here's part of the problem: my neighbor and i went hunting to a county a few over. he got a 4 pt. it was nice bodied, got 80 lbs of meat. i'm guessing 2.5 yrs old. he was very proud. his cousin told him it was an older deer. he believed him and felt more proud. i had to explain that it was a baby, that they don't even start to decline until around 9. problem is no one has seen an even a 5 yr old buck around here and these guys have no idea even how old the animals they hunt can get, or how big. he said "what's a brisket." they won't shoot doe. i have just about got the qdm concept explained to them. there's a petition going around for the dnr to not allow anything less than 3 pts per side, but these people don't even understand anything. my neighbor has a spike mounted on his wall. if you'ld have shot the doe that spike wouldn't be leaving. oh, that makes sense. it takes having the conversation for people to choose. people have it in a crappy way from behind a computer because they are frustrated. with my neghbor and his family i have to be nice about it. turns out someone from his job is having the same conversation with him. hunters need to get educated about it and that happens grass roots style. keep up the conversation please, maybe try being a little nicer, like it was your neighbor, but please keep it up.

on another note, what's so wrong with giving back to the deer community by making them some high quality food plots. you're giving them more poundage than you take from them. its a mutual relationship. more better food means more deer for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with that. nothing wrong with public land hunters either, but i think you should also try and help the populations health one way or another with some kind of supplement. don't just be a taker. we've already seen where that leads.