By excluding hunters from the contest because they use an outfitter is not right. Let me begin by saying I don't and won't use an outfitter. Heck, I don't even lease land and won't lease. Although a hunter may pay an outfitter to put him up with lodging/meals and set him in pre-scouted areas with stands provided doesn't guarantee anything! Be realistic, most of the hunters who use outfitters DO NOT kill a big buck. Most hunters who use an outfitter do so because they have determined they have little chance of shooting their dream buck in their home area. Many hunters kill nice bucks without using an outfitter.

LOL you make the point, He must suck it up and do his best if he doesn't he will lose, its his fault he didn't beat the guy that has his personal gym at home that he works out in every day.
If he is hurt steroids will not help but if he has the money to go to the best gym and have the best trainer and the best doctors and gets better he should beable to play. You aretelling him he cannot play because he got stronger than he was before and can nowtake your spotas a starter. LOL

you act like you want a welfair hunting contestno rich people can enter.

I spend a lot of hours scouting , getting permission , hanging stands ect .

IMO buying the time of a guide to do those things and showing up ,getting told "OK there are several 150 class deer working the area of the stand ,radio us when you want to be picked up" is not the same.

Yes both hunter have to make the shot ,but the guided hunter didn't work for the shoot.

Johnch

BUT the only thing stoping a hunter that took a buck on a guided hunt from submitting the bucks score is his ethics .

So if the vote and the rules say no , how are we to police it ??

Johnch ( I voted NO)

Congrats, you had the privilege of posting oneof the dumbest things I have ever read.

Im sorry do we buy you everything you own or do you just not understand the point?

Moose, your point is no good man.

As I said in a previous post in this same thread, it's not that I can't hunt through an outfitter if I wanted to, I just prefer the challenge of doing it all myself. I don't want to sound...rude, I guess, but I could afford to go to any state in the U.S. through any outfitter I wanted if I chose to do so.

It isn't about rich or poor, it's about fairness.

I'm not saying to exlude anyone, I think you're all missing the point. Most, if not everyone that I know who hunts through an outfitter also hunts land in their state on public land or private land that they've aquired. I'm saying we exclude the bucks taken through an outfitter, and if they want to enter a buck they kill on private property/public land then they can go ahead and do so.

I wasn't trying to start an argument by opening this poll, as the case seems to be, I just wanted to see where everyone stood on this issue so that we could make the rules a bit more concrete this year.

Possible situation:

Hunter asks the farmer he hunts on if he has seen any big bucks. Farmer says yes and tells hunter where and when the big buck usually feeds. Hunter sets up and using information provided by farmer, kills the big buck the very next day. Are you going to exclude that big buck from being entered into the contest? Sounds as sensible as banning a member from being on a team simply because he uses an outfitter for one week.

The big buck you speak of hasn't been a part of a strict QDM program, which is the case with most outfitters.

As I said, outfitters ensure that their deer get big by only allowing big deer to be taken.

In your scenario, the big buck was just an old deer, one who had somehow survived the seasons and grew into a fine deer. The big bucks on an outfitter's property have never had to worry about being shot until they reached 125+ inches.

Again, I wasn't trying to start any big arguments with this, I was simply trying to make sure we had the rules completely laid out for this year's contest. The chances of this poll swaying anyone's decision about the rule is very slim, it was out of curiosity that I created it.