What about this buck scenario?
Contributors to this thread:West Virginia
From: Babysaph
03-Dec-17
What if I kill a button buck with my rifle at 200 yards. Do I check him as an antleless deer or a Buck? And what if I kill another deer at 200 yards that I've been watching all summer on my trail camera? This deer was a 160 class deer but deposed his horns early. Is he checked as an antler,ess deer or a buck.
From: hookman
03-Dec-17
Both count as antler less. A legal buck has to have 3 inch antlers.
From: gobbler
03-Dec-17
That is 100% correct.
From: Babysaph
03-Dec-17
That doesn't seem right when they are both bucks. What am I missing?
From: gobbler
03-Dec-17
The definition of “legal “ buck. Many bucks are legally killed and checked in as antlerless Deer because they don’t meet the “legal” definition of an antlered buck. Which in reality, makes our skewed buck/ doe kill even worse biologically. The high buck/ low doe kills of last few years are actually higher buck/ lower doe kills.
To me the whole thing smells of sexism , and could be labeled as profiling and stereotyping Deer and artificially labeling Deer by antler size and not gender. Is a buck with a 2 1/2 inch spike any less than a buck with a 3 1/2 spike?
From: woodstick
04-Dec-17
There's a check box of male/female on the online check in form. Shouldn't they check in as antler less male deer? The data is already there if the dnr wanted to get totals of male or female deer instead of antlered/antlerless.
From: Babysaph
04-Dec-17
Well why not just call a buck deer a buck deer and a doe a doe and then get accurate estimated. I agree with gobbler and woodstick. They must have a reason for doing that.
From: sundaynwv
04-Dec-17
So you are saying our buck and doe kill is actually more skewed than it shows on paper?
Didn't Tennessee just regulate that any button buck counts as a buck?
From: Babysaph
04-Dec-17
well I would say it has to be skewed when bucks are not being counted. But maybe they are counting them. I do not know.
From: gobbler
04-Dec-17
It’s scary being a Deer. Worrying about CWD, EHD, blue tongue, bovine tuberculosis and now they have to worry about artificially placed gender identity issues.
From: Jack Whitmrie jr
07-Dec-17
I saw a trailer in antlerless season a few years ago with 6 deer on it and 5 were button bucks .
