Michigan DNR passes "one buck rule" for deer hunting in Lower Peninsula
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is making changes for hunters starting in the 2027 deer season.
On Wednesday, the department's Natural Resources Commission voted to implement the "one buck rule" for the Lower Peninsula, restricting hunters to harvesting only one antlered deer per hunting season.
While hunters with combination tags can still bag two deer per year, only one of them can have antlers.
"In the past 24 years in southern Michigan, only seven of the 24 years have hunters taken as many antlerless deer as antlered bucks. And it hasn't happened since 2012," said Brent Rudolph, Deer, deer, elk, and moose management specialist at Michigan DNR.
It's a trend that's led to an unbalanced deer population, the DNR says, and the one buck rule will curb it.
"With our combination license, which comes with two tags and one of them will only be valid for an antlerless deer," Rudolph said.
Randolph says shifting the focus to does will lower the overall deer population and reduce competition for food among bucks, allowing them to grow healthier and more mature. That's why some hunters say they're happy about the new rule.
"It will create less conflicts between human and deer interactions, but more importantly, it will allow hunters to pass on those small, younger deer and be able to harvest a better, mature, quality buck in the state," said deer hunter Hunter Pizzo.
However, others feel the limitation could lead to less participation from hunters.
"There's that whole term, one and done, where someone is going to go out there and shoot their buck, and that's going to be it for the season. We don't want that, we want the hunter to be out there with more opportunities," said deer hunter Dale Techel.
Techel says he's at least happy the combination tag doesn't have an antler-point limit, unlike the single tag, which mandates that bucks have at least three points on one antler to shoot.
There won't be a one buck rule in the Upper Peninsula, where there's a more balance buck to doe ratio
