I am part of the problem....

[Mtrimble]

If I search my own conscience, almost everything you said applies to me with whitetails in Ohio. “Getting a buck” often becomes a near obsession. Probably the very emotions that drive us to do this in the first place are also driving us to bring the cause to an end.

I’m also thinking we personalize our successes too much. Killing a really big specimen, sometimes differs very little from killing a lesser buck, or even a doe. It’s not like we grew the antlers or survived a number of hunting seasons in order to grow that rack. Patient hunters, with restraint, harvest most of the high quality bucks, but there’s also luck involved. In the East, it’s really being in the right stand, on the day.

 

[elkrchr]

To each their own, but I defintiely find myself thinking like the OP now. There's only so much room on the wall or in the rafters for antlers, so anymore it's a cow elk for me to fill the freezer along with a couple whitetail does. I recently bought a .35 Remington Model 141 that I'm dearly looking forward to deer hunting with next year. Probably a mid to late 1940's rifle with a peep sight. I can't wait to drop the hammer on a river bottom whitetail with that gun using 200 grain Core-Lok's.

They say there are five stages hunters will progress through; 1) shooting, 2) limit, 3) trophy, 4) method and 5) sportsman. I believe I have progressed to the sportsman stage at this point. I to love big, mature forked horns!

 

[HandgunHunter]

I enjoy a big animal like everyone does. But I look more for the total experiance.
The stalk, the emotions that follow the kill, just the experience of the entire hunt.
To me there is more than horns that equal a trophy.

 

[brockel]

Haven’t killed a mule deer buck in 10 years. This year is looking like more of the same for me

 

[Western Traveler1]

I am surprised I share some of your thoughts without having consciously acknowledged it. I just returned from a mule deer hunt and here is
a piece of my posting;

Montana Limited Entry Mule Deer

I drew a Limited mule deer tag this year. A couple of members here know where. I was pretty excited when I was notified as it took years to draw. Finally for a change I wouldn’t need to travel out of state to have a decent shot of a representative buck. From the beginning that was my goal. I had...

www.hunttalk.com

We had established a few things we wanted to find in a deer. Mass, no broken tines, developed eye guards and character. We glassed up a lot of deer, both in the open areas and amongst the jack pines. Bucks were rubbing trees, fighting and posturing running off the smaller. Some of the tallest we saw had a very narrow distance between tines or something broken. The tallest we saw was a 3X3 and a pass. The widest we saw looked to be a younger deer with little mass and also a pass. We saw a gorgeous 4X4 that was heavy, no broken tines and had character but was only about 20” wide. He was a maybe.

I realize with your posting that based on results I don’t shoot younger mule deer. A part of that is the fact that I can eat alfalfa or barley fed whitetail but we don’t have the big mule deer population nearby like it used to be either.
We do have a game check station in our town and I see small Mule deer being checked in all the time. A couple small bucks I saw last week made me think “crap, why did you shoot those?” but I don’t judge the hunters as I remember how difficult it was starting out just to find a deer to shoot on public ground and I think it is important for hunters to experience success often enough to stick around in this lifestyle. I have eaten plenty of tags having passed up animals I could have killed I guess for some of the reasons you mentioned.
The ranchers in the GMU I just returned from closed hunting for mule deer for the most part years ago because they don’t agree with the management practices in their area.

 

[JLS]

I hope my decision to shoot or not shoot an animal never hinges upon the difference of a few numbers.

 

[The Hedgehog]

that’s a lot of typing to say you had buyer’s remorse.

 

[Washington Hunter]

I hunt partly because I like to eat wild game. I sure wouldn't say I'm part of the problem if I decide to shoot a buck that's not a "trophy" buck. If too many deer are being killed each year, it's up to the state to reduce that number, either by shortening seasons or somehow limiting the number of hunters.

 

[DANGLER]

that’s a lot of typing to say you had buyer’s remorse.

Your not wrong..... but wasn't exactly buyers remorse on the size of one deer..... more like remorse for the reasons I pulled the trigger at all.

 

[noharleyyet]

Introspection is a big part of my hunting experience but whether I kill and what it grades hardly moves the needle.

 

[KipCarson]

This problem seems almost universal in the hunting world. Finding the balance between opportunity and trophy quality is nearly impossible. To get great age structure you’ve got to infringe on harvest opportunity, and with wide open harvest opportunities comes a lopsided age structure.
On my home ground I’m a “trophy hunter” who stays at odds with the “no matter what I’m filling all my buck tags” crowd. Some Private land helps give places for some age structure develop but most parcels are to small to not be affected by the neighbors. We’ve got all the opportunity you could want to fill freezers with does but apparently yearling bucks make people feel accomplished and good about themselves.
I understand the drive to fill tags, been there, done that, and I don’t begrudge those who do it with the right motives. Unfortunately most people around me are motivated to shoot the buck because if they don’t the next guy certainly will. And certainly don’t gripe to me about the lack of mature bucks while showing me your forkie. There are very few of us in the woods who are willing to leave tags unfilled. Until we figure out how for everyone to be happy I’ll just keep filling doe tags and maybe shoot a buck every few seasons if the right one comes along.

 

[Davetats51]

I’m 23 years old, I’ve grownup mostly in this time of technology were people kill deer for likes and feel “pressure“ to shoot something just so they can tell everyone they did. But for the life of me I cannot figure out why it is so hard for people to decide whether to shoot a deer or not! It’s crazy! If it gets you excited shoot it! If it doesn’t then don’t! If you need meat then shoot the first one you see, if you want a trophy then wait for a big one! More and more people are shooting deer based on what they think other people are going to think about them and it honestly really dumb and is taking a lot of joy out of something that any body should be able to love.

 

[EYJONAS!]

I'll jump on the bandwagon. Maybe together we can all #makemtmuledeerhuntinggreatagain.

Killed my first deer in 5 years last night.... the F350 really packs a punch on rutting whitetail bucks.... needless to say I was not impressed as my tranny cooler was basically gone.

 

[mtmuley]

I'll jump on the bandwagon. Maybe together we can all #makemtmuledeerhuntinggreatagain.

Killed my first deer in 5 years last night.... the F350 really packs a punch on rutting whitetail bucks.... needless to say I was not impressed as my tranny cooler was basically gone.

Get a salvage tag? mtmuley

 

[EYJONAS!]

Get a salvage tag? mtmuley

Wasnt much left.....

 

[efw]

Never killed a mulie and never hunted Montana, but for those eating tag soup what about whitetail?

I got one love the excuse to get outside and get after it. Don’t know why but backpacking doesn’t fuel the drive like a tag and rifle in the fall even when I know there’s almost no chance I’ll fill/use em.

 

[JLS]

I'll jump on the bandwagon. Maybe together we can all #makemtmuledeerhuntinggreatagain.

Killed my first deer in 5 years last night.... the F350 really packs a punch on rutting whitetail bucks.... needless to say I was not impressed as my tranny cooler was basically gone.

Brush guard.

 

[EYJONAS!]

Brush guard.

A wise investment indeed

 

[Pucky Freak]

I support 4-pt restrictions for MD and WT anywhere they can be implemented (or 3-pt in places with poor dirt), and it is up to us to ask for these rules to go in to place. The total number of bucks taken would not be dramatically lower, and it seems point restrictions continue to enjoy wider support over time with the exception of the new field-to-fork movement.

I have never understood the pressure for a hunter to fill a tag just to fill it. I have a goal of what buck I want to kill before I head out and the only reasons I will take a smaller one is if my freezer is empty or I see a buck that gets my heart pounding. This has resulted in me never having shot a 2-year-old buck, and in the last 13 seasons I killed one 1-year-old. I've passed on many dozens of bucks over the years because seeing them did not raise my pulse - I would have regretted killing any of them, including a swaybacked pot-bellied WT at 8 yards because I was holding out for a different animal at the time.

 

[thusby]

...this is where ethical hunting arguments just start to get weird.