Since when did a 130-140 class deer become a management buck? THATS A FREAKING TROPHY IS MOST AREAS OF THIS COUNTRY
It is a trophy in the vast majority of places, however in intensely managed ranches it's a cull buck. It's never going to be much bigger than that and they don't want it competing for food or passing on it's genetics. If you were managing a parcel of ground and you were trying to manage the buck to doe ratio, would you kill a 10 pt that scored 130 but had the potential to be a 170 or would you kill the 130 8 pt that had pretty much reached his potential. Those two extra points make all the differnce in the world in a deer's score. Do, I perfer to see the primos guys shoot a 130 on their lease near Pittsfield to a guy shooting a 160 at the Perlitz, sure I do. But the bottom line is big bucks sell. Some of these folks hunt hard and we just see the highlights. Others just go from ranch to ranch and shoot deer that the guides have already named.
Hunting mags and vidoes are doing to us hunters what the TV and fashion mags do to women, giving unrealistic expectations.
I don't look at it that way. You have to have goals and if they can do it, you can too. At least you have to think that. If the area that you hunt doesn't hold the kind of deer that you are seeing killed on TV then you may have unrealistic expectations if you expect to kill one in your backyard. Most pragmatic hunters, like myself, realize that while trophy class bucks do come out of the area that I live in, they are hard to come by. Therefore, I travel to areas that will statistically give me a better chance of killing a big one. However, I realize that I will still have to work just as hard to fulfill my expectations and it may still take a while. I have also hunted long enough to know that they don't just come in and surrender no matter where you hunt. That being said, the 3 L's of marketing (Location, Location, Location) is still the most important factor to success. IMO. Watching the TV shows doesn't give me unrealistic expectations. It just makes the drive grow stronger inside of me to kill big deer and to hunt the areas that increase my chances of killing one.
They also give a false sense of what can realistically expect to be seen while hunting in Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, and IL. Ask the thousandss of hunters that flock to Pike County, IL every year and are disappointed to not find a B&C buck behind every tree.
Anyone that goes anywhere and expects to see a deer much less a B & C behind every tree, deserves to be disappointed.