Let them grow?

[AHayes111]

My personal belief is that passing on nice bucks is basically just grandstanding. If you don’t shoot that deer then someone else probably will. Stop acting like you are god and your almighty decision will change the future. Now we can encourage everyone to change their behavior and that would be effective but to be realistic that just won’t happen. If you want to make a difference then get involved in conservation and lobby your game commission to control harvest in a way to promote the growth of big deer.

Passing on nice bucks is a personal decision. Some times it works out, most of the time it doesn't. People should be able to shoot any buck they want. Just don't complain to me that you can not find a 180 if you can not lay off of a three year old 160.

 

[Scottf270]

I believe residents should kill what they want. But any non resident who pays $800 for a Montana deer tag, as an example, and says they hunt for the meat is full of crap.
If you get 100 lbs of meat out of a young buck, you're at $8.00 a lb without other expenses. Don't make excuses. Just say, " I payed a lot of money for this tag and I'm gonna kill something."

 

[cnelk]

 

[mt terry d]

45 # meat is what you’ll get off a decent buck around here if you don’t ruin any

 

[Hnthrdr]

45 # meat is what you’ll get off a decent buck around here if you don’t ruin any

I was gonna say on the couple of mature older bucks I’ve killed they both were 100 lbs + a bit hanging weight bone in quarters and scrap meat at the butcher. I deal with straps and loins on my own… so guys shooting a dink, you maybe get 60lbs of meat off him?

 

[WCB]

If the game management experts we employ at the cost of millions of dollars a year determine the herd in a certain area needs bucks of any size killed shouldn’t we kill them ?

maybe, maybe not. Sister's ranch in MT is now in an area highly restricting Mule Deer doe harvest because they expanded the unit. The new part of the unit yes 100% very few Mule Deer. The original area of the unit is loaded with mule deer and every year the ranchers are counting more on their land.

I personally see zero reason or have zero desire to shoot MD does BUT the MTFWP reason is because up in xyz part of the unit the mule deer are really low.

 

[nidahobrushswimmer]

It is all personal choice. For me it boils down to time. As my kids get older (I have five of them) and are hunting more themselves, I choose to spend more of my time taking them vs. hunting for myself. I shot a nice 5x6 whitetail the other day. Probably only a 3.5 yr old buck. Two things though; I only spent two days of my time off to fill both my tags, so now I get more than a weeks worth to take my kids. Also, do I believe 90% of the hunters in this unit would have killed that buck given the opportunity? Absolutely. I’m perfectly content shooting similar deer for myself until my kids are older or don’t want to hunt with dad anymore.

Edit: yes I know this thread is about mule deer but I think it applies to really any deer/elk conservation.

 

[manitou1]

20,000. That’s funny

True... I think it was more just shy of 18,000 NR tags issued.

 

[manitou1]

I have confidence that this is not happening in SE MT. Guess it depends on what a person considers a great buck.

I do, as a resident and heve never drawn a LE deer tag to date.

 

[TaperPin]

Keeping the low life poachers out of the winter range would help big deer more than most folks know. We can’t pick them out of a crowd, can’t shoot ‘em for driving a country road, so all we can do is hope they do something stupid and get caught, or I’d be ok if they get really drunk and asphyxiate on their own puke. #PukeForABetterWorld

 

[Jethro]

True... I think it was more just shy of 18,000 NR tags issued.

I believe you. Not sure we'd notice 20k. PA already sells 50k+ NR licenses.

 

[mt terry d]

maybe, maybe not. Sister's ranch in MT is now in an area highly restricting Mule Deer doe harvest because they expanded the unit. The new part of the unit yes 100% very few Mule Deer. The original area of the unit is loaded with mule deer and every year the ranchers are counting more on their land.

I personally see zero reason or have zero desire to shoot MD does BUT the MTFWP reason is because up in xyz part of the unit the mule deer are really low.

Actually the primary reason is $$$$.
I was pointing out how our “wildlife managers” really aren’t managing our wildlife; not like a farmer manages his cattle or crops. They’re managing their jobs and their job security. < that’s a period.

 

[mt terry d]

I was gonna say on the couple of mature older bucks I’ve killed they both were 100 lbs + a bit hanging weight bone in quarters and scrap meat at the butcher. I deal with straps and loins on my own… so guys shooting a dink, you maybe get 60lbs of meat off him?

I was gonna say on the couple of mature older bucks I’ve killed they both were 100 lbs + a bit hanging weight bone in quarters and scrap meat at the butcher. I deal with straps and loins on my own… so guys shooting a dink, you maybe get 60lbs of meat off him?

Post 9183 in the 223 for moose, etc thread has a picture of one I took last week. Just a “used to be” average central MT four point mulie. Field dressed @150#. Got him out whole and butchered in my garage. No more than a pound or two lost max. 45# meat. And I don’t mean bones or packaging or added beef tallow or whatever a processing plant sends you. Pure trimmed clean fat free meat.
A few posts after the one referenced above is one my wife
took; I’d call that a dink. Zero meat wasted. Closer to 40# pure meat.

 

[manitou1]

I believe you. Not sure we'd notice 20k. PA already sells 50k+ NR licenses.

Wow... I had no idea PA was such a draw. Crazy. You aren't referring to elk apps?

 

[Jethro]

Wow... I had no idea PA was such a draw. Crazy. You aren't referring to elk apps?

NR Gen hunting licenses are over 50k. Of course not everyone of them maybe hunting deer.

Not sure I've ever seen a NR elk application #. We do get 50k+ people applying for elk Res and NR. Each person can apply for any/all of our 3 seasons, so # of actual applications is >100k. Approx 140 tags available.

 

[KHNC]

20,000. That’s funny

Yep, 500000 PA hunters been shooting dinks for years! #brownitsdown

 

[Jethro]

Yep, 500000 PA hunters been shooting dinks for years! #brownitsdown

You'd be surprised. We've evolved into a much more sophisticated bunch over the last 20 years

 

[Rich M]

My personal belief is that passing on nice bucks is basically just grandstanding. If you don’t shoot that deer then someone else probably will. Stop acting like you are god and your almighty decision will change the future. Now we can encourage everyone to change their behavior and that would be effective but to be realistic that just won’t happen. If you want to make a difference then get involved in conservation and lobby your game commission to control harvest in a way to promote the growth of big deer.

If you stop thinking that passing on a small buck is akin to pmaying God, you might get a big one one of these days.

So here we have the mighty muley hunters saying, shoot more little bucks - and does. We dont need more deer. The herds are within the biologists population numbers and just came out of a bad winter. Whack em all.

Y’all definitely have diff values than i was instilled with. I’m willing to eat a tag and prmote a species. Others just want to shoot chit and thump the chest over a dink on social media. I shot it so you woukln’t have to “hoo-ah!”

Amazing there are any left between the shoot em all and the biologists giving out that wany tags. Novreal interest in increasing the numbers.

 

[LostWapiti]

If you stop thinking that passing on a small buck is akin to pmaying God, you might get a big one one of these days.

So here we have the mighty muley hunters saying, shoot more little bucks - and does. We dont need more deer. The herds are within the biologists population numbers and just came out of a bad winter. Whack em all.

Y’all definitely have diff values than i was instilled with. I’m willing to eat a tag and prmote a species. Others just want to shoot chit and thump the chest over a dink on social media. I shot it so you woukln’t have to “hoo-ah!”

Amazing there are any left between the shoot em all and the biologists giving out that wany tags. Novreal interest in increasing the numbers.

I do pass on lots of deer thanks. I just don't thump my chest all over social media telling everyone about the deer I passed on and how I'm better than them because of it. I just shoot deer that make me happy when the science says it supports it.

The tricky bit is that actually shooting bucks creates more deer. More deer creates more potential bucks. You don't want to have 50 bucks per 100 does or the does and the fawns will be pushed off feed. If you keep your buck numbers below 20:100 you can have a lot more does on the landscape which can in turn create a lot more deer. Even the most heavily hunted OTC units can and do turn out huge bucks.

I'd love to see 190" deer behind every tree as much as anyone and if there was evidence that supported a way to create that then I would be for it. I think that closing some units to mature deer for a couple years on a rotating schedule would be awesome. Issue a controlled number of tags to let people shoot some of the smaller bucks but 4 points are off limits for 2 or 3 years then open the unit back up. You should still have healthy buck to doe ratios and a lot of really nice deer. If you do it right I think you could ull it off without having a missing age class but that would be a risk if not well managed. If yo really want to see a successful deer program and see places turning out big bucks consistently it would take careful management like this. Like I said before, asking people not to shoot small bucks will never work at scale because for a lot of people a 150-160" deer is an absolute giant and they would never pass on it.

The other tricky bit on passing smaller bucks (150") is a lot of deer will never get much bigger than that or the "small 4 point" you just passed on is actually a 7 year old deer. A lot of bucks will be their biggest at 3 or 4 years.