Jan. 23, 2018 – West Bend, WI – A wrap-up meeting is going to be held tonight regarding the Deer Management Program in West Bend. The goal of the five-day bow hunt was to trim the deer herd by 40 deer.
In the end, the hunters managed to kill three.
Stats (below) show the hunters saw a healthy population but it sounds like they couldn’t get a good shot and the deer seemed to sense their presence.
If we can get past the misinformation about “trophy hunters” … what would be your thoughts on moving forward? Should the city schedule a second hunt, hire sharpshooters, amend the standards to qualify for the hunt or tank the program altogether because you think deer aren’t really a problem.
Tonight’s meeting is open to the public.
Below is the story posted Jan. 17.
The harvest after five days was three deer. All were shot by Brian Beck.
Beck hunted four days with 13 hours in the stand and saw 27 deer. Beck took a total of three shots, used and retrieved three arrows and harvested three deer. The deer were females and antlerless and he donated the animals.
Brad Zuba hunted four days, 15 hours in the stand and saw 27 deer and took zero shots.
Eric Esselman hunted for five days, 23 hours in the stand and saw two deer and took zero shots
Jeffrey Bach hunted for four days, 12.5 total hours in the stand and saw 17 deer. Bach mentioned he saw more than 20 deer walking out of Lac Lawrann Conservancy on to Schmidt Road. He took zero shots and recovered zero deer
Steve Kraker hunted for four days, 17 hours in the stand and saw 10 deer and took a zero shots.
“I wish people would realize how hard it is to hunt deer, even in a park,” said Bach. “It’s amazing; it’s nature.”
As far as moving forward, Bach said he wishes the city would try it again. “But I hope they do it at a different time of the year,” he said. “This time of year is very cold and a couple people were deterred by the weather.”
Hunters had rain and snow to deal with over the five days, Jan. 10-14. “A fall hunt would be good, when the regular hunt is on and deer are in rut,” Bach said. “Also if they could plan it ahead of time. To figure deer out in a week was difficult and giving hunters more time would help with the setup.”
While Bach saw about 50 plus deer in the vicinity of Lac Lawrann over the five days he believed they knew the hunters were there for a purpose.
“The deer knew we were there,” he said. “We did feed them corn but at one point in time they stopped eating it. The deer were moving around.”
The goal of the pilot hunt is to manage the deer population.
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