Good MD buck
West Virginia
My nephew got a good one in MD yesterday
Congrats.
Sleeper state for sure. Lots of green foliage.
Good one, I'd reckon. Gee whiz! That's a once-in-a-lifetime buck.
Yeah it is and I’m running out of my lifetime and haven’t got one that good LOL
Just goes to show you what can happen when states manages their Deer herds differently. He drives from Western NC and bypasses WV to hunt in Maryland for what it has to offer. Maryland reduced their buck limit a few years ago and in each season you have to take 2 antlerless Deer after taking a buck before you can take a second buck. It makes a difference.
That is a nice deer. You are right. They just take time.,
MD must have a ton of deer. 3 Buck limit and you can take a bonus 4th if you hunt in a certain region and they still produce bucks like this. Wow!
And they have that horrid apr with the three buck limit. At least they are doing something.
Probably has a lot to do with not having a brown, it's down mentality,mwhack comes through education.
To clarify, since clarification is important on bowsite, the APR doesn't apply to the first two bucks - only the 3rd and 4th and 4th only applies if hunting in a certain region.
"*A hunter may harvest 2 antlered deer during a license year that have any number of antler points. But no more than two antlered deer taken during the license year may have two points or less per antler present. The remaining antlered deer must have at least 3 points on one antler. One additional (bonus) antlered deer may be taken per year in Region B only for a total of 4 antlered deer. The bonus antlered deer may be taken in any weapon season. Before taking a bonus antlered deer, a hunter must first purchase a Bonus Antlered Deer Stamp and harvest two antlerless deer in Region B. These antlerless deer may be taken in any weapon season. Junior hunters (16 years old or younger) are exempt from the three antler point requirement."
It probably has more to do with the requirement of HAVING to harvest 2 does after initial buck before u can harvest a second buck. I’ve only hunted once there since my brother died but before that I hunted at least every other year for 30 + years. After they started requiring the 2 does after first buck is when we started seeing more mature bucks.
At a previous open public Commission meeting a person said that the DNR knows how to manage Deer best and let them determine what is best for our herd , then shows up at next open public Commissioner meeting asking that archery hunters be exempt from any “earn a buck” regulations in the state. If I understand it right, the request is for bowhunters to be exempt from any attempt to help DNR manage doe overpopulation and just be able to shoot all the bucks they can and leave the doe hunting and doe population management up to gun hunters? I’m sure gun hunters would think that is a great idea. I Bowhunt and gun hunt but in an average year spend 80% of time bowhunting and 20% gun hunting and can’t understand in any way how that would be fair. It would just cause another division between hunter groups that needs to be compromising and coming together as one force rather than further division.
As stated before I like the earn a buck deal and I think they need to have a picture of doe for proof - because let me tell ya something - there are plenty of "phantom does" killed in Maryland. One of the places I do some work and consulting for - I have gotten to know several of their maintenance employees and it is a running joke with all of them to call in the ghost doe kills and I could tell you of plenty of others in Maryland who do the same thing. l do agree with Little Bear - once again it is proven you don't need a one or two buck limit to be able to see a monster - many others factors are much more important.
JayD, what do you think of the idea that bowhunters be exempt from any earn a buck regulations ?
The reason I ask is because I’ve heard this person say many times that any deer with a bow is a trophy. I’m not going to argue that , but it does bring up the question in my mind that if any deer with a bow is a trophy then why is the required doe not as much a trophy as another buck, especially if the biologists have determined that the earn a buck criteria is what is best for Deer herd health in that county?
It’s sounds like what’s best for me, rather than what’s best for the Deer herd. Just my opinion.
No one goes to the 4 counties to shoot spikes. They go there looking for a big buck . The rest of the state its a diffent story. I wonder how those who do not want to lower the buck limit or have antler restrictions (like little bear) would feel about raising tbe buck limit in the 4 counties to mirror the rest of the state. I would rather lower the buck limit to be like the 4 counties and create the idea that people don't come to Wv to shoot spikes.
MP - you could raise the limit in the 4 bow only counties and not see much difference as long as they remain bow only. But if you keep it 1 buck only and allow choice of weapon instead of bow only I bet you would see a difference then!
Gobbler - I told you I like the earn a buck rule but I can tell ya for almost certain that there are a lot of ghost does killed over in Maryland. I think Maryland over did it with the 2 does before the next buck. I am still not so for sure that with a phone or online check in that maybe a picture of the animal might not be a bad idea.
JayD, have u ever hunted in any of the 4 bow counties?
Yes and why should that matter? So tell me Greg - if two of the four counties switched to allow guns but remained 1 buck only and 2 of them remained bow only but allowed 3 bucks like the rest of the state - which ones do you think would see the bigger difference? Myself, I think you wouldn’t see much difference in the bow only counties even with a raised limit - just because big bucks are hard to kill and that land can be extremely difficult to hunt. And I think guns would make a game changer there. JMO
I think guns make a game-changer anywhere unless it’s on a strict limited permit basis ONLY!!
I still think it’s a combo of both archery and limit of 1. Is it equal, 75/25, 25/75? Nobody knows and will never know.
Small bucks are shot by locals every year because of the same reason small bucks are killed everywhere every year, and that is 100% ok if the person is happy with the Deer. The majority of people that go there to hunt don’t shoot smaller bucks and I believe that is in large part driven by the 1 buck limit.
As far as phantom does being checked in, I’m sure that happens in MD and I’m sure it does here too. But game agencies have statistics figured out pretty good. They know a percentage will happen just like a percentage doesn’t check Deer in. Doesn’t meant that system doesn’t work. Plus they have red flags and can follow-up on suspicious activity much like they can follow up on people claiming landowner status.
if you add a second buck tag in the 4 counties i figure several small bucks will be shot because of that extra tag. That is not what you want in the 4 counties but ok everywhere else i guess
You see i just think you all take out of the equation on your young bucks saved by your theory of a 1 buck limit will keep all these hunters selective and they will not be killing small bucks (I believe some may do that but not a tidal wave worth) - so the variable you leave out of the equation is : will that same young buck when it crosses path of another hunter get the same free pass? Now lets expound on this a further so if I remember correctly the percentage of successful buck hunters is around 20%. So out of the 20% lets say you get 50% of those successful hunters to pass on small bucks. So now you have about 10% of hunters tagging out. And that is not factoring in that maybe some of them will eventually harvest a more mature buck. Sounds good so far for you one-and-doners. Since the bucks they are passing on are young I would think the chances of that YOUNG Buck to pass by one of the not so successful hunters that year or previous years is more than likely to happen. How many of the those previously unsuccessful hunters will allow that young buck to pass by? You know that 80% group that haven’t harvested a buck for a few years or even ever before. Talked to Gary Alt one time and he explained this scenario to me when I asked him like 20 years ago why PA bucks were small. He was looking into AR’s back then. You know it would only take about 11 or 12% of that 80% to kill the same amount of bucks that half of your 20% of successful hunters would let pass. So do you think that is plausible? Sure sounded like it when he explained it to me.
Gary Alt knows what he is talking about, but once again as we discussed before. PA is a bit of an anonomaly because hunters per square mile is the highest in nation and about double that of WV
Forgot to tell you I heard back from the guy who wrote the article on hunter density, I will show you the email next time you are up at Cacapon. All I can say is go back to 2012 and do the math yourself - you may be surprised at how close we are to PA in hunters per sq mile. I believe he was shocked that someone looked into the numbers. Another reason why I don’t put much faith into some of these articles and the numbers they say.
We didn't even know how many hunters we had in 2012. Rough estimate but no real idea.
So Sunday are you saying the numbers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services are not correct or even close? Again guess we cannot believe any numbers that anyone post...
Do those numbers include landowners which the wv DNR had no way of knowing until online reporting and a user id.?
yea I live 10 minutes from Md. and JayD is right. they are not killing all of those does. They get checked in a does. some even use their doe tags and don't even hunt does. It is hard to police all of this.
Wow all that math makes me dizzy. LOL. Imma go hunting. I still say a deer has to be alive for a while to get bigger but what do I know?
Exactly Sunday but I am guessing they knew the licenses sold so go to the US Fish And wildlife historical licenses sales page And look at 2012 and do the numbers and you will see how far off that guy was with his numbers on hunter density and how close we were and are to PA with no clue to landowner hunters in 2012. Really make me wonder where these so called experts writing these numbers get their info from.
I did look numbers and got very similiar to Kip Adams.
I couldn't find sq. miles of deer habitat so I just used square miles.
