Non-Resident Western Hunters…No, I’m not wanting your OnX pins.

[Buglebrush]

I was hunting a few days ago. Ran into a nonres hunter who had just smoked a very small 3 point from his sxs. He proceeded to tell me that he had been hunting the area we were in for 8 years now. They had 10 tag holders in camp this year and 1 fork and 2 small 3 points had already been killed that trip. He expressed frustration to me about how when they first started hunting there, there were lots of big bucks around but now they were lucky to find anything bigger than a small 3 point.

He told me that all he had seen up until that moment were 2 points (a whole day into his trip) and he decided to shoot him when he saw him. He was downplaying the size of it and was trying to justify its size at the same time. A grown ass man that drove 3 states over to shoot a 2.5 yo deer from your sxs. Are you proud of that??

I left that conversation feeling very frustrated. Do these people not understand? If they roll in there and all 10 hunters (just in that camp, let alone all the other camps) shoot the very first young immature buck they see that there won’t be any bucks to grow up. He answered his own question but was too stupid to realize it.

Unbelievable. Don’t be that guy.

I'm a non-resident that is hunting Montana this year, but won't pull the trigger on anything less than 150", so it's not all nonresidents. Sadly I have seen the same issue though.