I can get to most if my camera sites undected. I got 60 yards away from the deer in that picture. I am not, in any way, talking about getting a text of a deer and immediately going after it like I would a hog. I could do that, but I dont. For deer, I use the text sending immediate pictures for patterning deer in an area I have already identified as my intended area, to locate potential ambush points just before my intended hunt window and allowing me to stay out of the area. I also use the real time data to help me keep from bumping a buck.
What is the mental dynamic involved
- Thread starter Howboutthemdawgs
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yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think that explains our different perspectives.
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
I think if my neighbors came to me asking me to join them, I guess being the ones that would say that own at least 2-4 times more land, and with large food plots, I would say let’s have things all equal then. Let me hunt your land, so I have the same opportunity to shoot these mature bucks. Otherwise being when only 1-2 year olds are the only ones to enter my land, but I can’t shoot them, but the “mature ones only go on their land, then it’s a no go.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
For anyone interested in learning, here is an article that supports the importance of shooting more does and how passing on younger bucks to allow them to reach maturity can improve herd health.
- Better doe to buck ration leads to more intense & shorter breeding cycle.
- A shorter more intense rut cycle reduces the longer rut cycle stress put on bucks that can improve their chances of surviving the rut.
- A shorter rut cycle leads to a shorter fawning period which can reduce predation effects that a long fawning cycle allows for.
If your deer densities are too low, deer harvest quotas will and probably should be addressed by the local DNR.
How Managing for Older (Bigger) Bucks Helps the Entire Deer Herd
- Better doe to buck ration leads to more intense & shorter breeding cycle.
- A shorter more intense rut cycle reduces the longer rut cycle stress put on bucks that can improve their chances of surviving the rut.
- A shorter rut cycle leads to a shorter fawning period which can reduce predation effects that a long fawning cycle allows for.
If your deer densities are too low, deer harvest quotas will and probably should be addressed by the local DNR.
How Managing for Older (Bigger) Bucks Helps the Entire Deer Herd
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sandbur
5 year old buck +
I always wonder if having endemic CWD throws all of this thinking out of the window. Perhaps low numbers of any adult deer produces the healthiest herd.
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yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Of course that is only possible with sufficient scale.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Yes, too high of deer numbers will promote disease & progression. Unfortunately disease is also a natural herd mgmt tool.
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Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
Hence having a mindset shift with the bulk of deer hunters. You don’t have to have 2000 acres if you have 2000 acres worth of people on a similar page.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Deer don't see property lines only hunters do. Large or land small owners are one of the predators in the mix across the land scape so scale is not relevant.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Absolutely. You either need regulations that support trigger control and encourage doe harvest or you can have a cooperative with adjoining properties, but you need that scale. When you have a few relatively large properties adjoining each other, cooperatives are somewhat easier. Also, the more cooperators know and trust each other the better.
For most, this is a pipe dream. You don't need to own it all and sometimes you don't need a formal coop. But you do need the scale. In our case, we have several neighbors that "cooperate" in one form or another. In one case, it is a 150 acre adjoining tract where the owners don't hunt and don't permit hunting. That becomes our QDM sanctuary that is only entered for tracking game. It is primarily pines and the owners don't leave the home area often so it is free of humans between logging operations. In other cases it is like minded neighbors. In still other cases, it is folks that only allow their son to hunt when he comes home for a Christmas week visit. It is far from perfect and still on the small side, but there is some evidence we are seeing modest but measurable results after about 15 years of QDM.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Nope, hunters are one of the biggest issues. If you are letting young bucks walk and your neighbor is shooting every young buck, you are not going to be effective in impacting age class. Scale is the most important thing for measurably successful QDM!
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
I still disagree. Scale can only be managed by agency approach. Each hunter can only control what they do, they have no control over other hunters. If that neighbor always shoots a young buck, and you decide not to, you have made an impact. Just like voting, it takes many individual decisions (votes) to ultimately impact the outcome.
Example being, I have worked with my 2 neighbors to very subtly lay the ground work for passing young bucks. Both constantly shot 2.5 year olds and 1 3.5 yo. I applied no pressure as that never works, just shared with them how I approach things and they know the results I have. This year the one neighbor shot a nice 154" 4.5 yo and 3 does. The other neighbor said to me in his deer shack, you know I thought about what you said regarding aging & estimating their horns on the hoof. The longer I looked at those bucks I couldn't make them any bigger so I passed and I took a doe instead. His daughter who is 15 took a great 6 pt basket rack, we all cheered for her as we want the youngsters to shoot what they want.
They all agree that we have way too many does even the farmer buddies. In addition to the buck pool jar, we now have a biggest doe pool jar.
Will it last, not sure. But they are now starting to rethink what they have historically done.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
It depends on the scale. You are right that large scale can only be managed by the state. Here, county is the finest granularity they manage. Medium scale can be managed by privately. An example of medium scale here would be a military base. They divide the bases into training areas and can manage at a finer scale. They can control the hunting on about 65K acres. Small scale might be a private property owner with 1,000 -to several thousand acres. They can control the hunting as well as have influence on the habitat. They can change their harvest criteria from one year to the next. It is a much finer level of management.
QDM falls apart a the micro level (a couple hundred acres). Most deer will range far beyond that on a regular basis. When neighboring property owners have conflicting management goals, much of the management reverts back to the agency level that limits what individuals can do.
Once again, scale comes into play. If your neighbor is shooting young bucks but doesn't allow others to hunt his land and only takes a tiny percent of the young bucks, he is having little impact on buck age. On the other hand, if you neighbor is public hunting land, or a farmer who lets anyone hunt his land to limit crop damage, and a high percentage of young bucks are killed each year it is a different story.
I like to think of it this way. Scale is important, but depending on the regulations, neighbors with different views of deer hunting can be unintentionally cooperating. For example, if the state only has 1 buck tag per year and the neighbor doesn't allow others to hunt, it doesn't matter what his view is of letting young bucks walk (as long as he follows the law). He may be unintentionally cooperating with you by not letting others hunt his land. For us, we have neighbors who don't permit hunting on their land...It becomes our QDM sanctuary.
So, it is not just the scale of what you do, but the scale of what your neighbors do if you don't own enough scale on your own.
But, we can always agree to disagree. Maybe a better way to put it is this. What is happening on scale on and around ones property has a direct impact on the success of QDM.
Thanks,
Jack
Angus 1895
5 year old buck +
Angus 1895
5 year old buck +
For several years we could purchase extra buck tags in Idaho.
we would have ” dink a thon” contests. The dink won the prize……I was legend!
I like to use the minnow bucket analogy……..
if u are fishing in July for a week or so….u don’t buy a weeks worth of minnows. They will all die.
Here in Idaho we expierienced quite a whitetail decline these last few years.
IMO there was way 2 many
U just can’t hoard living things for long.
we would have ” dink a thon” contests. The dink won the prize……I was legend!
I like to use the minnow bucket analogy……..
if u are fishing in July for a week or so….u don’t buy a weeks worth of minnows. They will all die.
Here in Idaho we expierienced quite a whitetail decline these last few years.
IMO there was way 2 many
U just can’t hoard living things for long.
My mentality is that the value of a hunting experience is more than the size of the horns.
At this point in my hunting career, I've probably shot about 150 or more deer. In years past I hunted areas with generous anterless quotas so 5-6 deer a year was not unusual. Hunting alone, no way I would shoot less than a nice 8pt at this point. I have so many smaller ones, if I need meat I'll shoot a doe. However this year I was hunting with my 10yo son. He was not yet comfortable enough to shoot himself so he wanted to watch me. Opening day was terrible weather, and he is young and active and HATES sitting. But the weather would not allow still hunting. So I grunt in a fork horn, I telll him it's too small. He tells me he feels with the weather we probably won't see another, and he really wants the experience of shooting a buck with me. So the forkhorn gets a 45-70 even though we've got several nice 8pts running around on camera. I've got a pic,, my boy has a nice memory, and I have zero regrets about shooting that small buck.
At this point in my hunting career, I've probably shot about 150 or more deer. In years past I hunted areas with generous anterless quotas so 5-6 deer a year was not unusual. Hunting alone, no way I would shoot less than a nice 8pt at this point. I have so many smaller ones, if I need meat I'll shoot a doe. However this year I was hunting with my 10yo son. He was not yet comfortable enough to shoot himself so he wanted to watch me. Opening day was terrible weather, and he is young and active and HATES sitting. But the weather would not allow still hunting. So I grunt in a fork horn, I telll him it's too small. He tells me he feels with the weather we probably won't see another, and he really wants the experience of shooting a buck with me. So the forkhorn gets a 45-70 even though we've got several nice 8pts running around on camera. I've got a pic,, my boy has a nice memory, and I have zero regrets about shooting that small buck.
Angus 1895
5 year old buck +
Dinks R Delicious!
AtomApple
5 year old buck +
Just my personal choice. A buck like that only excites me to see it, and let it walk. Now a 2.5 yo basket 6, I’d shoot that. Again, just my personal choice.
Bill Loser
5 year old buck +
Jack, a while back on here you were talking about your cameras that send pics to a computer. What system do you use?
I want to maybe lool at doing something like this. I dont want a cell cam for a couple reasons, biggest being im cheap and dont want to pay another cell plan. Also dont want all those pics sent to me constantly.
I want to maybe lool at doing something like this. I dont want a cell cam for a couple reasons, biggest being im cheap and dont want to pay another cell plan. Also dont want all those pics sent to me constantly.
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