ORIGINAL: Sylvan
The point of QDM is QUALITY deer management. To improve the quality of all the deer in the woods. Yes, that means the does as well. Taking mature does is an important part of management as well. The point is to raise the overall quality, which means numbers and size (body and antler).
Well I agree with your point of what the
quality in QDM really means i.e.
"which means numbers and size (body and antler)". These, however, are alll atributes of Quality Hunting I'd say and not necessarily about quality of the individual deer in the woods at all. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting to make it easier to kill a big buck and like I've said before if your goal is lots of big body big antlered deer in the woods then QDM, AR, PBS will help you get there. I just find it ammusing that many advocates try say its for the benefit of the deer when its benefit is clearly for the hunter. Does anybody think it makes a difference to the deer if the average age in there population is 2 1/2 or 4 1/2. Can't a population of deer where 80% of the buck are 1 1/2 year olds all be healthy and strong well fed and of good weight for their age? Of couirse they can. That's basically what we have in NY now. We have had 60 years of what the QDM guys call an unhealthy situation yet the population has gone from nothing to nearly 1 million in that time and year after year hundreds of either P&Y or B&C trophies are taken and in every district across the state. Our deer are healthy and strong and just because there aren't enough buck in that population of "trophy" age to make you happy they're still QUALITY deer.
Again, if you want to practice QDM,AR,PBS or whatever that's fine with me. If it makes it a little easier for you to get your trophy and that makes you happy then go for it. But please don't try and feed us all a line of bull about how its better for the deer. And please don't go around acting like your hunting values are somehow superior to others because they aren't. There just different. I would also ask you to consider the idea that too much emphasis on killing a big rack can be bad thing.