Alsatian

Congratulations on your nice buck. I am mostly a loner when it comes to hunting deer. I hunt alone. I draw my satisfactions alone. I prefer to have as little contact with others as possible when hunting. I have sometimes experienced odd responses from others about my deer, but I just sort of overlook or ignore. These weren't necessarily jealous reactions or comments, as was so in your case. I suggest you just ignore these other hunters's reactions and enjoy your own satisfaction. I took a small, probably young buck this year and a guy at the check-in station made a summary comment "that is just about a perfect 'management' buck." First, I don't really understand what that term means, but I'm guessing it has to do with culling out undesireable members of the gene pool to better foster preferred members of the gene pool -- which I assume means more desirably shaped antlers. Well, I don't hunt for antlers, and I don't give a care about the size or shape of antlers on animals I take. I was happy to take this younger buck because I'm guessing he will be better eating -- the motivation I have to hunt, in addition to the pure pleasure of the hunt -- than would be an older, more mature, larger racked buck. The whole language of "management" with regards to hunting strikes me as inappropriate and even perverted. I don't manage a deer herd, I wade out into an otherwise natural context and hunt in the environment such as it is. I don't want to be a deer rancher, a deer habitat manager, or any of that irrelevant crap. So . . . I just took his comments askew and ignored them rather than responding or replying back.

I consider myself a meat hunter. I don't need the meat to survive or to reduce my cost of living. Truth be told, my venison is a lot more expensive per pound than any meat I can buy in the store, including veal, fillet mignon, swordfish, or what have you (I pay $250 for my non-resident combination license, I drive a Suburban about 700 miles before the deal is done [$120 gas?], I go out to the shooting range a couple of times sighting in [$30 total], gift to my hunting host ($50), consider time away from work -- all for maybe 40 LBS of deboned venison meat). But I think the direction of my hunt is to take an animal -- doe or buck is equally acceptable, or even more preference for a doe which may be more tender than a buck -- which I will skin myself, quarter myself, butcher into meal sized packages myself, and cook myself. I do NOT envy other hunters who take larger bodied animals, in reference to an earlier comment on this thread. My buck was 90 LBS field dressed, kind of on the small side of bucks in my Oklahoma hunting ground. I look at that size and think, well, maybe this is a younger, less mature buck and the meat will be more toothsome than a bigger buck would be.

Anyway, just ignore those jealous hunters.