-up.L & O


Remember, hunting "days" includes all seasons, including bowhunting, late antlerless, muzzleloader, all of which have lower success rates than the general firearms season. In the case of my property, last season, my seat-of-the-pants calc. indicates we probably harvested one deer for every 14 days of hunting effort, which isn't too far off the countywide average of 18.

In my own case, I arrowed 2 does last season, in about 46 sits; those 46 sits probably took place on close to 30 hunting "days", which would put my own success rate at 15 hunting "days" per kill.

Of course, L&O, you happen to hunt in one of the highest success rate DMU's there is.


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## Nick Adams (Mar 10, 2005)

made a map of the data I posted earlier (harvest/sqmile, hunters/sqmile, days/deer)










The 4th image on the page is a derived 'huntability index' by dmu. An attempt on my part to take into account all three of these parameters. A lower index number (darker shading) should indicate better hunting.

-na


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## Tom Morang (Aug 14, 2001)

L & O
Here are links to the 2003-2000 survey results...........tm

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/reports/deer_03harvest.pdf

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/reports/deer_02harvest.pdf


http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/reports/deer_01harvest.pdf

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/reports/deer_00harvest.pdf


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## johnhunter (Jun 17, 2000)

Awesome job. I appreciate the work you put into it.


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## Liver and Onions (Nov 24, 2000)

Nick A., Wow
Tom. M, Thanks

I might of made a mistake or two, but the following represents the top ten Counties for gross harvest for the 4 year period of 2001-04.

.... DMU...............Gross.......Per year......kill per sq. mi. 
..........................Harvest....Avg............each year
1. 059.Montcalm....51738......12935.........18.0
2. 038.Jackson......49926.......12482.........17.3
3. 062.Newaygo.....48843......12211.........14.2
4. 055.Menominee..45992.......11498.........12.5
5. 076.Sanilac.......45032.......11258.........11.7
6. 008.Barry..........43143.......10786.........18.8
7. 013.Calhoun.......42693.......10673........14.9
8. 054.Mecosta......40311.......10078.........17.7
9. 034.Ionia...........39543........9886.........17.0
10 004 Lapeer........38275........9569.........14.4

Note: Barry Co. would jump to the top of the list if I had listed them in order of kill per square mi.


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Very informative map! Is it possible to create a page just for that map for forwarding purposes?


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## Bob S (Mar 8, 2000)

[email protected] said:


> Is it possible to create a page just for that map for forwarding purposes?


LINK


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Thanks.
It's the huntability index that is telling to me. If you look at Lake county (043) you can see that it's among the lowest. But what this map doesn't show is that the northern 1/3 of Newaygo (062) is quite the same as (043). It's the fact that southern 1/3 of (062) has many deer, rich soils, orchards and big private farms that it skews the numbers county wide. I realize that each county has area's that are clearly better and some that are clearly not as good, but Newaygo may be the most pronounced.


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## Whit1 (Apr 27, 2001)

[email protected] said:


> Thanks.
> It's the huntability index that is telling to me. If you look at Lake county (043) you can see that it's among the lowest. But what this map doesn't show is that the northern 1/3 of Newaygo (062) is quite the same as (043).* It's the fact that southern 1/3 of (062) has many deer, rich soils, orchards and big private farms that it skews the numbers county wide. *I realize that each county has area's that are clearly better and some that are clearly not as good, but Newaygo may be the most pronounced.


Thus one of the major problems of using county boundries for management purposes. In Manistee and Benzie counties it would be a difference between east and west.


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