This will be year 11 for TPWD opening up deer hunting in Collin County. As it stands, its a 4 deer AR county.
The Corp of Engineers states that it currently "does not have a sufficient sustainable huntable population," as they have repeated for the past decade.
And if you recall, last year TPWD seemed to think that there were sufficient enough numbers of deer to even contemplate opening Collin, Rockwall and Grayson county up for rifle hunting.
In 2017 I contacted the TPWD wildlife biologist for Collin County and asked how the Corp arrived at that conclusion. The answer I received is that the Corps doesn't have the resources nor the "desire" to do a proper study due to the lack of road access to the corp property.
Maybe they don't have the budget, but I do know for a fact that several other lakes in the DFW area do aerial surveys to come up with their data.
I have a hard time seeing how there is no huntable population for the Corp Property with 6,000 acres yet there are enough deer for adjacent landowners to be able to harvest 3 deer (4th being a spike) in an AR County.
Alongside this, they've banned hog hunting during deer season on Corp property to attempt to curb poaching.
Why not allow a limited draw archery hunt? On some of the draw hunt areas in DFW, permitted hunters are actually seen as an asset for preventing poaching.
Yet when I have contacted members of the Corp office to try to get data in regard to a survey, I have been told "insufficient numbers" yet I am not given any information as to how the survey was conducted.
Clearly TPWD thinks the numbers are sufficient for the county or they wouldn't allow deer hunting.
Maybe I am just cynical, but this creates the appearance that the Lake Lavon Corp of Engineers is either too lazy to conduct a proper survey, doesn't want to deal with deer hunters, or in the worst case, they're anti-hunting.
Has anyone else directed some of these questions to the Corp Office lately? If there aren't sufficient numbers, when will there be? Is there a plan in place for 5-10 years from now?
The Corp of Engineers states that it currently "does not have a sufficient sustainable huntable population," as they have repeated for the past decade.
And if you recall, last year TPWD seemed to think that there were sufficient enough numbers of deer to even contemplate opening Collin, Rockwall and Grayson county up for rifle hunting.
In 2017 I contacted the TPWD wildlife biologist for Collin County and asked how the Corp arrived at that conclusion. The answer I received is that the Corps doesn't have the resources nor the "desire" to do a proper study due to the lack of road access to the corp property.
Maybe they don't have the budget, but I do know for a fact that several other lakes in the DFW area do aerial surveys to come up with their data.
I have a hard time seeing how there is no huntable population for the Corp Property with 6,000 acres yet there are enough deer for adjacent landowners to be able to harvest 3 deer (4th being a spike) in an AR County.
Alongside this, they've banned hog hunting during deer season on Corp property to attempt to curb poaching.
Why not allow a limited draw archery hunt? On some of the draw hunt areas in DFW, permitted hunters are actually seen as an asset for preventing poaching.
Yet when I have contacted members of the Corp office to try to get data in regard to a survey, I have been told "insufficient numbers" yet I am not given any information as to how the survey was conducted.
Clearly TPWD thinks the numbers are sufficient for the county or they wouldn't allow deer hunting.
Maybe I am just cynical, but this creates the appearance that the Lake Lavon Corp of Engineers is either too lazy to conduct a proper survey, doesn't want to deal with deer hunters, or in the worst case, they're anti-hunting.
Has anyone else directed some of these questions to the Corp Office lately? If there aren't sufficient numbers, when will there be? Is there a plan in place for 5-10 years from now?
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