100% my opinion - and I can only speak for myself and my area - which would be way down the list of potential trophy areas, but I hear SO MANY hunters managing for quality (trophy deer for here) who blame their neighbors on shooting all the 125/135” deer - which they do shoot a lot.- and again - speaking of my area - I had nine mature bucks on my properties last year that I guessed - or had past history with - that were at least five years old and none of them would have scored 150 - and never will. Most would not have broke 140. The two we killed scored upper 130’s and 108 I believe. Not nearly about all the deer will ever make 150 - even if they died of old age. I had one additional younger deer - 3 or 4 yr old - that was probably close to 140. Out of ten deer - one has a chance of making a 150.
I live for my family and to manage my ground. One of the pinnacles of my success is to grow a 150” deer on “my”’400 acres. I say on my 400 acres, knowing that deer would probably be visiting at least 20 other properties during the course of season. Many of these folks own less land than I do. As much as I would like all my area neighbors to pass every mature deer for me and my hunters to shoot or pass - I also dont feel it is realistic to think folks who own 50 or 80 acres of land, with kids, wives, granddads, and grandkids hunting - should pass every potential trophy buck. There is so much more to deer hunting than a set of antlers.
About 15 years ago - I was strictly a bow hunter, detested crossbows and bait, dog runners were the devil. Even contacted our G&F quite a bit - to the point the state deer bio and his assistant and the area biologist all came over to my place one day for a look around. They even admitted there were some regulation short comings - but were quite adamant they could not set perfect regulations for every corner of every county. They told me I should probably develop more reasonable expectations.
I still fought it for a few years, I retired and moved to my land, and also started having a grand daughter or two get interested in hunting. My views started to change a little bit also. It became blatantly obvious to me, what I had been wanting, was my land to be enclosed in a vacuum - immune from outside activities - totally affected by my hand only. It was like hitting in a batting cage where I controlled the pitching machine.
It became obvious to me that a much greater accomplishment was to grow that rare big deer in an uncontrolled environment. Where I had 15 adjacent land owners - many of whom were hunting for meat - a 2 yr old and 5 yr old buck was all the same in their eyes. Baiting was the standard. A crossbow at the back door to take that back yard buck. All the same if old Fido ran a deer through the yard. If you produce quality bucks in this environment, you have done something. You got out of the batting cage and stepped up to the plate with Nolan Ryan pitching.
I have embraced that attitude - and I enjoy my land and hunting much more. I take it as a challenge. I think a lot of land owners are not realistic about what their land will produce because they have this idea going in what they can make of their land if they stay in the batting cage - but fail to ACCEPT in a real game, there are pitchers throwing 100 mph, bad hops, seeing eye singles, bad calls - all these things totally outside your control.
Be realistic about what you can control and dont worry so much about what you cant - it is all part of the playing field.
