Unbelieveable
 

I was watching some Realtree program and "ace" hunter Michael Waddle was bowhunting somewhere.

Here comes a nice buck.

And the amazing part is it had two huge, round, yellow tags on each ear with the number 89 on them. And also a leather COLLAR with a radio hanging off the bottom.

He shoots this deer that was probably just released from a crate nearby and is all happy and pumping his fist. He's showing off the deer horns and the big yellow 89 tags are dangling from the ears and the radio trasmitter is dangling off the big leather collar.

No attempt to hide this at all. Wow! Look at the deer I just got!

Pathetic! And Bill Jordan let's this go on TV? No more Realtree shows for this guy. I'd like to see a show where Waddle has to go on public hunting gounds in Wisconsin and get a deer. He couldn't even shoot a doe I'm betting.

:busted:

DNR radio collar deer every year and release them in the wild the ear tags are to identify the deer from a distance. Like Michael said he has had that deer on his property for years. SO before you are so quick to judge think about the possibilities.

Never heard of that. Using SIX inch diameter ear tags. What state is this anyway? I can't think of any state I know of that tags and radio collars deer.

I apologize Michael. I'm deaf so didn't hear any explanation of that.

i saw a show on the pursuit channel where a nice 10 point was taken about 30 yards from a 12 foot high fence clearly visible. now thats what i call fair chase..

warbirdlover---I didn't see the show you mentioned, but like the other member stated, G&F biologists tag a lot of different animals that way and also put telemetry collars on some of them to find them. It's done a lot with sheep and goats out west, but not so much with deer.

Still probably killed it behind a HF, so it doesn't mean much unless it was 5k to 10k acres.

In Illinois we have deer like that in certain area. They tag a good amount of them to see how far they travel. I know in the suburbs of Chicago we have some. Over the last 3 years we've had a wise old doe that would come to my parents backyard every few days. I don't live up there anymore but over the course of a few years I saw this doe 1.5 miles away before she started to hang out in my parents backyard. You could tell she was old and had the collar on for a while. She was #113 by her ear tag. From what we had found out it had been over 10 years since she was tagged.

I was told by one of the forest preserves that they actually encourage the legal harvesting of these deer. The batteries don't last too long in the collars and they like to see where they are harvested and the distance they have traveled from where they are collared. They can also get the weight and age compared to when it was tagged. Plus, its an interesting harvest picture to have a deer with a radio collar on it!

PA tags deer I know. I believe I read that they've put collars and tags on over 4,000 deer in the last ten years.
-Jake

I saw parts of the show. Not a big fan of them much anymore for other reasons. I know a guy who killed a deer in Ga yrs ago with a collar on it. The DNR came and got the collar back and collected data from the deer. Not sure how many states are doing this though.

not sure about the collar, but the tags on the ear i've heard of.

He killed it 100% free range on his own property that he has bought in KS.

I saw the episode in question and this was my understanding of the situation. It was a wild, free range Buck that had been tagged for a tracking study. :action-smiley-099:

I have never heard of this and I do not believe they do this in Indiana, but I could be wrong. I have never been a big fan of Waddle... I question a lot of shows now days that they are killing MONSTER deer all the time.

Michael knows how to hunt,he's been doing it most of his life. I hate the commercial laden hunting shows at times,but I wish I knew half of what many of these guys know and had their skill with a Bow or a Gun. I believe they could kill just as many Deer as most of us do if they had to hunt the same land because they are hunters just like we are. If I could be on their Bone Collector show and make a living at it I would do it in a heartbeat,I believe most of us would if we could. I don't understand why so many speak so low of them,it's a buisness granted but they still have to get it done or lose their job. When I get tired of the shows I just quit watching them,but I feel no need to run them down or belittle their skills.

If that is the truth, I take it back.

I know Mississippi and Louisiana have tagged or collared wild free-range deer in the past few years for study, either through University or State Angency funded studies.

Very cool story

he killed it free range 100% fair chase. it was tagged on a nearby no hunting land for a study. after killing it he called the people and they sent him a map that showed how far the deer traveled.

Not unbelieveable to me
 

Hunting is a very time consuming sport. Difficult to film twenty minutes in every half hour show (the rest advertising)

Plus you have hundreds of amateur cameramen, filming their own hunt. And the "pro" hunters get to compete against that.

Overkill just waiting to happen.