Atlas Twp.-Just before dark Sunday night, Coltan Hadsell, 11, made a great connection.
The township youth shot his first deer from a tree stand while hunting on the family’s township property during the Youth and 100 percent Disabled Veteran Firearm Deer season Sept. 27-28. Hadsell, a sixth grade student at Goodrich Middle School, was hunting with his father, Kurt Lancewicz, and made the shot with his bow and arrow.
Rodney Clute, Big Game Specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, says success in the early youth hunt should carry over into the general archery season which opened up on Wednesday.
‘Last year, 45 percent of all hunters statewide took deer in the archery season,? said Clute. ‘The downside is there were 8,000 fewer hunters out there?182,000 hunters shot 79,000 deer. A bigger concern is the more than 900,000 deer in zone three’the southern sections of Michigan. We’d like to have that number at 500,000 deer.?
To help curb the population, an early firearm antlerless deer hunting season was established from Sept.18-22 for private land in most of the zone three areas which includes all of Genesee and Oakland counties. Sections of the northeast Lower Peninsula were also included..
‘The concern for the area is so many animals impact the ground habitat, which can be damaging to other animals? food source,? said Clute. ‘A second critical factor is the human-deer interaction’an excess of car-deer accidents and crop damage is everywhere in these counties.?
Clute also said that a ban on deer baiting ordered in response to Chronic Wasting Disease found in a Kent County deer should make no difference in hunting success.
‘Right now, no study has determined if bait preference can effectively increase success of deer hunting.?
While results of the baiting ban will be realized in the next few months, the economic impact on businesses selling bait has been significant.
Mark Brownrigg of Browns Do-It Center in Goodrich said the baiting ban was costly.
‘Right now, we’re looking at losing $20,000 in sales,? he said.
‘The DNR gave us the news late in the summer, we had no warning they were going to ban baiting. It’s just one less thing we have to sell, and in a tight economy it’s one more bite out of the pie.?