Definitely, to each their own! I’m nobody to tell another person what to shoot or what I think they should shoot.
To answer the first question. All most no one, and I would not expect hunters to or pass judgement on anyone that shot the buck when he was smaller. To the second question, most people can not tell the difference between a 160 and a 200 in the field, much less a deer like this where he is better than 190 with the earlier set and and 10 inches bigger on the latter. However if the two bucks were standing sided by side even the most inexperienced eye would think you were looking at father and son. The larger antler is better on mass, spread and height.
We have bigger issues with the mule deer herd in Montana than trophy bucks at present.
I agree with your post except this part is confusing.In my hypothesis if Co cuts tags 15% total, changes season to 3 weeks earlier for all seasons, and goes to 90-10% (@Foldem), so as not to put too much pressure on resident allocation well in 5 years we would be exceeding b/c bucks produced in the “golden age”……..
Whats the problem with making a guy decide if he want to hunt with a bow or muzzy or rifle?
Because it's a huge huge huge loss of opportunity. I don't believe the rifle hunt causes over harvest in most cases. Especially in Idaho. Rut hunts in open country with lots of access are the exception. I enjoy archery and rifle hunting both. Why choose? Hasn't worked in the liberal states that do it. Increased predator harvest should always come before decreasing hunter harvest by slashing opportunity.
No, it’s not. If the season is open, the opportunity is not lost. Hunting with a bow is still hunting.
Hate to break it to you but there are unlimited wolf tags with a $2000 bounty where I live and 2 cougar and black bear tags available otc. I think it is naive to think that predators affect the deer population more than humans do. And dont make this about politics. I dont care if you are red or blue if you hunt and you care about ungulate populations you are on my team.
Actually Utah did a thorough study on mortality in Mule Deer and for most of their units predators were the number 1 cause. You're wrong about the bounty too. I assume you're referring to F4WM's reimbursement program. I have read your posts, and categorically disagree with your conclusions. We'll leave it at that.
I currently have the opportunity to hunt multiple weapons all over the state. If I must choose one weapon then it's a huge loss of opportunity. That's not debatable.
The wolves have been the biggest contributor to ungulate populations in a lot of areas in MT and ID.
Whats incorrect about the $2000 dollar bounty program for most of central idaho? And if you look closer at that utah study, predation changes dramatically unit to unit. Also, if im not mistaken there is another utah study where removing alpha toms from a landscape actually can increase the cougar population because they either remove(kill) competing cougars or displace them into entirely different units. If there is not an alpha in a given area the cougar population can accelerate before one eventually takes over.
It may be a loss of opportunity for success, but it’s not a loss of opportunity to hunt.
I do think that management for trophy deer is can be effective at producing larger bucks and older age classes. I just think that the gains are either marginal or not worth the lost opportunity. Limited entry hunts will probably always have a place either as special opportunities in the rut or early season, or in places where escapement is too low to support general seasons. Those would be site specific and case by case.
One of the reasons why I think Idaho has been successful with our OTC general season is that we moved the hunt into one of if not the most difficult time of year to find bucks; mid-October. Holding the general season in mid-October decreased hunter success rates and increased buck escapement without reducing hunter opportunity.
I don't think we are at the point of needing to choose our weapon or unit in Idaho. I would also caution against shortening the season too much because that would concentrate hunters in the field at the same time, increasing perceived and real crowding. Yes deer numbers are down in Idaho and that creates a perception that too many deer are being killed but hunting isn't the cause. Hunter numbers in Idaho have gone down for the last 5 years in response to the reduced deer herd. That's the beauty of OTC seasons, a lot of hunters just sit out when the hunting gets tough but they will be back when numbers go back up.
It's not so much that I am advocating for higher quotas and more general seasons as I am advocating against having more limited entry seasons. I am reacting to the constant calls for more tag limits when I think those solutions don't address our current situation.
You already responded to a comment that would have matched mine but I will just say that my point is that the cost of managing for bucks older than 4.5 is not worth it in my eyes. It requires making hundreds of hunters sit out so that a few dozen hunters can shoot a deer that is marginally bigger. I didn't intend to give the idea that I think bucks peak at 4.5 years old. Some do and some don't. Some bucks never break 150 inches no matter how long they live. Some can be 180 inches at 3.5 years old.
This is an example of the cost of trophy management that I think goes too far. They have to get 10 deer to age 5 in order to get 2 deer to live to age 8. There are a lot of good bucks dying along the way of natural causes and a lot of lost opportunity for people to get out and hunt so that 2 people can kill a giant.
I have to ask what you mean by sustainable. Current low deer numbers are not the result of unsustainable hunting pressure. High deer numbers are unsustainable when heavy winters come along and kill them in large numbers. As long as we have winterkill we will need to understand that deer populations will continue to rise and fall. Treating every dip in population as an emergency that requires drastic management changes is not helpful. In Idaho hunter numbers seem to rise and fall naturally with the deer herd. There are nearly 20,000 fewer deer hunters pressuring our herd now than there were 5 years ago and we didn't have to create any limited entry hunts or choose your unit/weapon to do it. (We did eliminate most antlerless opportunity)
