Is There a Line?

[robby denning]

Question I have is what are the odds of spouses drawing OIL moose tags? Let alone in the same year?

Lol I see stuff like that in ND every year and can't help but think there's fishy stuff going on.

Feel like every year I see at least a dozen posts for a ND Elk/Moose OIL tag "First time applying" "My dad AND I drew the same unit" etc etc. I don't see how the odds even allow it when 20k people apply for 40-70 bull tags.

I'd attribute it to the mountain of applications put in on behalf of kids/ spouses. When I worked in the hunt consulting business, I was quickly educated on how many dads (Gpa's, uncles, etc.) are applying the entire family. No laws or ethics broken, but something to note when you see a portion of tags going to first-timers/spouses. The math says that should be happening.

 

[robby denning]

Also i've volunteered at the local soup kitchen quite a bit as one of my friends from high school is a pastor at the church that runs it here. The shot placement is usually horrible, the gut jobs are piss poor to abismal, and usually the meat has sat for quite a bit of time in the bed of a pickup truck in warm temperatures before it ever got dropped off. Although its not always the case it is most certainly the majority of the animals that get dropped off.

I haven't donated a meat to a shelter in a long time, but here in SE Idaho, it had to come professionally processed and wrapped to qualify for donation, surely because of what you wrote.

 

[NDGuy]

I'd attribute it to the mountain of applications put in on behalf of kids/ spouses. When I worked in the hunt consulting business, I was quickly educated on how many dads (Gpa's, uncles, etc.) are applying the entire family. No laws or ethics broken, but something to note when you see a portion of tags going to first-timers/spouses. The math says that should be happening.

For sure, that definitely happens whether grandma and the kids want to lol

I just think the odds of 2 people out of several thousand applying for 30-60 tags being in the same family, the same year is astronomical. Just like 2 of the Big Horn tags drawn in ND the last two years were by very very rich ND farmers....I am sure it's rare to have foul play but makes you wonder..


Granted maybe I am mostly just jealous and bitter lol

 

[ArrowForester]

As a landowner, I consider myself a steward. I haven't killed a deer on my property in 4 years.

Some of my bordering neighbors who live on 2 acres and dump corn piles right next to my property line are not stewards of anything except their fecal matter, and I'm sure they appreciate my trigger control, as well as not selling out to a developer to build a subdivision. One day I will sell out, and they won't have anymore deer to shoot, but until then, I continue to try and protect young bucks and create a sanctuary for does.

Saying the state set the limits so we can shoot our limit and not worry is an ignorant view. I live in an area with a density of 12 deer per square mile. But we have 7 families of humans who live in that square mile. If only 1 person per family is a hunter, with a 12 deer per year limit, where are the 84 (7 hunters x limit of 12 deer) deer going to come from? You have to use your brain and not abuse the resource.

There’s always a line. It’s seldom straight. And it doesn’t stay in the same place.

It really depends on where you live. Take areas in the east that are over populated with whitetail. I have had the game department hand me 30 tags.


Try having a 35 acre bean field that you don't harvest because it won't pay for the combine to run thru it.

I don't consume that much of the venison I shoot, but it is consumed. I have a list of people who want it.

There is a lot of great input and response on this thread.
The three quotes above seem to really hit the nail for me, as well as the mentions of not wasting the meat from your kills.

To illustrate KSP277's "moving line" you can compare and contrast Doc Holliday's quote with Billy Goats input. I will also offer my own example. I too am a landowner and I am a professional forester. I consider myself a steward of the resources here on "my" property and on the properties of those that I manage resources for, and on the public lands that I hunt in the east and west. I hunt and kill according to the context of each.

I only have 25 acres but had no qualms killing three productive whitetail does on my place this year. Would have been four if I hadn't missed with an arrow last week and I will try again this weekend. I am purposely targeting the productive does and have passed several immature bucks.

Toward the end of gun season I sat on the hill and thought about it. In the month of November I know of, and can confirm, 20 deer killed within a 2 mile radius of my house. With the amount of shooting that I heard, the number of neighboring hunters that I don't communicate with regularly and the amount of time that I am not here, I feel very confident that my confirmed 20 is only half of the kill in that 2 mile radius. While thinking this through in the last 30 minutes of shooting light I saw 19 deer come out of the woods into the open fields to feed. And the next morning I visited a farm within a mile and saw 13 deer that I would not have seen last evening. I know of two deer-vehicle collisions nearby within the past week.

I feel like I could kill several more deer this year without wasting any meat and without crossing the line. We have too many deer for the habitat and the community to support without negative impacts on the resources.

At the same time I have a neighbor that shoots at deer just to shoot and kill stuff. He mentors others in this philosophy as well. I think he crosses the line even though we kill similar amounts of game in the same habitat. That may be a different line though and gets deeper into the ethics and lines of wanton waste rather than resource management.

 

[lif]

I was 6 years old shooting at everything thing in sight with my red rider BB gun, when I finally got my first kill. A little tweety bird. I cried a little about it. My dad consoled me for a few minutes to calm me down and explain a short version of life and death. After I calmed down he said the most important words ever spoke to me about hunting: “Never shoot anything you are not going to eat.” Now I know it’s definitely not that simple, and there are many exceptions to that statement, but not a bad place to start the answer of the OPs question. I have to admit it does bother me a little when guys on here start threads about how they don’t like the taste of mule deer and how to fix the smell of it. Mule deer are struggling universally in the west and it sucks to know people are shooting them for a picture and a set of antlers.

 

[boom]

post like this.

universal answer. we all have our own lines. the trouble begins when someone thinks your line is in the wrong place. .

you do you bud. i hunt like a vegan sometimes, but not by choice. my animals are really really smart.

 

[Broomd]

Question I have is what are the odds of spouses drawing OIL moose tags? Let alone in the same year?

Lol I see stuff like that in ND every year and can't help but think there's fishy stuff going on.

Feel like every year I see at least a dozen posts for a ND Elk/Moose OIL tag "First time applying" "My dad AND I drew the same unit" etc etc. I don't see how the odds even allow it when 20k people apply for 40-70 bull tags.

They submitted a 'party' tag whereby they both drew the tags.

 

[NDGuy]

They submitted a 'party' tag whereby they both drew the tags.

Makes sense, I am surprised they allow that. Very cool though.

 

[BigBadJohn]

The line is set by the state game & fish agencies. As far as a psychological line every sportsman has to make that call on their own.

 

[Broomd]

Yeah, it's sad. The ancestors of that individual sustained John Smith and the dudes through their first winters at Jamestown. There are few, if any, natural resources that are more intimately connected to the history of our country.

Just sharing with the hopes that lessons can be learned.

That really is an incredible story. I (wrongly) assumed that stripers were planted or supplemented ala the great lakes salmon/steelhead... But to think they were an indigenous resource 'trophy pic'd' to oblivion is simply shameful.

See BigBadJohn's posting above in relation to those erased stripers to see why F&G isn't always the good steward of our resource that we expect. They might be the final arbiter legally, but sometimes 'the line' falls on us as sportsmen (or in your scenario, fishermen) to save, or property manage, a resource.

Sometimes less is more.

 

[Opah]

I am a Meat hunter. it all goes in the freezer, but I would love to have some exotic meat:
alligator tail, Cougar, Big Bear Griz, Ostridge ect
But as for the common meats as long as it goes into the freezer and is taken legal it's all good

 

[5MilesBack]

All the people saying they donate their wild game need to take a look in the freezers of the homeless shelters or soup kitchens they are donating it too.

I would never give any of my game meat to the homeless shelters. I give it to families that I know will appreciate it and like eating it. When I got my moose this year I was inundated with folks I know who were interested in meat. My freezers were down to two packages of elk before this season, so not much moose was handed out.

 

[Broomd]

I would never give any of my game meat to the homeless shelters. I give it to families that I know will appreciate it and like eating it. When I got my moose this year I was inundated with folks I know who were interested in meat. My freezers were down to two packages of elk before this season, so not much moose was handed out.

Congrats, I didn't see a moose posting from you, I'll look that forum over.

 

[npm352]

I hunt hard with whatever tags I have and I don't waste meat. I have four kids, a wife and plenty of people in my life who I share with. Last year I got a bull bison on a draw tag, two mule deer (one was my wife's), two antelope, as well as several wild sheep and a hog on two Hawaiian islands. There were a couple of roasts left and some grind scraps when archery elk started this year. We eat a ton and have two big freezers. I also help a lot of people fill their tags.

If it is legal and not wasted, I have no line.

I can't stand the whole, "you've gotten enough and you shot my elk when you didn't need to and now I have to go home empty handed because of your greed" Quit complaining. Get over it. If there are tags there is game. 15% of guys probably get 85% of the game year after year. If you want that elk or deer then quit complaining and blaming successful hunters and hunt harder and better than them.

 

[5MilesBack]

Congrats, I didn't see a moose posting from you, I'll look that forum over.

I didn't make a specific thread, but it's hidden in some other threads like "BH's for moose" etc. I also got a sheep this year too. Two OIL tags in the same year. No thread for that one either....LOL.

 

[ToolMann]

Great topic and interesting to read all of the replies. My wife and I (and my 20 year old son when I can drag him out) are meat hunters. Legal bulls, cows, doe deer, smaller bucks if the last day and we need the meat. We butcher and process all of our own game meat. That said, we've had the conversation during hunts when a tag was filled but we had more to go. We decided to keep hunting although the tag went unfilled. Our conversation was about greed. Were we being greedy if we took another elk. It would have topped off our freezer with a half elk to spare. Since our neighbor would gladly consume it, we figured why not. I can only hope that each year I have to stop and ask myself that same question, because that means my freezer is in good shape.

 

[hutty]

I truly think it depends on where you are hunting and what the legal bag limits are. Last five years I've hunted out west. I make sure my game freezer is empty before I go. IF I get something out west I know how much more I'll need when I'm back home in the east. I love to cook and make all kinds of dishes from squirrel to elk so I am adding rabbit, duck, goose, and sika deer.

I also have a large group of friends and people I know if the local community that love venison. We have crop damage for the farm we hunt and 5 of us average 40-50 doe a year. We do that to manage the population and try to limit the crop damage. We have light hunting pressure on adjoining farms, and those around us are mostly horn hunters.

I can say I am happy when people come by and grab a deer or two out of the walk in. The local AME church picks them up and gives them to those who need a little help. I can honestly say we never have a problem getting rid of the deer and work hard to manage the resource.

 

[Broomd]

I didn't make a specific thread, but it's hidden in some other threads like "BH's for moose" etc. I also got a sheep this year too. Two OIL tags in the same year. No thread for that one either....LOL.

Wow, that nuts. What a great year! Yer on the down low.
My wife and I both drew OIL in Idaho in '09, her for mnt goat, me for Cali bighorn, so I know lightening can hit twice in the same place.
In '11 I drew Goat in AK and ID. If makes for a busy sked for sure.

 

[unclericco]

I’ve hunted my whole life, and I love to eat wild game meat ALOT. I could eat 2 mule deer per year and I go without because I can’t draw tags some years. 1 elk is perfect for a year. But I gotta wonder why anyone would need more than that.

 

[Comerade]

I was 6 years old shooting at everything thing in sight with my red rider BB gun, when I finally got my first kill. A little tweety bird. I cried a little about it. My dad consoled me for a few minutes to calm me down and explain a short version of life and death. After I calmed down he said the most important words ever spoke to me about hunting: “Never shoot anything you are not going to eat.” Now I know it’s definitely not that simple, and there are many exceptions to that statement, but not a bad place to start the answer of the OPs question. I have to admit it does bother me a little when guys on here start threads about how they don’t like the taste of mule deer and how to fix the smell of it. Mule deer are struggling universally in the west and it sucks to know people are shooting them for a picture and a set