ORIGINAL: DougE
First of all Jake,When Ihadn't checked that exclosure out in about two years.It was a shelterwood cut and I wanted to show him exactly why they do it.the last time I was there,it was loaded with oak regeneration.Now,the little oak that is left,has been hedged almost to the ground.I'm not sure what yo think it shows but I know that it proves,the deer single handedly altered that area forever.That's exactly what happened all accross the northern tier.The pictures prove it and your misguided attempts to discredit me just make you look more clueless.The other pictures were ofanother shelterwood cut that was unfenced.It's coming back now because the dd is very low there.Interestingly,I also showed him some areasunder a closed canopy that were starting to devlop a nice mid level understory.He took pictures of those areas as well.I wonder why he didn't post them with a caption?You're not bursting my bubble chief.No one has been able to refute the validity of those pictures.The more you tried,the more foolish and clueless it became obvious you were.
Yes I do think it's unreasonable for any stand to produce year after year on opening day for several years.I adapt to the current conditions and that's why I'm successful and you continue to whine and cry about the lack of deer.
You make it sound like such an impossible feat, when it is infinitely harder to accomplish your run of seventeen consecutive bucks with a bow on public land. Surely you aren't saying that archery is easier than a 30-06 are you? Maybe you rifle hunt differently than I do. I scout the topography, pinpoint the escape routes the deer are forced to travel, and evaluate the effects of the hunting pressure to determine deer movement.A far cry from my bowhunting strategies that focus around buck sign and changing food sources, and the onset of the rut. Opening day rifle hunting stands are based on one factor for me. Hunting pressure. Because all natural deer movement is going nocturnal in a hurry. Still not sure how you find consistent opening morning success so difficult, other than significantly fewer deer these days. I haven't failed to kill a deer in over twenty years, with one lone exception. However, I now aproach doe harvest very cautiously, deciding carefully each year whether I will take a doe from a particular area. I'm far from crying no deer, in fact I'm still killing deer. Of course, that fact is not an indicator of the deer program's success...(Go ahead say it, What are you complaining about?) I'm not self centered enough to entertain that my own successis representative of others. Ikill deer in SPITE of the PGC's efforts, not because of their deer program.But I can also see the glaring truth that this was never about deer or ecology, as much as timber and extreme environmentalists. The truth that you keep denying.