This should help put the old saw about "Once a spike, always a spike" to rest.
http://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/galleries/photo-gallery-from-buttons-to-booner
Mike
Brad Gehman's Link
This is some unbelievable antler growth in 3 years! Another example that shows, you just never know what a buck will grow into from his first rack.
1 1/2 in this photo.
Mike
After all, it's browse that makes 'em big and strong.
Yinzs horn hunters are all alike. I want, I want, I want. It's not about hunting to you guys, it's not about deer meat, it's all about that mount ya put on your wall so ya can stand back, look at them, and thump your chest."....RC
Hmmm let's see. If I would have shot the first legal buck that walked by this year in Pa and Ohio, I would have got to spend about 2 hours hunting deer. By waiting for a bigger deer, I got to spend a couple weeks hunting. Not to mention, bigger deer means more meat in the freezer!:)
Corn makes their racks big and the bucks fat, and then them nasty horn hunters kill 'em. LOL!
Besides, I don't know what all the hub bub is about - that piebald is a spindly racked dink. No mass at all. :^)
Additionally, smaller/younger deer drag easier... the meat is more tender and tastier than a stressed, rutted up old buck, doing so falls more in line with nature's natural orders, their skins make better rawhide for backing bows, etc. etc.
Sensibility says kill 'em young :^)
Holy crap! I didn't know it was illegal for guys who wait on a nice buck to shoot does! I'm probably gonna get in trouble for buying doe tags all these years:)
See how that works? I can talk in false generalizations too. Funny... right?
Lol
In all honesty, I don't care what anyone shoots! You pay the same for your license as I do for mine. We all have the right to shoot whatever we want ( as long as it's legal ). If someone is happy with a little 1 1/2 year old buck, then I'm happy for them and would be the first to congratulate them.
We all hunt for different reasons and for what ever makes each of us happy and that's our right too.
I use to kill the first legal buck that walked by too. It got to the point where the excitement just wasn't there like it was before. So, I started holding out for a little older bucks and it put the excitement back in the hunt for me. Now, there is nothing I like more the trying to figure out and shoot older deer.
Some guys go to trad equipment to add something more to their hunt and some guys get the excitement back in other ways. It's all good! Whatever works for you!
Specially ole treebrat:)
Now if you girls hunted big bucks with a stick bow, I might have a different opinion of yinzs... Cause that would be a huge challenge....
Compounds are like them guys who go ice fishing, then gotta hide in a heated tent to do it... Fishen, ya right:)
BTW- who'd make that young lady drag that deer out by herself? Shame shame shame....:)
yes sir...that's her.
I hunted that buck for 2 seasons - had it at 12 yards the previous year, but couldn't get a good shot, so I had to pass. She got so sick and tired of hearing me yammer about that buck over the course of the next year, that she told me if I shut up and killed that buck, she'd drag it out.
It's funny, but when the alarm went off that morning, I rolled over and was going to go back to sleep, but she poked me in the ribs and told me that I couldn't kill "the big one" from where I was laying, so I got up.
A couple of hours later, I was back home, telling her to hurry up and finish her coffee because she had a buck to drag. :^)
She pulled it about 5 feet and quit. But she picked up all of the clothes I shed over the course of the drag. I was down to my boots and long underwear bottoms by the time we got back to the truck. LOL!
I see the high fence behind it.... Looks like a crossbow bolt hit it too.
I've shot big old bucks too. I know how much meat, and fat, is on them, or not, versus year and a half old deer, and it's not twice as much. I've shot mature bucks that rutted and fought so hard they had zero visible fat, and also lost considerable amounts of muscle mass. You don't think the stress on a dominant breeder effects the quality of the meat when killed at the peak of the rut or after?
Funny how them headhunters I know, when they DO keep one of them run down skanky breeders, get it all ground into hot stick, jerky, bologna, while adding pork fat and piles of spices to it to make it half edible... then bring it to work and give it away. It's no wonder they don't like deer meat :^)
By the way calling people who hunt for mature bucks "head hunters" is an insult IMO. Grouping all guys who hunt mature bucks together and calling them "head hunters" would be about as smart a statement as me saying traditional hunters are unethical because they use inferior equipment.
RC your welcome to sit in my heated ice hut any time. Or since yer a trad guy do you just chop a hole in the ice with a stone axe and fish with a net like the Indians did?
Mike
And Jeff, mine don't get hung up on anything, I wheelem' out on a cart. Easy peazy! :)
Mike
By the way, at what age did they consider those bones 'mature'. At a ratio of 50/50, I bet their definition of mature and yours and mine are not the same. Do you have a link to that study?
I dont "group all guys"... I try not to use the terms 'headhunter' and 'people who hunt for mature bucks' synonomously because I don't think they're necessarily one and the same. Some I can respect. Others I can't.
If someone kills an animal for its head... especially if done with no intention of using any parts of it other than the head... they earned it.
I have to admit though, I did get a chuckle out of " the burger not tasting stressed" comment:)
And RC far as U.S. big buck hunters pumping our chest out goes, I think SOME of you traditional hunters like to pump your chest out letting everyone who will listen to you know how your doing it the hard way. Hey I admire you guys for making your own gear and hunting with it but don't ask me for aculades for it ; ) Ya ole sissy pants ; )
Treebrat
I have to say though that you're largely misunderstanding(or purposely deflecting) my thoughts on the benefits of more-natural values surrounding the hunt. It isn't really a weapon thing... for instance, your native subsististence hunter/gatherer isn't going to pass opportunities at smaller bucks, does, or other animals, birds, etc. and focus on only big-antlered bucks because you offer him a crossbow, compound, rifle, etc. His actions and their effects on nature are a byproduct of his needs and values, natural ones, subsistence, like any other predator, and even if he used a different weapon, in the end the result will still be a more 'natural selection' of all of his prey which is how all of nature thrives.
That's probably how Mike catches all those perch too.
Surprised he hasn't posted a picture of the exit hole:)
I'm hungry... I'm going to Burger King :^)
Jeffro: Yes I'd like a double gluten free whopper with gluten free cheese, and gluten free fries/no salt.
And a large diet gluten free coke.. :)
RC only thing you know how to spell without "spell check" is PBR, BTW where is yer boy Contrairian er I mean Roger?
Ps You should have met me at Dobbins Landing yesterday like I told Ya to Ya ole fart! school was canceled here because of icey roads, my Boy hunter cleaned up.
If this does not work anyone can go to I tunes and search deer hunting podcasts, go to "wired to hunt" episode # 43 Handeling Whitetail Management adversity with DR Grant Wood
I would urge any deer nut to listen to all the "wired to hunt podcasts" with host & outdoor writer Mark Kenyon, they have some real informative interviews with some great deer hunters whitetail biologists and land managers, lots of great tips tactics and studies on the whitetail deer. You will find yourself taking notes and listening to certain episodes over and over again. Sorry Jeff nothing bout squirrels ; 0
Jeff if this link works, here is the podcast with DR Grant Woods talking about the deer herd today. Somewhere in the middle he talked about his research into pre European Whitetail herds from Florida to the Dakotas. through research he found that archeologists across the country had examined 10,000 pelvic girtels while studying butchering practices of native Americans. They found that the sex ratio of deer butchered was 50% buck 50% doe. They also found that 50% of the deer killed were 3 1/2 or older. He says the pelvic girtel is a great indicator of gender and maturaty.
Mike
Yeah, even though they were there playing an equal part in man's survival along with all sorts of other critters... nothing there about squirrels... today they're just not 'worthy'.
