Phil from Maine

First of all I have shot big deer and I have shot little deer.. That doesn't make any difference to me at all.. I can only shoot 1 deer in my area and that is it. It has to be a buck and not any does at all.. If I happen to come across a young buck so be it.. He is more tender as someone has already stated. Also I keep in mind that a big buck would be nice to have but the deer herd up here needs them to. The big bucks are by far wiser than a young one. He can help take his herd to safer grounds when the snow starts flying. He has survived enough winters to know what coyotes do to them as well. Although even those big bucks fall to predators in the winter months up here. Does it still mean it is bad to shoot a young buck or should every one wait it out like you suggest? I currently have 3 of Me.'s big buck patches that I have earned and I will still take a young buck if I happen upon one..

buck-i

i use to shoot some little does or bucks but now mostly i just watch them, never cared about if someone else would shoot them i just know i didnt shoot it,but if some other hunter chooses to shoot little deer im ok with that.i still might shoot one if i get that feeling that day

i just dont see any reasoning in putting extra time into hunting im out to enjoy hunting not to make it hard or use it to stroke my ego, honestly i hunt does first, you all kill yourself on this hobby and take it so seriously that you have to try and belittle other hunters because they are having fun without putting extra time into it,a deer is just a deer.i aint getting payed to hunt.

Todd1700

Well first of all shooting does is not going to help boost deer numbers. Leave just a few bucks and they will still breed every doe on a place. Kill a doe and that's one less fawn born next year.

Second, how exactly does it improve a deer herds health to kill only the biggest, strongest, mature bucks out of it? You know the ones that are obviously genetically superior animals? When you pass on a spike how the heck do you know what kind of genetics he has?

We do what you are talking about on our land, pass the small bucks and wait for the bigger boys. But we have no delusions about it's effect. The only net effect of such practices is to increase buck numbers and horn size. But that is only a desirable outcome if you are a horn hunter. So don't spray any of that QDM bull#### on me about herd health that you have obviously bought into hook line and sinker.

Deer existed on this earth in good health for thousands and thousands of years when the only thing being killed out of their herds were the newly born, the sickly and the crippled by natural predators. They don't need our QDM practices to hang in there.

Todd1700

Please! You want to talk pressure? Bow season comes in here in Alabama Oct 15th. It is joined by gun season Nov 20th and they both continue together without a break until the end of January. That's three and a half months of bow hunting and two and half months of gun hunting. No tags either. Up until quite recently you could kill a buck and a doe per day all season long. They have gone to a 3 buck limit now but you can still kill as many does as you want. And without a tag system the 3 buck limit is pretty hard to enforce for those that choose to ignore it. A buck that survives to the age of three here has probably had at least 2 close shaves with death. A five year old Alabama buck has probably had to go so nocturnal to reach that age that the only thing that will make him move in daylight is a forest fire.

Yeah, and the hunting is much simpler in those smaller wood lots as opposed to hunting large blocks of basically featurless timber plantations. Little to nothing at all to funnel the deer past a specific tree on much of the land down here. On the trips I've made up to Illinois I can look at a Google earth photo of a place and tell you in two minutes everywhere on it that a stand needs to be hung. I've sat in a tree up there and seen 11 racked bucks in one morning hunt. You won't see 11 racked bucks down here in a whole 3 1/2 month bow season.

That's cause you aren't down here. They don't come here to bow hunt that's true. They don't come here looking for big horns like they do when they come to Illinois. But they swarm in here for the long rifle season slaughter hauling full size freezers on flat bed trailers. Alabama has no tag system and one of the cheapest out of state hunting licenses in the country. For a very small price you can come here and theoretically kill about 74 deer per hunter each rifle season. Of course no one person actually kills that many but they can sure kill as many as they like.

If I lived in Illinois near the land we have hunted up there and had all bow season to hunt instead of just 5 or 6 days per year, it would be a rare year that I did not kill a P&Y buck. And even with very limited days to hunt on total do it yourself hunts I have killed a P&Y buck two out of the 4 years I've gone. And I've seen P&Y deer every year including two close encounters with B&C bucks. And I'm not bragging on my skills but merely the quality of bow hunting in your state.

virginiashadow

There you go again with your elitism IL-Cornfed. Simply put, you judge others with a jaded set of lenses. Lenses that do not accurately sense the essence of the hunt.

Edcyclopedia

I don't think it much matters what others do...

Once they buy their license it enables that person to do what they want to do according to the laws. If it says they can shoot little bucks then whom is someone to question that.


People should mind their own business a little more in today's world, we might learn to accept others easier without the hostility it creates. To each to own, simple!

marlin30/30_drabe

why do you ask this question im from ny and so are you but you see ny doesnnt have big bucks around every tree like lets say texas

treboryerf

Tod,is 100% correct,this is exactly how I feel.

Joshhuff99

a lot of it has to do with where you hunt. Hunted my whole life here in LA and if i would have only shot big bucks i would have never fired a shot. So if you wanted to kill a deer you couldn't wait for horns. Now i'm able to hunt on some really good land in mississippi where you can see a lot of deer and i'm able be mofe selective and i've killed a couple of really nice bucks the last couple of years. In my opinion it has a lot to do with where you can hunt. To say hunters who shoot young deer are not as skilled and patient is silly. I was not anymore skilled these last 2 year than i was the first 25, i just had a different location. We can't all live in whitetail country. We all hunt for different reasons, don't knock one guy because he doesn't see it the same way as you

Schobs

This is one of the most asinine posts I have seen Here's a thought, you and your fiance shoot all the does you see, buy as many bonus permits as you can, and fill your freezers full of doe meat until you see that elusive buck with 3 points on one side. Do this for 3 or 4 years, and let me know just how many deer you have running around your little 13 acres.

We shot 4 deer out of 11 guys at our camp this year, all 1.5 years old, 3 spikes and a 6. We didnt see any other deer. There are still quality bucks up there; I saw a nice 8 point while bow hunting this fall, but didnt get a shot. Deer hunting isn't all about putting big bucks on the wall, we had a hell of a time at camp, told lots of stories and had a blast reminiscing and spending time with good guys. Tell ya what, there's thousands of acres of unhunted public land around where I hunt, next year you and your fianci come on over to WI and give it a go, I'd normally extend an invitation to stop by our camp but you don't sound like our kind of people, so bring a camper and a book, cuz the deer are few and far between, oh and there are no doe tags available, so if you want some good doe meat you'll hafta try and find a fresh road kill on the way up.