RE: How sad hunting is becoming...
I’m glad this post was started and would like to get some of it back on track before it degenerates further. Congrats to the young men that started it. They are the future of this sport in PA, and have pointed out the elephant in the corner that has created a schism in our ranks and will ultimately divide us.
I don’t think anyone, no matter their age, should be made to feel badly about taking a legal deer. Somewhere in this thread there is a post about a family talking about how they enjoyed each deer they bagged, including a button buck. That was a super post, and we should pay attention to it. Too often I read comments here about how shooting a small buck “isn’t a challenge” and that no one should be proud of a doe. Honestly, such chest-thumping statements may well reveal more about the person who makes them than their hunting prowess.
I grew up in PA and was fortunate enough to hunt all across the state, from big woods to cackling roosters in cornfields. I have been very, very fortunate to now have land to hunt in a more southerly state and have killed some tremendous bucks there.
Having said that, I think the hardest pill for me to swallow about AR in PA is that, well, we didn’t travel back home to hunt in PA to kill a big buck. We didn’t expect too, frankly, and we had a BLAST! That doesn’t mean that hunting back home in PA was worse than where I live now....it was just DIFFERENT, unique, something to be embraced for that fact. It was PA deer hunting, not Ohio and we loved it for that fact. Besides, in the laurel or popple thickets of my PA youth we had a hard enough time seeing if it “had horns” let alone counting points, and many a youngster was counseled “if you try to count the points, you miss, son. Count ‘em when he’s on the ground.”
Remember those days? Somewhere amid the Saturday TV shows and big daddy rabbits, replete with visions of sugar plums in our heads, we forgot them.
Does shooting a 1.5 year old buck make you less of a hunter that holds out for an older one? Nope. Each person’s circumstances AND perspective is different. If you appreciate and respect the day, the deer, the woods, the camaraderie, that’s[/b] the point. Too often now I read it’s only a legitimate experience if the animal is a “mature” or a under some circumstances a “cull” buck (He’s okay for a “cull” buck! I mean, wow, you really hear that!).
Somewhere, somehow, a hunter who probably had the purest of motives, shooting a deer because they enjoyed the venison it provided, has been vilified; supplanted by antlers measurements and talk of G2’s. Honestly, if find yourself identifying with the latter I respect your right for doing so. So long as you don’t denigrate the former.
To me, that’s what’s been lost in PA. A doe is now a number on a doe harvest report, something akin to shooting rabbits, and a buck, well, he only counts if he’s a trophy. They aren’t the one deer a year you thought about and cherished and relived through the stark, long off season. In changing the way we think about deer and deer hunting, we appear to have lost not only respect for the deer, but for ourselves as well.