ORIGINAL: GR8atta2d
ORIGINAL: GMMAT
Are we really fooling ourselves? Do we think (as a community) that the yearling buck is a greater "trophy" than the doe?
I bet if you look at the breakdown of guys who
consistantly shoot "yearling or smallish" bucks (I'm not talking about younghunters first or first couple of bucks) it is probably more our generation GMMAT. It's the way we were brought into hunting, at least in the Ohio, PA, NY areas. A buck was a buck and that was better than any doe. Many of us have evolved and
re-learned on our own, that this is not the case. QDM has been a part of this re-learning process.
Now as to why we were originally taught this..I have to reflect on my first hunt in PA as a kid (year 1978). We (Dad and I) saw 82 deer opening day..7 were bucks, The biggest buckwas a fork horn. So hunting then, it was "easy to get a doe"..where is the challenge? One doe got so close to jumping the dead fall we were behind I reached out and touched her. We didn't understand then, that the herd was suffering because we didn't take does, There were no (or few) big bucks because the woods barely offered enough nutrition to sustain all the deer it held.
I know that many people still hold this value to be true.."I got my Buck" they can claim at the lodge. It's just a mind-set..some have evolved..some are stuck in the old days.
New hunters are taught these things now..and understand them from the start. They have Hunter Ed Classes and DVD's and the Web. They have more access than we had. We had to forget what we learned andgain a new understanding.