Post by 76chevy on Jun 3, 2011 8:01:30 GMT -5
Matt,
I have hunted a lot of the same places you have, shined the same fields most likely, maybe even seen some of the same deer
It seems to me that deer hunting in your area is awfully good.
we (brothers and I) can get an opportunity on at least one (often a few) mature, 140-150+ bucks every year in that area. It comes with hard work and scouting year round.
A lot of guys hunt with rut methods the whole season and therefore never see mature bucks outside of the rut. You have to know where they bed and where they stage during daylight. It is not easy to figure out and requires time and effort.
Hunters swear there are no mature bucks in the area but they (like >90% of public land hunters) are just hunting in the wrong spots and keep hunting them day after day expecting different results.
The mature deer are there
just my $0.02
I have no interest in kicking gun hunters out of anything. I myself, am indeed a gun hunter, I'm also a bow hunter, and a deer hunter.
The only thing I'm interested in is quality management of our deer resource.
We just look at things differently, and that't OK. Where as you would call it "kick(ing) gun hunters out of some WildLife Management Areas", I would call it "making the deer hunters in that particular WMA chase whitetails with archery equipment". All deer hunters are allowed to hunt archery season. I mean come on....Kentucky has over 150,000 acres of archery only public, and Missouri has over 100,000 acres....I would like to see 20,000 acres in Indiana, it seems fair to me.
Woody, I wish there was a surplus of hunting land out there, and we could all hunt totally unregulated and still do no harm to the resource, but the reality is, we are terribly crowded with hunters these days, many hunters even pay farmers upwards of $25/acre per year just to have a quality place to hunt. Indiana's deer herd is shared by all of us, and the characteristics of the deer herd can only be manipulated through regulation.
Again, here is where you and I subscribe to different schools of thought. Where as I am in favor of restricting the pressure on bucks, and adding pressure on does through regulation, you often favor increased opportunity for both sexes, which in the real world, equates to increased opportunity at bucks, as the overwhelming majority of deer hunters are out there to kill a buck. What this gives us, is a very high harvest of young bucks, as they are by far the most vulnerable deer in the woods during November, and less does. This gives us a very heavy doe/buck ratio, and a very young age structure. This very unnatural herd structure equates to lower quality deer hunting.
I have hunted a lot of the same places you have, shined the same fields most likely, maybe even seen some of the same deer
It seems to me that deer hunting in your area is awfully good.
we (brothers and I) can get an opportunity on at least one (often a few) mature, 140-150+ bucks every year in that area. It comes with hard work and scouting year round.
A lot of guys hunt with rut methods the whole season and therefore never see mature bucks outside of the rut. You have to know where they bed and where they stage during daylight. It is not easy to figure out and requires time and effort.
Hunters swear there are no mature bucks in the area but they (like >90% of public land hunters) are just hunting in the wrong spots and keep hunting them day after day expecting different results.
The mature deer are there
just my $0.02
Last thing I have to say.
I have no interest in kicking gun hunters out of anything. I myself, am indeed a gun hunter, I'm also a bow hunter, and a deer hunter.
The only thing I'm interested in is quality management of our deer resource.
We just look at things differently, and that't OK. Where as you would call it "kick(ing) gun hunters out of some WildLife Management Areas", I would call it "making the deer hunters in that particular WMA chase whitetails with archery equipment". All deer hunters are allowed to hunt archery season. I mean come on....Kentucky has over 150,000 acres of archery only public, and Missouri has over 100,000 acres....I would like to see 20,000 acres in Indiana, it seems fair to me.
Woody, I wish there was a surplus of hunting land out there, and we could all hunt totally unregulated and still do no harm to the resource, but the reality is, we are terribly crowded with hunters these days, many hunters even pay farmers upwards of $25/acre per year just to have a quality place to hunt. Indiana's deer herd is shared by all of us, and the characteristics of the deer herd can only be manipulated through regulation.
Again, here is where you and I subscribe to different schools of thought. Where as I am in favor of restricting the pressure on bucks, and adding pressure on does through regulation, you often favor increased opportunity for both sexes, which in the real world, equates to increased opportunity at bucks, as the overwhelming majority of deer hunters are out there to kill a buck. What this gives us, is a very high harvest of young bucks, as they are by far the most vulnerable deer in the woods during November, and less does. This gives us a very heavy doe/buck ratio, and a very young age structure. This very unnatural herd structure equates to lower quality deer hunting.