Why I support party hunting.

[BobT]

Saturday morning my 15-year old daughter hunted alone in a stand for the first time. It was her fourth hunting season. She was lucky enough to get a shot at her first deer three years ago when we got her 8-pointer with my help, 20 minutes into the first day of her hunting career. Since then she went two seasons without even seeing a deer or flag.

Saturday morning at about 9:30am I heard a shot from her direction, north of my position. My brother's stand is about 100 yards northeast from her stand. I realized it sounded like a smaller caliber than my brother's 30-06 so I was hoping it was she with her single shot .243. After about 15 minutes I decided to go find out if she took a shot. When I got there my brother was already looking for sign of blood or hair. She had shot at one in a shooting lane that runs east from her stand.

We searched but couldn't find anything. My brother's stand has a shooting lane heading south that intersects the same east lane she shot at her deer. He said he heard the deer in the area after she shot but never saw it cross his lane so we figured it was still in the area. I sent him back to his stand and my daughter back to hers and told them to keep watch as I worked the area between them for sign of a blood trail.

I finally found blood about 25 yards northeast of her stand and sure enough there lay the little fork horn. She got her first deer by herself! She was a pretty proud and excited young lady.

By the time we got it gutted and dragged back to our ATVs, it was about 11:00 and because it was so warm I decided I wanted to take it back to my brother's place and get skinned right away so my daughter and I took off.

Now if party hunting was outlawed, the rest of this story wouldn't be possible. We got the deer hung and skinned and made it back to the woods by about 1:45. My daughter went back to her stand and I decided to take a walk further west and find a place to sit for a while and enjoy a cigar.

I didn't get half done with that smoke and I heard a shot come from the direction of my brother and daughter again. For those that don't smoke cigars, it takes about an hour or more to smoke a good stogy so I had only been in the woods for about a half hour. Within a few seconds I get a call on the walkie-talkie from my daughter. She said, "I dropped a 6-pointer!"

I couldn't believe it! Two deer in the same opening day with less than three hours of total hunting time in the stand. That kid was grinning ear-to-ear. I don't think we'll ever get her out of that stand again.

That's what party hunting is all about.

Edit: Oh, and by the way. That's makes her 2 for 2 with that .243. I think it fits her quite nicely if you ask me.

[lakevet]

Great post!!!!

Its also why cross tagging bucks is so important.

Bob T , your group hunts like ours, for the benefit of all, and especially to increase opportunity for those younger, just starting, and older with not many seasons left.

lakevet

[picksbigwagon]

Bob, great story, I am sure she will remember her double for a long time, way longer than your stogie.....I think the 243 is an excellent deer caliber.....

[BoxMN]

Congrats to your daughter, and you Bob! Great story that I am sure will be shared for years to come.

[Big Dave2]

I would gladly give up my tag to make a story like this a reality.

[Arctic]

Party hunting is so ingrained in our Minnesota deer hunting culture that it will always be legal, IMO.

[Arctic]

Great story! Reminds me of my first two deer, shot while still hunting in powdery snow many years ago. Two bucks in one minute!

Party hunting is so ingrained in our Minnesota deer hunting culture that it will always be legal, IMO.

[deerminator]

Great story! Also, is there some proposal to outlaw party hunting? Or just sharing an awesome story. I love the fact you're more concerned about your daughter getting the deer than yourself. So many guys I talk to are buying tags for their kids, wife, mom and granma to skirt the one deer lottery limit and tag as many as they can. My wife said she'd turn me in if I tried that and God bless her for it.

[hound32]

congrats to her! thats awesome. ya i have shot plenty of deer with a 243, i think its a great gun

[BobT]

There have been a number of threads started on this site from those that would prefer to outlaw party hunting. I have voiced opposition opinion to that notion and this is one huge reason why.

There's more to this story that I haven't told. For example, I am not the kind of hunter that feels driven to fill my tag. Of course I want to, otherwise I wouldn't be out there, but I'm not blood thirsty about it. One thing I've tried to do while teaching my daughter hunter ethics, as I think they should be, is that there's more to hunting than just filling tags.

We hunted a lottery area and I did not obtain an antlerless permit. But, because she was under 16, she still qualified for it automatically. When she took her first buck on Saturday morning, I gave her the option of using my tag on it so she could still take a doe if the opportunity arose. She chose to tag it with her own tag, which meant that she was now hunting bucks only for the rest of our season. Our season was only going to be Saturday through yesterday (three days).

My brother does have an antlerless permit but once we took two deer (we share our meat) he switched to hunting for trophies only for the rest of the season. It wouldn't surprise me if he is successful since he took two weeks off work to hunt the entire season.

As it turned out our party of seven took four bucks all on opening day. It was the most successful opener we've ever had. Three of them were less than 3 years old but one was a nice 8-pointer that went close to 190 pounds. From camera shots that my brother has we know there are some nicer bucks in the area.

[Deitz Dittrich]

great story.. Please post picts of the happy hunter!!!

[Musky Buck]

Problem is Bob others abuse it to the hilt, I witnessed the wrong way to party hunt on Sunday evening where the shooter was scrambling to find anyone with a tag because he shot too many. Good Story though Bob and that's the hope for party hunting.

[Stratosman]

I agree good story and I wish there were more of them and I am happy for the hunter. People that shoot multiple bucks and tag them with a wifes or grandmas or whoevers tag that doesn't even hunt is what most of the folks against party hunting are referring to. And that isn't party hunting anyway, its poaching.

I too have witnessed the negatives of party hunting but don't think it will ever be banned.

[deerminator]

Sure its a problem MuskyBuck but its the bad apples like that that ruin it for the rest of us with additional legislation. If you try and pass a law every time someone abuses the system, you'll end up going to ridiculous levels that penalize the people who do it right like Bob and his family. Nice additional details Bob and I agree, we want pics of the happy hunter.

Also, if you read a few other posts in recent days, you'll note I expressed my disdain for deer drives. That is, I don't like that style of hunting and my personal belief is it more often than not dangerous and drives the deer underground for the rest of the season, effectively hurting your long term chances of success for an iffy short term gain. But that's my opinion. And my point is not to start a debate in Bob's thread, so let's not. My point is that those are my beliefs so I choose not to do it, not argue a legitimate form of hunting be banned. Some guys don't like gun hunting and only archery hunt. So should gun hunting be banned? No, that's ridiculous. So its okay to disagree on whether or not you like party hunting or deer drives or gun hunting or whatever, but let's not start talking about banning certain forms of hunting. That kind of reminds me of the antis and it would prevent someone like Bob from having such a great experience with his family and sharing the story with us!

[96trigger]

Deerminator, start a new post on deer drives pros and cons, get a discussion going. I come from a family that lived and breathed driving deer, now, we are only sitters. I think it would be a great topic for discussion.

[brittman]

Man I am biting my lip so hard that I am bleeding.

I think a better title to this thread was: My daughter's first solo hunt in a stand and she takes two bucks!!

Leave out the political aspects of the party hunting .... dragging party hunting politics into a father's pride for his daughters success could only drag this entire thread into the mud. I will chose to debate this one on a separate thread.

Her weekend was made with the first buck down. I will leave it at that.

[lakevet]

Exactly Musky Buck. If someone is breaking the EXISTING laws regarding party hunting/cross tagging then let them know that they are breaking the law/call TIPS. Not doing anything is contributing to the problem! Alot of times reminding them of the regs is all that is needed. Others only respect the rules when in front of a judge. If we can't keep our own ranks clean, it will lessen the future of hunting for all our kids.

If someone shot too many, and had to search for tags because not enough in his party out in the field legally hunting with him, then he was poaching. We are in complete agreement. More regs won't change that persons behavior. Totally different from legal party hunting and cross tagging as Bob T 's family legally enjoyed and created a lifetime memory and a fired up youth hunter!

Again great post Bob!

[deerminator]

I don't think anyone is debating party hunting in this thread, yet at least. I think Bob was just trying to provide a great example of why party hunting should be allowed given the threads he's endured so far. It's hard to argue with his example supporting it? 96trigger, you can start a thread and I'll enjoy and perhaps chime in. There are a few threads going on right now to that effect, the one talking about the 14 year old shot in the leg during a drive, for instance.

[brittman]

I don't think anyone is debating party hunting in this thread, yet at least. I think Bob was just trying to provide a great example of why party hunting should be allowed given the threads he's endured so far. It's hard to argue with his example supporting it? 96trigger, you can start a thread and I'll enjoy and perhaps chime in. There are a few threads going on right now to that effect, the one talking about the 14 year old shot in the leg during a drive, for instance.

Thus opening the debate for party hunting??? That is now what you are attempting to do here also.

Like I said, Bob T could have written this thread without the politics.

Hard to argue what? That one buck deer would not have made a sweet weekend for this young lady?

[deerminator]

So if someone supports something, you automatically need to jump down their throat and challenge them. Funny but no one has so far in this thread.