Successful opening weekend

[brokennock]

Pat, If that's how it had been put I'd have kept my overly opinionated trap shut.
 "It a lot about good fellowship with us and we use all we take. "  I'm all for it. There are some clubs around here that have "biggest buck" contests that are more like a pro-fishin derby. I'm all for get together with a bunch of like minded friends. It was the word "contest" that riled me. Sorry, my misunderstanding.

[Pat B]

Brokennock, Thats why we are here...to talk about our experiences and share info. Your comment was legit. In todays society most seem to be going the competitive way. A little competition is good but I  also am fed up with the extreme competition and especially with something, like hunting, that in most cases is a personal competition at best. Please continue to express your beliefs and we can discuss things the way they should be discussed.    Pat

[DanaM]

I wil jump on board, or go out on a limb whatever. Up here in the UP shootin a nubber buck is a cardinal sin
and you won't live it down for a long time. Has to do with the poor buck to doe ratio and the whitetail hunting clubs
promotional "Let Em Go Let Em Grow" publicity. They actual advertise this slogan on billboards
 which are more offensive to me then shooting a nubber. One reason I don't like or belong to any organizitaions like Whitetails Unlimited
bunch of snobby trophy hunters for the most part!!!

Ok have at me

[TRACY]

I'll have to second Pat B's 1st response on page one(lol)! It sounds like the Twin Oaks bunch is having a lot of fun, envious because season hasn't started in IN yet. I agree with Dana and let those guys worry about antler management while I practice sound deer management and enjoy the tasty rewards.

[cowboy]

Dana M - like it's been said ten thousand times. U can't eat them antlers . but they do make purty good knife handles.

[Pappy]

I get into arguments over this all the time,when I first started hunting if you killed a big buck it was something that people talked about all the time but if it gets to where every other buck in the woods has big horns then what is the big deal.I am a trophy hunter till something else comes along.I manage the herd on my farm with the equipment I choose to hunt with.I hope I didn't
offend anyone with this but believe me it is a great bunch of bowhunters that do this every year.
It seems to bring us alltogether and that has got to be worth something.Dana we try not to shoot buttons here also but it ant for antler development it's cause they ant as much meat on one of them. Same thing with Jake turkeys.
   Pappy

[DanaM]

I here ya Pappy and agree with ya, I will let a nubber or doe fawn walk unless its late in the season and I haven't shot anything else.
Here in michigan, as I'm sure is true in many states there seems to be a huge emphasis on antlers size. Your supposed to pay all your license fees, and other costs to go hunting then not shoot anuthing unless its a mature deer. Let the1 1/2 year old bucks walk and go home with nothing. You can shoot a doe with a bow on your combination license but not with a gun, seems to be a double standard there. Of course you can buy a doe tag depending what zone you are in, here in my area they had only private land doe tags available with a 40 acre minimum in order to qualify for one. Yet our area is probably 80 to 90 percent public land and no general doe tags available, go figure, land owners are being rewarded in my book. So this means the gun hunter pretty much has to shoot any legal buck he sees, legal being spikes 3" or longer. But yet if he does many criticize him for doing so. One of the biggest problems inmy book is the hunting shows and magazines with their emphasis on trophy's. I would love to see one of the hunting pro's come up here without a guide go out into our big woods, no farm land, no food plots etc, lots of deer but disperse over thousands and thousands of acres and come back with 150 class buck. Ya right they go on guided hunts at what are essentially zoo's and shoot the monster buck and then tell us is we need to do this and buy the gadget their endorsing and we can get shoot the trophy also. What a joke they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Hunting is a personal choice it means something different to all of us, me I'm not a trophy hunter but would'ny object to a wall mounter but I'm also happy with a fat doe for the freezer. Ok I will get off the soap box and let someelse have it for awhile.

[Hillbilly]

I don't go for horn porn or deer farming, either. And that's basically what the "management" that they try to cram down everybody's throat to grow horns horns horns boils down to-treating wild deer like private livestock, farming them. I think any deer is a good deer and worthy game, especially if you're toting a selfbow. I also think that deer did just fine for thousands of years without us trying to genetically manipulate them and improve their antlers. Hunting shows have done a lot to hurt deer hunting and turn it into a horn competition if you ask me-most people don't even see the deer that's under the horns, it's just there to give the horns a substrate to grow on. I like to hunt deer. Real deer. The kind with four legs, two ears, with or without horns of any and all sizes. They're all deer, and they're all good. I believe in backstraps. Button bucks are tender and tasty. You can go ahead and flog me now, Pat, but I still won't convert to being a deer farmer.  

[makete]

What Dana said!!!!!!!!!!

[Pappy]

I couldn't have said it better myself Dana-Hillbilly.I don't have a problem with people that want to
go after the big one,where I run into problems is when they tell me I ought to also.Nothing bugs
me more than for someone to come in with a 4 point,head down and start apologizing for it,
or ask someone if they have done any good and they say ya I killed a little old 4 point.If you
don't want it or ant proud of it don't shoot it if you or then act like you are. :)I think with a
selfbow are good ones and since that is all I hunt with they are all good.
   Pappy

[Pat B]

I have been a member of QDMA(Quality Deer Management Assn) since its inception in 1988. Our state biologist in coastal SC was Joe Hamilton, the founder of QDMA and a portion of our club dues went to our QDMA membership. We practice quality deer management at our club in GA and have now for over 10 years. It was a group decision and primarily it was to allow the younger deer to get to at least 3 years old and to teach some of the guys to study the deer before they shot. Our QDMA rules are more strict for gun hunting but most choose to follow them even during bow season. At the right time, I will shoot any deer but most of the time choose to let the young ones walk.
   I am not a horn hunter! I do enjoy the challenge of trying to outsmart a mature buck or doe for that matter but that does limit the amount of deer we take every year. We have enough does in our area so we do have more opportunity to take a deer than many others. I had 5 or 6 chances at a fawn doe a few weeks ago that I passed on because she was quite poorly looking but I took that opportunity to study her movements and to see how many times I could get my bow back without her detecting me. Later this year though, she better not give me the chance.
   Everyone else in my club shoots wheels and each year they get faster and faster bows. I personally enjoy the challenge of doing it my way and with stuff I made myself or made by like minded friends. All of us at the Dixie Hunt Club have a good time but they don't get me and I don't get them as far as equipment goes but to each his own. These guys will be as thrilled as I will when I finally score with my own stuff.  It is all a matter of personal choice!     Pat
   

[Hillbilly]

I couldn't have said it better myself Dana-Hillbilly.I don't have a problem with people that want to
go after the big one,where I run into problems is when they tell me I ought to also.Nothing bugs
me more than for someone to come in with a 4 point,head down and start apologizing for it,
or ask someone if they have done any good and they say ya I killed a little old 4 point.If you
don't want it or ant proud of it don't shoot it if you or then act like you are. :)I think with a
selfbow are good ones and since that is all I hunt with they are all good.

Amen, Pappy, looks like we're on exactly the same page. I have friends who are only after the big boys, and I respect that if that's what they enjoy-but sometimes it seems there's no way to get them to acknowledge that any other viewpoint on deer hunting exists. People brainwashed with the big horn mindset seem to believe that there is no room for any other hunting philosophy, and they think that you're commiting a grave sin if you kill and eat a young buck that you enjoyed hunting just as much as they enjoy taking a trophy -because they think that you're unfairly taking its future monstrous antler rack away from them before it has a chance to grow. Predators don't naturally single out only the biggest, fittest animals in the herd-they take whatever is easiest for them to catch. These are the same people who advocate not killing the biggest trophy bass or other fish, they say throw them back to reproduce and keep little scrawny ones to kill and eat, but have exactly the opposite theory on deer. I guess I'm in the minority, and I've had people get really mad at me because I killed deer that they rightously preached should have been left to grow so that they can kill'em and hang'em on their wall. I hunt the way I enjoy hunting and don't pay much attention to how anybody else says that I should-they don't have any more authority than me just because they watch Buckmasters 

[Pappy]

I appreshate Pat's point of view and have no problem with it at all,just don't tell me I have to have the same opinion.I don't even watch hunting shows on TV any more cause if you let it,It will make you feel inadequate or wonder O man what am I doing wrong ,I must be the worst hunter in the world.They make it look so easy and I know it ant. My wife won't let me be a trophy hunter
she says and much time as you spend with this stuff you better bring home some meat.
   Pappy

[Hillbilly]

Pappy, I weren't referring to Pat, he's a purty good ol' feller, believe it or not, I just gotta give him a hard time every now and then.    He's not one of the closed minded ones I'm referring to. My wife's the same way with deer meat, if I stay gone a week, I'd better bring some back lol.

[GregB]

I guess it's time I get in on this discussion since I originated the thread, used the term "contest", and harvested a young buck.

First of all perhaps the use of the term "contest" might have been a poor choice of words. All I know is that all the folks taking part in the weekends events were going to be out there bow hunting anyway. Although I don't know each individual, I would guess that most of them are good, ethical hunters. Some are out for "trophies" (although what a "trophie" is varies from one person to another"), and others are generally out for meat. But what actually takes place at the club is a lot of comaraderie. Bow hunters of all types...selfbows, recurves, pulley bows coming together and enjoying good food and company. I think its an opportunity to promote what all us guys enjoy with traditional archery, because there was a pretty good showing from the "trad" guys.

Now for the young buck that I harvested Saturday evening. He was by himself, and I watched him for at least an hour before I got the shot. He was not a fawn, he ended up field-dressing at 70 lbs. I don't know for sure if he was a scrawny last years deer, or a healthy early this years deer, but he was not with a doe. The 6-point that I harvested Sunday morning only field-dressed 80 lbs., so my guess is the first buck just had poor horn genes and good tender meat.  ;DAlso the farm I'm hunting has a lot of young bucks, most of which aren't going to make what some would refer to as a trophy. I personally think that any deer other then a fawn taken with a selfbow is trophy material...and has meat on its bones, which is what I'm after. I won't apologize for shooting that young buck... I've been challenged with my shooting for several years now dealing with target panic, and I had an opportunity to harvest a deer for meat.
By the way, although I enjoyed the fellowship of the weekend and the food, I wasn't on one of the teams. But it wasn't because I had a problem with any aspect of it. Pappy would probably say due to laziness, which probably is partly true since the day of the archery shoot I had been putting up tree stands.

I have no problem with what anyone has said here, different strokes for different folks. We're communicating from all over the world, and what might be taboo for one, is common and accepted for another. Peace!