Oldtimr

Well short track, since you decided to cast an insult at what are normal sized deer in most of the country and only have been castigated since the advent of TV hunting shows and high fence hunting where deer are turned into freaks,I will say this, I am perfectly happy to kill an average buck or a nice fat mature doe. The insane afliction to lots of bone is ruining sport hunting in my opinion. I wish all states would ban breeding deer for the express purpose of freak antlers and big dollars. Then we can get back to hunting as a fun pass time and a way to put venison in the freezer rather than a tight butt activity where people compete so they can say, mine is bigger than yours.

Mastevt

Phil, those are some nice deer! Here in Missouri, we had a bad drought the last two years, which triggered an EHD breakout , Missouri lost thousands of deer to it. I went from getting 200-250 pics a week, with as many as 8 deer in the pic to 12 pics a week with only 1 or 2 deer in a pic. My area where my 80 is located was one of the hardest hit areas in MO. My son and I have let all does walk now for the past 3 years in an effort to help out with bringing back the numbers. Needless to say, no deer yet for us this year.

Oldtimr

Western PA had an EHD outbreak a few years ago. When the weather is right to allow the midges to prosper along comes EHD. The only good part is it is not contagious from one deer to another.

Phil from Maine

Thanks guys.. Maine has some real strict laws on bringing game into the state to help prevent any diseases from getting at our game animals. The only real issues we have had is on our moose which has taken a dive in numbers last winter because of ticks and brain worm. Other than that we had a few turkeys that got diseased. As long as the EHD is not contagious then that is not as bad as cronic wasting disease I do not think anyways as I am unsure about any of that here.. Our deer population is low and has always been compared to most of the other states.. Our winters has been the big player in that though. Then of course came the eastern coyote and our numbers have dropped even more.. But they do appear to survive..

flags

Yep. As was previously noted there is a biological theory that confirms this. Larger bodies are easier to keep warm and smaller bodies are easier to keep cool. That is why deer etc... are bigger the farther north you go. If you take whitetails as an example, a whitetail in FL is biologically exactly the same as a whitetail in ME. However the ME deer will be at least twice the size. The reason is to combat the cold. Take that ME deer and put it in FL with the temps down there and it will be in serious trouble from heat because the mass of the body will not allow it to cool properly. Conversely, the FL deer would have a very hard time surviving the cold in ME because the small body sheds heat rapidly.

Believe it or not, this even falls true with elephant. The body size of elephant near the equator in places such as Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon etc... is a lot smaller than the body size of elephant in places like Botswana, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. A big bull elephant in Southern Africa will often weigh 5000 lbs more than a bull from the equator regions.

Valentine

Some areas have fewer hunters. Some areas have larger winter kills. Some newbies are going to experience that for the first time.
Some areas have wall to wall trees and hold fewer deer per square mile.
Fewer deer per square mile; fewer hunters and good genetics, a few big deer will survive.
I think there is less timbering in Maine these days, and the wall to wall of growing trees makes hunting tougher.

flags

What is wrong with "freezer" deer? I've never yet seen an antler that you could eat. And filling a freezer is a very honorable and respectable reason to hunt. The obsession with big racks is taking hunting in a direction that I don't care for.

For what it is worth, I've hunted in 13 states, 2 Canadian Provinces and have gone to Africa 5 times. My take on game animals is 68 species and I've gotten to the point that I don't care a whit about antlers or horns. Give me a nice tender doe any day over a wall hanging monster. Meat trumps trophies any day.

MikeVT

And I'll bet not one of them was taken on private posted land over a pile of corn or under a feeder. The way hunting should be. Also, all these deer were listed with their weights and points, not with a B&C tape measure. Nice Deer!!!

Phil from Maine

Most all our deer we weigh dressed weights and there is no legal baiting of deer here.. While the southern parts of the state is posted most of the northern part is former paper company lands and is used for hunting purposes without any issues.. Yes they are still cutting everywhere just the same.. What is not used for the paper companies gets turned into wood pellets..

I left for hunting late today and where i was heading a guy shot a real nice 10 pointer I am guessing would go close to 200 lbs. plus or minus about 10 lbs.... by only about 3 minutes to my arrival LOL.. I congratulated him ad took a few pics with my cell phone and went to find another area..

ojibwa

watching a recent interview with Lanny Benoit he outlined the state of the deer herds in Vermont Maine and New Hampshire..

Basically what he said was because of logging and over hunting in some areas big bodied older deer are getting few and far between, unless you can find a big swamp or other remote untouched area the days of bagging outsized bucks are almost over..

here is the interview..

Interview with Lanny Benoit





This past winter at a busy Sportsman's show, where the Benoits held several seminars, I caught up with Lanny Benoit for an interview. Lanny is considered by many to be one of the most talented and successful deer hunters around. His father, Larry, and his brothers, Lane and Shane, will agree that Lanny is the best at what he does, shooting big deer year after year.

GNP: What does it take to become a successful trophy buck hunter like you?

Lanny: Well it takes a whole lot of things to make you a successful trophy hunter.You need to have great eyesight. You have to be selective; you can't shoot spike horns or four pointers. You can't get discouraged because like I say, "Just around the corner you might shoot your big buck".

You don't have to be a tracker to be a trophy buck hunter. It doesn't make a difference if you're an ambusher or a stand hunter; basic hunting techniques apply no matter what your method is when it comes to hunting big deer. You don't have to go out into the wilderness to shoot a trophy buck.

There could be big bucks chose to town; it's just easier sometimes to find the big deer in the remote areas. You've got to be willing to go places where no one else dares to go. You really need a good four-wheel drive, not always but you do in a lot of cases.


GNP: How has hunting in Maine changes from when you first hunted there?



Lanny: Things have changed quite a bit since I stated hunting Maine in the early 70'S because they've logged most of it off. There are a lot of new logging roads and there are no real remote areas left in the Maine. The logging roads have allowed the hunters to get back in there and it's been hunted pretty hard. The deer don't have the wintering ranges that they use to have, plus Maine had a hard winter last year and that really hurt the deer herd. Lanny Benoit with his reliable four-wheel drive Suburban he calls Casper Years ago, we shot a lot of bucks up there that were 3 1/2 to 8 1/2 years old. Now, it's really pretty hard to find the older mature deer in Maine.

GNP: How has hunting changed in Vermont from when you used to hunt there, and what could be done to improve it?

Lanny: When I was a kid hunting in Vermont, we had some woods in the northern part of Vermont where people didn't hunt in very much. We could take 180lb to 230lb bucks; not with ease but we could shoot one each year. Vermont deer herds just don't have as many mature bucks as they use to. Most of the deer are 1-1/2 year olds and that's not good for the herd.

There are still some big bucks in Vermont; you have to hunt high and get away from other hunters to find them. What we need to do in Vermont is to somehow get racks on these deer. If we had a four point or better antler rule that would help. When I was a kid I didn't shoot spike horns; I shot racked deer because we had them. Now a kid or hunter in Vermont, all he sees is spike horns, he's shooting last years born. We've got to stop doing that. If we stopped shooting 1-1/2 year old bucks in a few years we'd have lots of big deer. We're sportsmen not killers.


GNP: What's your best advice to someone who wants to take a mature buck in New England next season?

Lanny: I guess the best strategy would be to try in find some big swamps where people don't go into or find some mountainous areas where hunters don't crawl up. There aren’t many remote areas left in New England. You have to cover a lot of ground to find where there are some big bucks; it could be close to town or on a mountaintop.

GNP: Why did you start using a scope last season?

Lanny: I used a scope last year because I was shooting long range and my eyesight is not what it used to be. I started seeing two front sites; I just put the deer in between the two, which still works at close range but not at 150 yards or further. I plan on using a scope in the future when I'm shooting long range.

GNP: What's it like to hunt with cameramen and has it interfered with you shooting a buck?

Lanny: It's pretty interesting, sometimes they get cold and they’re wet, they don't have enough food with them, or their shoe laces are untied so you have to stop and get them all fixed up. {Laughs} The cameraman sometimes makes a racket but it's not their fault because they're carrying and looking through the camera and they can't see where they're walking. When they fall down you have to go back and pick ‘em up and tell them it's ok. {Laughs} I can honestly say that they have not affected the way we hunt or our success in shooting deer very much.

Sure, we've had to wait to shoot some bucks so that the cameraman can get it on film, but otherwise it's no different hunting with a camera guy then it is hunting with one of my brothers or my son. It's kind of fun to have a camera guy with you because when you film something that day you can go back and see it and show other people.


GNP: Why did you and your family change your hunting coats to camouflage?

Lanny: We've always hunted in green my grandfather hunted in checkered green we just decided that we'd like to hunt in a different color. We decided that we wanted a camouflage coat with the orange sewn right in because we have to wear orange where we hunt. Beagle wear makes wool clothing that's water repellent and that's another reason why we switched. You can walk around in the rain and snow and you don't get all soaked up.

GNP: You are considered the scout for your family. Describe your scouting tactics?

Lanny: Yes I'm the scout because I'm always wondering around looking for new country to hunt. I always like to see what's over the next ridge. I guess I'm just a free roamer; sometimes I'll get bored and I'll drive fifty or a hundred miles just looking for some new country. I'm always trying to find remote areas with few hunters. I’m always looking for that really big buck.