RE: passing bucks
 

Those who have never hunted where conditions are good will never realize what they are missing. Mature bucks disappear no matter how many there are and they become survivalists, dominating the choicest of terrain and cover. The difference between a mature buck and an immature buck is like night and day but the sad part is that guys who don't hunt mature bucks NEVER realize this...perhaps their are no mature deer around (hence the need for AR's) or more likely since they have no patience or discipline and kill the first thing they see they never spend enough time in the woods to realize that there just may be a monster lurking about. I've only seen one mature buck twice in a given season in 16 years of bowhunting. I see their sign and I hunt them relentlessly but generally I get one shot when I do see one and knowing that, it is a truly intense and damn near spiritual experience when you see him closing in....it's now or never, a one-time encounter...awesome and even more awesome to have my 10-month old son grasp their racks hanging on the wall.

RE: passing bucks
 

You guys are still at it?? lol Come on fellas...with a little more work, you could turn this baby into at least a 20 pager.

RE: passing bucks
 

Wolfen,

You seem to be one of the lead QDM pushers on this forum..... I think it would be interesting to hear about your hunting grounds... Acres, number ofhunters, state, etc.....

I'm not knocking you, just curious...... I'm neither a QDM fanatic nor a brown it's down guy... I let the hunt dictate the outcome.... I've passed on many a 2 year old buck and I've killed my share of 2's and younger....My hunts are a journey, the outcomes DO NOT dictate my satisfaction level....

RE: passing bucks
 

That must be why thousands of them fall every year to any average Joe with $5,000 to burn on a hunt. Anyone can shoot a monster buck if they have enough money............access to prime land loaded with huge bucks is all it takes. I don't think anyone would even mention Bill Jordan or Tiffany Lakoski if asked to list some great hunters......yet they have managed to put some real monsters on the ground. Why is that?........because money opens the gate to honey hole city.


Why does this only make sense to you if the deer has a big rack?? You treasure it as a "one time" encounter but totally dismiss the same "one time" encounter of an average weekend warrior just because it is a 6 pt instead of a monster??.........seems awfully shallow.

RE: passing bucks
 

90% of my hunting is done on private ground (although riddled with trespassers and some nasty poachers) along the heavily timbered bluffs of the Missouri river on the Kansas side 20 minutes from home. It is land with steep ridges and deep valleys and is solid timber with one area that is about 1/4 of an acre in a valley that is somewhat open. It is somewhere around 200 acres and borders suburbia. Not a year goes by that me and a buddy don't come across invaders from the borders putting up stands and not a year goes by that we don't hear the poaching sounds of rifles blasting in an area that does not allow firearms hunting. Shed hunting the other day I found two arrows buried halfway in the ground at an angle indicating they were shot from elevated stands that unfortunately were no longer there.

The other 10% of my hunting is done on an annual 4-day trip I make with some buddies to some private ground 4 hours away in remote farmland lined with draws and CRP fields and surrounded by lands leased by outfitters and big money.

No high fences, no ranches, no monster behind every tree.

Hope this helps.

RE: passing bucks
 

[quote]ORIGINAL: atlasman



That must be why thousands of them fall every year to any average Joe with $5,000 to burn on a hunt. Anyone can shoot a monster buck if they have enough money............access to prime land loaded with huge bucks is all it takes. I don't think anyone would even mention Bill Jordan or Tiffany if Lakoski if asked to list some great hunters......yet they have managed to put some real monsters on the ground. Why is that?........because money opens the gate to honey hole city.


quote]

You are sooooo wrong and have no idea what you are talking about! What a frickin' joke. If it's so easy then why don't me and my buddies and the dozens of other hunters I know connect with monsters every year????? Of all of those there might be one or two that get nice bucks...this year, nobody I know shot a PY buck or better and few even saw shooters all year. I saw only one and he was borderline. So WTF? You're clueless!!! Tiffany and Bill and Jackie and so on hunt the rut on private leased ranches (some likely high fence) from Canada to Texas from October to January and yes I agree that most any yahoo could score on a decent buck under those conditions. But those are NOT the conditions of hunting I am even remotely associated with. Pass the joint...I want some of what you're smokin'.

RE: passing bucks
 

Because I can pass up a shot on a dink 6-pointer every other time I go in the woods...they are by far the EASIEST deer to kill. I enjoy watching them and have had some great and memorable hunts observing their behavior. But let me ask you...why doesn't the average weekend warrior get a thrill out of killing a wily old mature doe?

RE: passing bucks
 

buckeyebuckhntr, looks like it's you who doesn't understand the concept of "exageration to make a point". Seriously, you don't understand the point being made here or are you just pretending to benaive so you can make a cheap sarcastic remark?

RE: passing bucks
 

Glad you asked.

Let me break it down......

Never, and I 100% mean it will you ever have such a piece of ground on public access private land.... Common logic would tell you the odds are against abuck making it to maturity.

There are so many natural and human variables against whitetail bucks in the wild...... Hunters, poachers, road kill, winter kill, disease, predators, hard rut etc... I could go on and on about the natural and human variables that they must overcome to reach maturity. I bet I have found over a dozen dead racked bucks while scouting over the past few years.

Next, Sure your odds are better for shooting a big buck if you have more then one on the property. Once again, the laws of probability dictate that.

What these laws of probability don't tell you and common sense does (as Wolfen put it) "Mature bucks disappear no matter how many there are and they become survivalists, dominating the choicest of terrain and cover. The difference between a mature buck and an immature buck is like night and day"

Just because theremay be a few theredoesn't makea mature animalany easier to kill it just increases your probability of killing one. Hope you can make sense out of that, I know it must be a stretch.

Let me share a little stat for you. Odds in Ohio for killing a P&Y buck are 1 in 1176. (Stat taken from 1998) Ohio is considered one of the top 4 states for big bucks, no? Even with a quality herd the odds are stacked against you no matter how you look at it.

Here is my question for you.....

Do you seriously think that this following quote is a logical statement? "will be as common to see a whopper as it is now to see a scrub"?
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RE: passing bucks
 

The treasure is in the eye of the beholder. Like I say in every other post where people tell me I shouldn't shoot a small buck. Not everyone hunts the horns. And if you just hunt the horns check yourself like it been said he in a earlier post. Do not sit their on your soap box and tell me what to shoot. I'll shoot what I want to shoot. People have gotten so brain washed now a days thinking if you shoot a small buck your wrong. Not saying it's right but I'll shoot spots if I want to. Thats the right we have as hunters not as clients?