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My take on horns

I've always preferred the saxophone. Or, are you talking about antlers? ;-)

If you would have giving me two guess on who would have had a snarky comment like that I'd have guessed correctly and probably one would have been all it took.

It was a joke, John. You've been known to joke around too. Lighten up.

Timex, I think your logic is good. You'll never kill a mature buck, if you always shoot the juveniles. It's tough to have that discipline on such small properties, though, when you know the neighbors will kill anything with antlers. You're lucky to have a large enough deer population to shoot so many does.

Matt

I am more impressed by weight. Newberry MI, last week, 9 point, small rack, weight 246lbs. I like heavy deer

Mature bucks are very in tune to pressure and if you're on a property where multiple people are shooting that much on a property for nuisance control/crop damage for the farmer, those mature bucks wise up very quickly. You might get one that makes a mistake every so often, but that's not the norm. I'd say you have a better chance at a mature buck if you only focused on that, but in the long run you will end up losing the property because the farmer doesn't want that. You have a job to do for the farmer and you guys are getting it done.

I'm primarily a public land hunter which gets a lot of gun pressure, not as bad archery pressure. I can't tell you how many yearling bucks I've passed up over the years. It's been lots. And I can count on no hands the number of those yearlings that I think I saw as 2.5 year olds the next year. So I've kind of given up on thinking my kills or passes have ever made a difference on buck quality or age structure in my home state of MN. If I need venison, I've resorted to killing yearling bucks in the last couple years because getting some meat is important to me and (more so) my wife. So why don't I just kill does for meat you ask? Well, of course I would rather do that, but they get so pressured here, they seem to be harder to kill than bucks in all honesty. I rarely get doe shot opportunities. We have early antlerless rifle seasons, youth seasons, abundant antlerless tags during regular seasons, etc. The does get pressure here. They are not easy, at least for me, to kill. When I go to other states I'm holding out for big deer, even on public land. Amazing the night and day difference a border can make in the quality of deer seen. I've seen more quality bucks on public land in adjacent states to mine in a week than I've seen in MN in 32 years of hunting on public land.

Nice buck. Sounds like a unique place. I have a friend that is in a similar situation, farmer wants as many as he can take off the property. It's a lot of work and only so much him and his partner can take out.

What do you suppose will happen when our generation of hunters ages-out of the hunting pool? Younger hunters want big antlers, social media clicks, likes. Don't get those by shooting does for population control.

I see it on Long island now, our doe to buck ratio is horrible and you can basically shoot unlimited does. I've shot two does so far this season and hope to get another two before it ends in January. A lot of hunters here just won't shoot does but will shoot small bucks they aren't going to mount and we get two buck tags. Hopefully in the future they will shoot does as well.

"Don't get those by shooting does for population control."

That's actually exactly how you do get big antlers... by keeping the population below the carrying capacity of the habitat. Starving bucks don't grow into trophies.

In my neck of the woods leasing and outfitting is dominant and few are willing to spend grand amounts of money and vacation time to come home with with a cooler of meat they could have gotten for free in their back yard. Creates exactly the situation you don't want.

The big question Catscratch is, how far below the carrying capacity? And what is the carrying capacity? In land that is ag mixed, it is extremely high. In forest land it is far lower. If you are familiar with the Camp Ripley archery hunt in MN which was renowned for big bucks, they started allowing an antlerless permit along with your either sex permit in the early 2000s due to there being "too many deer". Well, they have successfully reduced the population and deer densities are lower. The result has not been more big bucks. In fact, harvest of big bucks (200+ pounds) is about one third of what it used to be. And the top end bucks are not as big weight wise. It was common to have a handful of deer over 230 pounds in the harvest. Now 230+ pound animals are somewhat rare. So no, I don't think keeping the population below CC necessarily leads to more big deer, especially when there is a mix of agriculture in the area.

“ ‘Don't get those by shooting does for population control.’

That's actually exactly how you do get big antlers... by keeping the population below the carrying capacity of the habitat. Starving bucks don't grow into trophies.”

Just a thought, but never argue with anyone who didn’t read the post he’s responding to…

Lou is correct.

Our 3D course is overrun with does, because nobody with permission to hunt the surrounding properties has any interest in shooting any. Really the same problem on Private land state-wide: the guys who have spent years maintaining their bait sites aren’t doing it to shoot does. They can’t/won’t shoot anywhere near enough does off of the properties that they have locked up, and they don’t trust anyone else to do it. Meanwhile, even if it’s not their #1 intention, they end up holding does as more “bait”, so un-baited (but huntable) properties nearby end up being not productive enough to be worth “hunting”.

Then because the buck:doe ratio is so bad, we get 3 or 4 cycles out of the rut every year, for which the coyotes are abundantly grateful, since there are 3-4 rounds of fawn drop to prey on instead of just one.

Some people tell me that our buck:doe ratio isn’t so bad; it’s just that the big bucks are all sneaky and nocturnal, but when you see a 1.5 YO keeping company with a half-dozen does during “lockdown” and the 2 or 3 much larger bucks you saw a week or two earlier are nowhere to be seen….

So now recreational hunters are doing such a poor job of managing the numbers that we’re going to lose that responsibility/opportunity to those who are willing to get it DONE….

This is the buck I saw tending to 6 or 7 does. I saw at least 2, maybe 3 MUCH larger bucks in the space of 20 minutes prior to taking this picture…. So they were “busy” either tending to their own does or being shown off in social media hero pics….

I’m totally on board with Timex…. When I had access to great private land up here, the owner only wanted me to take 2/year, 1 buck & 1 doe. I had one rule for bucks: they had to be a “personal best” for the weapon in hand, unless it was the last day I expected to be able to hunt that year.

FWIW, if I had a property owner who wanted/needed me to take more than 2 deer/year (let alone 20!!), I’d probably never have a reason to kill another buck unless either the animal or the circumstances of the hunt were something truly special. My bar, size-wise, for that is probably lower than most around here, but that doesn’t much bother me. I can think of a LOT of things I would rather have than a taxidermy bill, and I have too many DIY Euros in the garage as it is…. Can’t justify shooting a buck for the “higher” meat yield when you can shoot all the does you can stand to process….

I was agreeing with Lou in that a lot of younger hunters want big bucks to show off so they don't shoot does because posting them isn't cool. But if they only shoot big bucks and let the doe population expand to much... to the point that individual deer don't have enough to eat, then it hurts the antler growth that they want so much.

I'm not familiar with the Camp Ripley history. I don't know how they decided there were too many deer. Did they do browse studies? Did they measure and keep records of relative weights? Did they go off of a gut feeling? If the deer had enough to eat before the population reduction then by all means it cuts down on the "1 percenters". Follow a bell curve and 1% of 100 is way less than 1% of 500. With what you said I'd think they weren't actually above CC before the population reduction but I don't know that. And yes, CC can be very different over just a very small amount of area and time. A deer living on the creek bottom with rich soil and mixed ag may have a very different nutritional plane than a deer 2 miles away living in rocky cattle pastures. Weather patterns count too. A population just under CC on a normal year might be quite a bit over CC if a 3yr drought hits. Lots of if's and but's!

Anyway, this kind of got pushed away from the OP. I agree with him 100% and practice the same. No reason for me to shoot a young buck in hopes to get to see him again several years later.

I shoot does because I like venison, bit it also helps the buck/doe ratio and controls population which in turn reduces demand on winter food resources. Both those help build antlers.

Timex they're "DWR" now not DGIF. "game" implies hunting which implies killing which is taboo now. We are taught to say "harvest" , "process" and "go afield" not "kill, butcher, hunt". Crazy old world out there lately.

You guys are about enough to convince me to ask my BIL if I can come down and visit! LOL

Maybe I could hunt during the week while his wife’s off at work….

You're welcome anytime brother

Fuzzy, in CO they were called "Game, Fish, and Parks" when I worked for them. Then it split and became "Division of Wildlife". Then they remarried and it became PARKS (and wildlife). Funny how they consciously reversed the priorities.Wokeness is an insidious disease.

the area i hunt is by no means overrun with deer so i will usually take the first legal deer that presents a good shot opportunity...as long as its not a fawn or small yearling. as far as antlers go...we have antler point restrictions so that dictates what is legal.

I fear that the rapid spread a CWD will inevitably play a profound role in buck age and availabilty. As hunters drop out because of it, and/or get less interested in meat hunting, all that is left is "tropy hunting for antlers". Hunters will compete for a chance to take ANY buck and not be likely to hold out for ""the big one". Game commisions will be forced to lower antler size restrictions by popular demand. The Fat lady has sung. It is all downhill from there and I don't see it going well over the next 10 years.

Thank you, Todd — most gracious!

I’ll keep you in mind for next year when I know what my available time off looks like.

Timex, I have a very similar mentality. What gets me is when a hunter passes on an obviously older deer because the rack is broken and won't "score well" I hunt older deer for the challenge and the challenge is in the age of the deer not his score and that break tells part of his story. Also, I have a pet peeve with hunting celebrities that pass on bucks that a normal person would never pass on like a 160" not being big enough. That sets unreal expectations.

In my area if you see a nice legal buck and have a shot its best you take it. Now if you wish you can pass which is fine and your call. I mean you can always check it out on facebook when someone else shoots it. There over 650000 archery licenses sold and pressure is high

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