Originally Posted by
bald9eagle
You are missing what I am saying. The fact that you want to hunt mature bucks is fine. It is the obsession with antlers that makes many people into poachers.
Here is a fine example. Coming home one day with my dad we see a really nice buck chasing a doe in a field near my house. now my dad isn't your typical poacher in the sense that you are saying. He would shoot a deer just to shoot a deer.
Now this particular deer made him start questioning if he had his .22 rifle in the tool box or not! Would he have shot it? I can't answer that honestly but I can bet you he would have hardly touched the brakes on a doe or bunch of little guys.
Does your being a mature hunter cause poaching? Of course not. Does the temptation of taking a huge racked deer make a poacher? Sure it does.
I have even heard that game wardens couldn't use racks too large on decoys because it was considered entrapment or something like that.
My point is that the desire of taking monster bucks (that is largely driven my mass media) can cause a lot of folks to see only horn.
I'm not knocking your desire to take only mature bucks nor am I saying that it makes you a poacher. I do want to you to think about it though and ask yourself what would you do if a monster buck was standing in your headlights with your rifle or bow in the seat next to you. I've had to answer that question once before and watch a big 3 1/2 year old 7 point cross the road slowly at 25 yards.
I apologize if I "missed what your saying" but I said this.
"I don't feel like placing my attention on rack size is in any way even remotely related to poaching or wasting meat."
and you responded with this
"It absolutely is."
I don't have to think about it. I see monster bucks in my headlights relatively regularly with a gun in the truck and don't even consider shooting them.
I am a hunter. I do it for the hunt and I did it before it was cool because it is and always has been my passion.Friday I rattled in a 130ish 8 point to about 6 feet from my tree and Saturday I had a 140ish 10 point almost bump my ladder it was awesome for me. I didn't have to shoot them and show them off for it to make me very happy. Sometimes I don't get a buck at all. I'll always shoot quite a few does and I almost always have a tag left over because if its hunting season I'm going to hunt and sometimes holding a tag until the last day means eating a tag. I'm not looking to get out there,kill something, and come home. I do shoot mature bucks that don't have huge racks sometimes.
I'm not going to lie its not all about the meat for me. Just the gas money I spend chasing these things could buy me a cow.
A couple years ago I passed a nice buck with just a few hours on the hunting season clock. It didn't bother me. I enjoyed it anyway and I got the rush just from being there. Then with about 20 minutes on the clock I took a beast of a buck. One eye,scars all over...the king of the deer woods. You could almost feel his presence when he showed up. He moved different,he acted different and he looked different. He was the alpha and the other deer moved away as he approached. He had a good set of horns but that was just a bonus for me and I would have taken him anyway.
It may seem weird but that is the experience I want and you don't get that from a truck window.
