Lost a Big Boy This Week

[HighDesertSage]

We've got about 230 acres of pretty prime whitetail habitat at our IN place that we monitor and manage pretty well. Got an unpleasant surprise one morning this week while touring the perimeter. Laying right beside the road at one end was a great big velvet buck with a 50%+ rack developed, freshly hit by a car. He was going to be a big boy, already wider than his ears, 5" brow tines, great mass, and looked like potential for some junk points.

No more trail cam pics of him

That sucks. I know how you feel. I really enjoy watching the bucks grow on my trailcam pics at my farm. It kind of tells a story. I let my kids name all the bucks. So far we got cowboy, splits, and spork.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I prefer to not know what the deer looks like until I see it for the first time during hunting season. Fair chase.

Otherwise, it's like a high fence hunt.

Are you tone deaf to how your posts are perceived or intentionally provocative?

 

[madtom]

Ok, I gave you all something to do while having your morning coffee. I knew the reaction would be like this.

I'm done now. No more posts from me.

I’m still waiting for the picture of you eating dinner that you promised me in the other thread

 

[SC Living Outdoors]

Are you tone deaf to how your posts are perceived or intentionally provocative?

Part of me thinks he's just yanking all of our chains. Part of me thinks he's being serious.

I do know if his goal was to push some guys buttons he was successful, haha.

 

[noharleyyet]

Part of me thinks he's just yanking all of our chains. Part of me thinks he's being serious.

I do know if his goal was to push some guys buttons he was successful, haha.

All of me thinks he mistook the chamberpot for the milk jug.

...on a Monday.

 

[RobertD]

That sucks. I know how you feel. I really enjoy watching the bucks grow on my trailcam pics at my farm. It kind of tells a story. I let my kids name all the bucks. So far we got cowboy, splits, and spork.

Awesome that you let your kids name the bucks.

 

[WATERMAG]

Always a bummer to find them like that. Got any pics?

 

[schmalts]

No, it isn't but it's not fair chase either.

Are you saying people chase and shoot deer with a trail camera? If you happen to scout an area in august and see a deer before the season starts do you pass it up when the season starts because it is not fair chase for you? LOL just kidding. Or am I? LOL

 

[Gerald Martin]

Are you saying people chase and shoot deer with a trail camera? If you happen to scout an area in august and see a deer before the season starts do you pass it up when the season starts because it is not fair chase for you? LOL just kidding. Or am I? LOL

If you know a certain deer exists before the day you shoot it it’s basically poaching.
If you name a deer, it’s almost like slapping your grandma.
Doing either while wearing a flat brim hat is second degree meat murder.

 

[Steiny]

Ok, I gave you all something to do while having your morning coffee. I knew the reaction would be like this.

I'm done now. No more posts from me.

That's good ..........

If improving habitat, providing security cover, providing some food & water sources, letting the deer multiply and get some age structure, then running a few trail cams to keep an eye on what is out there is unsporting, then I'm guilty as charged.

Guess I could do like most of the farmers around here and strip the land bare, plant crops road to road, harvest it all in the fall leaving a field of bare dirt till spring. I could then hunt that land claiming it was fair chase and feel better about myself.

 

[SAJ-99]

Interesting article. Might help understand why these deer “disappear” from summer to fall.
https://wildlife.org/deer-makes-epic-trip-across-missouri/#prettyPhoto

 

[geetar]

The way you can tell it’s a high fence hunt is if it has a high fence around it. Just sounds to me like 230 acres of prime whitetail habitat in Indiana.

 

[Gerald Martin]

The way you can tell it’s a high fence hunt is if it has a high fence around it. Just sounds to me like 230 acres of prime whitetail habitat in Indiana.

Sounds like 230 acres of opportunity to enjoy the process of watching what can happen when you don’t kill every buck before its third birthday.
Sounds like a style of wildlife interaction and hunting that allows a hunter to enjoy a deer through its known life more than just the kill.

To the OP, bummer about the disappointment of finding a big buck killed on the road.

 

[HighDesertSage]

If you know a certain deer exists before the day you shoot it it’s basically poaching.
If you name a deer, it’s almost like slapping your grandma.
Doing either while wearing a flat brim hat is second degree meat murder.

well shit, I guess I'm just a grandma slappin' poacher

 

[cahunter805]

Bummer about the roadkill buck.
Since my buddies and I have started running trail cameras and learning more about our local bucks we have killed only a handful of bucks. This is due to a variety of reasons but mostly due to age of the deer and also looking for a specific buck. In this time the population and number of bucks has also seemed to grow as well.

 

[3855WIN]

I prefer to not know what the deer looks like until I see it for the first time during hunting season. Fair chase.

Otherwise, it's like a high fence hunt.

If it was a high fence hunt, the buck wouldn’t have gotten hit by a car.

 

[RobertD]

The idea that seeing a deer before you kill it makes it like a high fence hunt just negates the whole idea of hunting the same buck multiple years. And that is one of the most fun parts of whitetail hunting.

I am looking forward to this fall, in part because I want to hunt a deer I saw on the last day of season. There ain't a fence in the whole county he can't hop over, either.

 

[Hammsolo]

I bet I scout more than most. I don't need cameras. Why do you think some states are going to outlaw them or already have.

Some take 400yd shots. Some sit in trees over bait. Do as you please because the kill is what's important right?

Go ahead and laugh. I am too.

This is the problem. A simple camera on a trail that you have to actively check is one thing… 200 cell phone cameras constantly relaying information… that is another. Where’s the line? We humans will take anything and over do it; night vision, drones…. Where’s the line for fair chase? I was reading an anthropological study on humans the other day. Our only physical advantage during the hunt is our endurance, and that’s it. Thank Gpd for our brain or we’d be f$cked. We evolved to hunt down animals for days to tire them out. I say we grab our animal skins, leaves and spear!!! That’s fair chase! Wait… can I have an expanding tip and glowing knock on my spear? Carbon fiber shaft….

 

[Slate]

I have had numerous bucks over the years on camera all summer long never to be seen during hunting season. I like watching them grow and don’t think it’s anything like high fence hunting. The picture is an example of one from last year that we didn’t kill

Same here.

 

[Slate]

I love trail cameras. Sorry to hear about the buck. I hate seeing any good eaten animal go to waste on the side of the road.