I think sometimes we forget that rokslide represents a tiny portion of the general hunting population. The vast majority of people aren’t rokslide “crazy” about hunting. They wait for their tag, go hunt, shoot the first 3 point along the side of the road, and go home happy. The more I hear about BOALS, stolen antlers, naming target bucks, following bucks around all summer, poaching, etc, the more I think the guy shooting a 3 point and going home thrilled has it figured out…In many areas, especially WY lately, point creep is making it quite the investment of money and time to get a chance to hunt. Do you think that as the investment to hunt increases people are more likely to hold out for a bigger buck/bull thus increasing the over all quality of the units?
For sure.I think sometimes we forget that rokslide represents a tiny portion of the general hunting population. The vast majority of people aren’t rokslide “crazy” about hunting. They wait for their tag, go hunt, shoot the first 3 point along the side of the road, and go home happy. The more I hear about BOALS, stolen antlers, naming target bucks, following bucks around all summer, poaching, etc, the more I think the guy shooting a 3 point and going home thrilled has it figured out…
That's a different question and completely independent to the overall quality of animals in that unit. I can't tell you how many times I've heard something along the lines of "I used 25 points to draw ZZZ tag and never saw a bull over 250". I hunted a unit a few years ago, and met a few guys in there that had NR ML tags. It was a 2 point resident archery tag (so no overinflated expectations). But it was almost a 20 point NR ML tag. Do you think those guys that used that many points to draw the tag had higher expectations? You bet they did.......and they left pretty disappointed.As units take more points will expectations rise? That was my question.
I waited 6 years and while I did kill the animal on the 1st day of season it was the 7th day I was there. I could have maybe held out for a bigger animal. There are certainly bigger in there but I think I would have had to get pretty lucky.
This kinda goes back to my original thought. I set an expectation and I found an animal that met that. We all have our own expectations. As units take more points will expectations rise? That was my question. I get it that if everyone holds out to the last day for big animals that more will get killed. I guess my perception is that then there would be more young animals growing up.
Nailed it. The majority of hunters just want to fill a tag. Sure they would rather shoot a trophy but few actually have the skill set required to consistently do that. So they take what they can get, and that usually happens to be a dink off the road.I think sometimes we forget that rokslide represents a tiny portion of the general hunting population. The vast majority of people aren’t rokslide “crazy” about hunting. They wait for their tag, go hunt, shoot the first 3 point
That's a different question and completely independent to the overall quality of animals in that unit. I can't tell you how many times I've heard something along the lines of "I used 25 points to draw ZZZ tag and never saw a bull over 250". I hunted a unit a few years ago, and met a few guys in there that had NR ML tags. It was a 2 point resident archery tag (so no overinflated expectations). But it was almost a 20 point NR ML tag. Do you think those guys that used that many points to draw the tag had higher expectations? You bet they did.......and they left pretty disappointed.