Beagle001

I've been wondering this for some time now, and for some reason I never brought it up here. I am the pioneer of "QDM" or what you want to call it on our property. How do I get some of the other non-believers go along with it? I've been trying but they are kind of thick headed. We have some great land for growing big boys, but people keep shooting little ones.

Matt / PA

Good luck, it's not any easy thing to do.......I belong to an archery club here in PA and we have a great piece of property leased for our members to hunt. The problem is that the majority of them just shoot ANYTHING that comes by them that is legal.
Since it's legal it's hard to get crazy but when you see one person filling 3 antlerless tags with 3 button bucks, and people shooting 1.5yr old little 5pts it gets a little frustrating.
Its just the mentality of too many people to get "their deer" and they don't care what it is.
Try hunting around people that can't tell a mature doe from a button buck let alone trying to convince that person to let a young 6pt walk. Aint gonna happen........EVER.
Unless you can get something written into by-laws of a camp or club about QDM you'll never reach them all and can only hope the animals avoid there stands and the bucks you pass somehow make it through the gauntlet.

Paul L Mohr

Unless it is your land and you can set the rules then you probably can't. Your best bet is to look for people to hunt with that share the same views that you do.

I am sure you have mature deer in your area anyway. There is no way they are killing them all, some of them are living to get older I am sure. Maybe you just don't see them is all.

Paul

Beagle001

sorry bout that.. we've had nice ones running around our land before... just i know the potential is even greater than what has been showed in the past.

Paul L Mohr

Nothing to be sorry about dude, lots of people feel the same way you do. The easiest thing to do is to get together with everyone that hunts your property and impose an antler restriction. It doesn't garauntee young bucks won't be shot, but at least they won't be really young.

Aging deer is pretty hard, especially out of tree stand under pressure. I don't quite have it figured yet. But by imposing something like a 7 point restriction, or at least 4 points one side or something like that it might help some. I have hunted places that were like that. Wouldn't let me shoot does either. I don't really agree with it, but I went along with it so I could hunt there and respected others wishes.

Paul

bassman417

We just started to try QDM and the way my brother and I went about convincing the people that hunt the same land we hunt,(that we know of) is abuck contest with $20 per person. With 7 people so far doing it, it was fairly easy to convince them to be picky and let the small bucks go for a chance at $140+. And letting them know that in the future theyre could be a chance at a booner if genetics, ect allow it.

1GR8Buck

I'd suggest buying several thousand acres of your own land and making your rules. Other than that, you can't worry about others as long as they aren't breaking any laws. EVERY hunter in the woods has different goals, ideas and ethics. Your best bet is to worry less about them, they have a right to harvest any deer they have legal tag for.

Arrowmaster

No matter how much you try you just cant convince others.

Rickmur

You can convince them. Before any money is accepted for the yearly lease (I assume you pay for the lease) the rules should be set by the president or the person who obtained the property. If a wrong animal is taken it should beexpulson from the club with no refund of money.

mobow

Lead by example, but if I were one of the guys sharing your property, you'd be SOL....You can't make people NOT shoot a deer if they want to.....The only way to do it is politically, and you've obviously not got that kind of power....

You've got to force them into it via methods such as earn a buck and antler restrictions.....They aren't gonna do it voluntarily unless your example "moves" them too...