Big Country

Yer a little out of line, ain`t you Wyatt Earp? I mean Doc Holliday.

If the man is not wasting the meat, thats his business. I know of no state where his practice is illegal.

As far as his " rush for killing" .....let us be realistic here. Anybody who is legally hunting, would be farther ahead financially to just buy steaks than to invest in everything required to hunt.

Sorry to hear you are sick. Maybe you will feel better when you toss up that nasty lump in your craw!

HAZCON7

Opening day I' m out for meat, so if its brown its down.

After that I' m looking for a buck. I' ve let several 4-6 point bucks walk by me this year. Although I haven' t shot a rack buck yet I' d like to hold out for something a little bigger.

Last week I saw 2 monsters on private land with no other hunters, 14+pts so I' m looking for them specifically now. But if a 8 or bigger walks by I' ll take him if the shot is right.

I think after shotgun season if I haven' t taken a buck by then I' ll start being less picky. But hey, it keeps me in the woods day after day so that can' t be a bad thing.

Jimimac

GV...Get a grip man. There is nothing wrong with giving away the meat from the deer that you kill if you can' t use it yourself. It is still being utilized which is all that really matters. I guess it would be better to put the venison in the freezer until next year when you kill another deer then throw away the one from the previous season because you didn' t eat it all. How often does that happen you think? There is way more to the hunt than the kill dude. If the guy doesn' t like deer meat that doesn' t make him any less of a hunter. He just doesn' t like deer meat. Pretty simple. What do you think all these outdoor writers and TV hosts do with their deer? With all the deer that these guys kill thay would have to have venison as the entree for every meal throughout the whole year. I' m sure they are doing that. Heck, there are a ton of guys right on this board that kill more deer in a year than they could possibly use before next season. What are they doing with the meat? How about the guy that shoots an elk...or a moose...How much of that meat is given away? Check yourself man.

mddittman

I used to go for meat, then met my wife... she doesn' t really care for the taste that much. I think she expects it to taste like beef or something... I tell her you shouldn' t expect venison to taste like beef any more than you' d expect pork to! I still get to eat deer steaks sometimes, but it' s just hard to cook them when the rest of the family is eating something else. She' s not against eating deer meat, because she does like the bologna and jerky.

So I get to enjoy hunting for trophies, it' s a good excuse for passing up the smaller ones, and if I get one I make some of it into steak and the rest into jerky and bologna!

IL Trophy Hunter

As my username reflects, I am now a trophy hunter. When I first began hunting in the late 80' s early 90' s, I shot the first thing that walked by. I was not aware then though of the thought process behind Quality Deer Management. I shot several small bucks in those first few years, and they proved in be great learning situations. However, if I had known that I would have been doing the herd a favor by only harvesting does or mature bucks, I would have let the little guys walk. Like someone reflected early, as far as hunting type situations and learning the little things you need to do to get a shot off at a deer at close range, a mature doe is the toughest wariest target in the woods. I' ve shot 8 p and y deer since I began trophy hunting, and I can guarantee you that all of these shots(other than the adrenaline factor) where easier to pull off than a shot at a mature doe, which often times will have more deer w/ her, meaning more eyes that could bust you. Really it boils down to what makes the individual hunter happy though. Remember though every trophy class buck was once a button and a 1 1/2 yr basket rack. If you put them down at that age, you' ll never know what you could have in the future. If you harvest your share of does, and let the buck to do ratio become more in balance, you' ll have the bucks next Nov. putting many more miles on there odometers because there is greater competition for available does. This type of management makes your hunting experience much more exciting.

T-23

nub...you don' t even know my father, i am a much bigger hunter than he is, you could say hes invested the money but definatly not the time, in the 20 years hes been hunting hes only shot like 5-6 bucks and only one of them is decent it wasn' t even really a wallhanger, i' m not trying to talk bad about him or anything.... i' m not saying i' m going to shoot some forkhorn or something i' m saying if i see a decent looking buck maybe even a decent 6-7 point i might shoot it, i' m not strickly hunting for wall hangers... plus this year i already shot 2 does but gave away the meat to the needy because i' m planning on keeping the buck i shoot, kinda regret giving both of them away but oh well, anyway now that its gun season on saturday i' m not going to shoot a smaller buck probably, i' ll go for a more bigger one, i was just making a point that at this point in my life with sports and school going on and not being able to hunt ALL the time that my time is precious and i might only see a few bucks a year, and i already missed a wall hanger..makes me sick, that was the first buck i' d seen all year, and i' ve only seen one more since.. an decent 7 point, i don' t wan' t those little tiny things especially since were in this herd reduction zone. So thats more to the story.

Kevin Garceau

Interesting. I have never found a doe harder to shoot than a trophy buck. Maybe when we thin some of the does out it will be a different story. Getting people to pass on the little ones and shoot does instead is an uphill climb. Although as more people are doing it and more big ones are being seen it is getting easier for them as it was us when we started. 10 years ago we shot everything with horns we could. Not its selection for wall hangers, or any buck for the kids or wives or anyone that really wants to shoot a small buck. We dont condemn them, we let them take what ever they feel is a trophy to them. " Trophy" is in the eye of the beholder!

Scar955

I agree with most of the posts seen here. Although I am almost 30, I have only been bow hunting 2 years now. The way I see, there are two main parts of the equation.
The first is how long you have been hunting. Since I have not harvested a deer by bow, ANY deer without spots would be a trophy at this point. I would expect after a few kills, I would start holding out for bigger and better.
The second part is how many deer are in your area. Where I hunt (about 80 acres East of Kansas City), there are so few deer we can actually name them and recognize them. There is also a lot of hunting pressure in the area. A few years ago I passed on a small 8-pt thinking I was practicing QDM. I found out a few days later a neighbor' s kid took that same deer.
That' s hunting though. I guess what I' m trying to say is take what you are comfortable you can harvest with a clean, humane shot. Anything after that is just a bonus!!!

buck-i

T-23would' nt shooting a little buck with CWD do the same as shooting a big buck with cwd.i' ve read that in some areas of WIS they are trying to kill all the deer no matter what size.so passing up on a small buck you might be helping spead CWD.DOC HOLLIDAY i to ask why people hunt if they dont like the meat.NYBOWHUNTER makes sense to wait for bigger bodied deer if the spike is a small deer for the area.i look at body size not head gear.

Capt Ray

I was a trophy hunter until something else walked by.