APR, QDM, Trophy Hunters, etc....

[kern]

I am not going back and reading all of the posts, but I was wondering, did anyone who is against working to have more mature bucks in our deer herd bring up that they see all kinds of big bucks in Outdoor News? I always laught at that type of ignorant post and it happens every time in these threads. My own anecdotal evidence? I hunt in a great area. Carrying capacity is huge, the deer herd is big and only occasionaly do we even see a 4.5 yr old or older buck. I have documented passing up 67 bucks in the last 15 years. I have not seen a 4.5 or older. Why? Because of some of my party who cannot get it in their head to let the little bucks go and party hunting (and yes, then they whine about not seeing the big ones).

Since I am late to the game, I will quickly summarize my view. We need to do something to increase the mature bucks. I would wholeheartedly support a ban on party hunting (shooting one is enough, no one needs to be greedy).

Sounds like to me, if you want bigger bucks, you need to step up and take care of your party first, then see what happens. If you personally can't convince your own hunting group , how are you going to convince the entire state? Side note, pretty cool that you have everything documented.

[B. Amish]

i'd like to point out that even in herds with 1:1 sex ratios, the big old bucks aren't doing all the breeding. every living, breathing buck is going to slip one past the goalie no matter their rack size.

[bottom-bouncer]

i'd like to point out that even in herds with 1:1 sex ratios, the big old bucks aren't doing all the breeding. every living, breathing buck is going to slip one past the goalie no matter their rack size.

+1 very true even with a balanced herd the majority of the breeding is done by the younger bucks 1.5-2.5

[Gordie]

So I only know of 3 deer that go over 170 within an hour of me means that quality deer aren't available?? Really?

I'm pretty sure that most hunters would consider deer much smaller than that of good quality. There are plenty of those around too.

I guess until we have a 170 class deer in every section of land in MN we won't be up to par??

Seems the expectations are pretty unrealistic.

How many of you have ever seen a deer that would go 170 anywhere while you were hunting in any state??

JS

[BobT]

i'd like to point out that even in herds with 1:1 sex ratios, the big old bucks aren't doing all the breeding. every living, breathing buck is going to slip one past the goalie no matter their rack size.

No kidding! The point is that with a closer ratio those young bucks are going to have their hands full when those older ones step onto the scene and challenge them. With too many does, the young ones have a much better chance of finding a mate without having to lock horns with a more mature buck.

[nonteepical]

Their age dosen't matter their genes are their genes wether they are 1.5 or 7.5. but when you have an even distribution of age classes the strongest older deer do most of the breeding (hopefully with a even doe to buck ratio), leaving the inferior (younger, weaker) bucks to go play with themselves. A doe is like a dog, it may be impregnated by more than one buck, but in minnesota the overwhelming majority of our buck population are yearlings that are doing most of the breeding and at that age, you don't know what their genetics are, because they are spikes and forkhorns.

Large antlers are the indicator of herd health (visually) thats your breeding stock and the genes that are being passed along. If we took two 5.5 year old bucks and one is a heavy 150" 10 pointer, and one is a spindly crooked 130" 10 pointer, whose genes do you think will most likely get passed along? the 150" is going to kick his a$$ along with his twin brothers.

Untill a buck gets into an older age class you don't know if pee-wee herman or arnold schwartzanegger is doing the breeding, you can't tell when they are yearlings because they have small antlers you don't know if they are an athlete or a geek.

[john skarie]

Bob T;

This is why we need a buck draw. To many hunters pass up on does because they want to wait for a buck.

Everyone should get a doe tag and have to draw to shoot a buck.

That is what will give us a healthier deer herd, not QDM.

ND and WI both have a draw for bucks if I'm not mistaken?

JS

[Bear55]

I think I saw a study once where the breeding is pretty spread out among the age classes in a balanced herd. The middle aged bucks (2.5 and 3.5) did a slightly higher percent of the breeding as they are often the most active deer. Now when you don't have a balanced age class I can't say what happends.

[Bear55]

Everyone should get a doe tag and have to draw to shoot a buck.

Here is the problem, no single management tool or idea can work across the entire state, the land and deer herds are far to different for a once size fits all approach.

[InTheNorthwoods]

Bob T;

This is why we need a buck draw. To many hunters pass up on does because they want to wait for a buck.

Everyone should get a doe tag and have to draw to shoot a buck.

That is what will give us a healthier deer herd, not QDM.

ND and WI both have a draw for bucks if I'm not mistaken?

JS

I don't believe WI does. I know both ND and SD do. Iowa has draws for NR buck tags also, not sure about in state (don't think so). To add to the fire, I know (based on personal experience and research) that it is nearly impossible for a Non Resident to draw a firearms or muzzleloader buck tag in either South Dakota or North Dakota in many game management units. Maybe MN should start restricting Non Residents that way?

I get tired of MN's indifference when it comes to attempting to manage deer numbers. As it stands, there is no control over the number of tags that can be issued in any one area, and we definitely see a "shotgun" approach used when it comes to management.

[BKB]

WI does not have a draw for a buck tag and you can also harvest one with bow and one with gun

[InTheNorthwoods]

I think I saw a study once where the breeding is pretty spread out among the age classes in a balanced herd. The middle aged bucks (2.5 and 3.5) did a slightly higher percent of the breeding as they are often the most active deer. Now when you don't have a balanced age class I can't say what happends.

This may be true at the peak of the rut when there are a lower ratio of bucks to hot does, but outside of the peak of the rut, the most dominant bucks will do a majority of the breeding (in an unbalanced herd, the dominant buck in an area may be a 1.5 or 2.5 year old deer).

It is due to this "dominance establishment" behavioral trait that I support a healthy herd balance as it pertains to hunting; because a healthy herd structure that facilitates and encourages the process of establishing dominance amongst bucks gets the bucks on their feet, encourages "rutting" behavior (fighting, chasing, rubbing, scraping, etc.), and in general, causes a much more fun hunt with more deer activity.

[Musky Buck]

What's all this passing on does and too many does, we are seeing few if any mature does, if we all get just doe tags/draw a buck we'll eradicate the doe population to dangerous levels in my area, 50% of us in our area don't shoot does and there are no does so the other 50% of the hunters are taking care of business. And Bob what older bucks challenging the yearling bucks, the herd in my area is completely now at this point in time dominated by yound deer, young bucks, we talk to each other and our scouting with or without trailcams is proving that and unfortunately it's becoming the norm, hope it changes .

[Gordie]

earn a buck I think is what WI called it.

had to tag a doe first before shooting a buck

[Surface Tension]

I don't get it. Some say don't shoot little bucks so they can grow but then some are saying the little bucks are breeding with does. How about we leave it up to the hunter.

It is the killing winters that keep the MN gene pool strong.

A MN whitetail buck wouldn't survive in the wild in Texas, and a whitetail buck from Texas wouldn't survive a MN winter.

Both have evolved to that climate.

The whitetail are constantly evolving. In addition to winter, wolves will play a role in the evolution of deer.

Hunters play a role in the evolution of deer. Those that best avoid detection will live on.

If you wanted to you can carry that further to deer that have a trait of bolting across the roadway when a car comes. Call it natural selection.

That is just the way it is and the way it'll continue to be.

We know wolves kill inferior deer and winters kill inferior deer.

What do humans kill?

[Gordie]

Well put ST well put

I also have heard different arguments from people and not in this forum how we shouldnt shoot does becasue they are the breed stock of young bucks.

I have also heard that we should not shoot young bucks because they grow into mature big bucks

We should only shoot the mature bucks.

We would not have much of a success rate for that would we.

Soon the herd would be to many and starvation along with desiease would start to set in.

We should be happy we can hunt deer at all. The deer hunting in this state is great yea so you dont see a B and C or P and Y buck each time out but your deer hunting..

I dont have private land to bang a big old box stand on I hunt puplic land and see deer each year I go and if I'm lucky enough to harvest a deer(doesnt matter what it is) I'm happy

. I didnt hear one complaint from my boys either that they shot does and yes one was a nubby buck that those deer didnt have a monster rack on it.

They could care less they got a deer the smiles on there faces were more to me than antlers on the wall.

[nolte]

If we took two 5.5 year old bucks and one is a heavy 150" 10 pointer, and one is a spindly crooked 130" 10 pointer, whose genes do you think will most likely get passed along? the 150" is going to kick his a$$ along with his twin brothers.

Actually the buck with the bigger body size is going to win out. Specific Genes are nearly impossible to replicate in a lab setting, so attempting to do it with a wild game population is nearly impossible. There are way too many factors involved to attempt it.

[Bear55]

This may be true at the peak of the rut when there are a lower ratio of bucks to hot does, but outside of the peak of the rut, the most dominant bucks will do a majority of the breeding (in an unbalanced herd, the dominant buck in an area may be a 1.5 or 2.5 year old deer).

A dominant buck migth have his pick of the does but he can't breed them all in such a short period of time. I belive the study I talked about was done by charles alsheimer, they did DNA testing on the deer to see who was doing the most breeding. They were all surprised it was spread out so evenly. It makes sense if you think about it, a doe is in heat for 24 to 48 hours and a buck won't leave her side for that time. Other hot does are out there so the less dominant bucks are having some fun too.

[Musky Buck]

Correct surface tension but 1 thing, I don't buy the wolf killing inferior deer, sure if there's 10 and 1 is a runt or sick or injured, but he's picking off the next easiest deer the next time. If a wolf can't find an inferior deer he's just going to wait for one to come along this January. Wolves take roughly 80,000 deer per year in MN if they claim 19 deer per wolf or whatever the ratio is, I wonder how many of those 80,000 are inferior so to speak. Fewer moose to chew on so the deer gets chewed on. Winter will take out inferior deer. I know the wolf has a place etc. well we had antelope and many other critters etc. also so it's time to thin them out, the strong of that specie will survive also.

[nolte]

We know wolves kill inferior deer and winters kill inferior deer.

What do humans kill?

Winters might kill inferior deer but wolves don't. Wolves kill any deer they are able to. They set up shop in areas and then go to work. When the pickens get slim they move on. The only difference is their season is non-stop.

Humans are actually similiar to wolves. If the tags are available someone is going to use them.

[Musky Buck]

Elwood I hear you, the kids and elderly should be allowed to take anything they desire, I'm tired of greedy middle-aged men that enough is never enough. I know three grown men who last year shot 8 trophy bucks, in my book that's 5 too many, those 5 some of us should've had some sort of a chance at and why'd they shoot, greed, don't care about thy neighbor, don't want to tag out opening day, can't guard my property then, and they all found tags and all muzzleloaded and am not sure if they added buck 9 10 or whatever, they all winked at me when they said they were "party" hunting. I could turn them in and they already have their stories in-line with those who tagged their deer for them. I've never read yet in any paper across our state where someone was cited for illegal party hunting or tagging, it's rare unless you're an [PoorWordUsage], the CO would need to catch that in the act. The cover of darkness saved these 3 guys tags and I told them cmon, tag your own buck or don't pull the trigger, they were like we all took a week off of work what are we supposed to do, they didn't like that and 3 against 1 I was odd man out. That party hunting law really gets butchered in my area badly, the legitamite party hunters do it right.

[Musky Buck]

I should say I have read some tagging fines/or whatever but most of those cases it's stupidity that gets them caught, these guys do it like a near criminal would, go pick up who's tagging it, walk out, tag it drag it out and hey we were party hunting and all is forgot until next year.

[kern]

Elwood I hear you, the kids and elderly should be allowed to take anything they desire, I'm tired of greedy middle-aged men that enough is never enough. I know three grown men who last year shot 8 trophy bucks, in my book that's 5 too many, those 5 some of us should've had some sort of a chance at and why'd they shoot, greed, don't care about thy neighbor, don't want to tag out opening day, can't guard my property then, and they all found tags and all muzzleloaded and am not sure if they added buck 9 10 or whatever, they all winked at me when they said they were "party" hunting. I could turn them in and they already have their stories in-line with those who tagged their deer for them. I've never read yet in any paper across our state where someone was cited for illegal party hunting or tagging, it's rare unless you're an [PoorWordUsage], the CO would need to catch that in the act. The cover of darkness saved these 3 guys tags and I told them cmon, tag your own buck or don't pull the trigger, they were like we all took a week off of work what are we supposed to do, they didn't like that and 3 against 1 I was odd man out. That party hunting law really gets butchered in my area badly, the legitamite party hunters do it right.

It happens the same where i hunt, only differnece these are the people preaching no more party hunting. They try to come off all high and mighty but in reality they are doing exactly what they are preaching not to do. There has been alot of people that have posted on here almost exactly what some of the guys from my area say but don't practice what they preach.

[john skarie]

Actually it's been documented quite extensively that wovles primarily prey on the inferior and the weak. To say they don't is just not true.

The stats about how many deer a wolf kills in a year are also misleading. They are usually based on how many deer a wolf would kill if it only ate deer and nothing else. Plain common sense tells us that they don't exclusively eat deer.

On the flip side we have a group of hunters that want to make the biggest, baddest most genetically superior bucks thier quarry.

Perhaps taking these deer out of the picture is actually the most damaging thing you can do to the health of a deer herd??

Just some food for thought.

JS

[Gordie]

How many deer do you think are wounded from gun or bow unters that get taken down by wolves probably as many a wounded from autos

something to think of also.

The wolves will take the easiest meal they can as not to burn presiuos energy for themselves and besides they dont care how big the rack is either

they eat to survive kinda like it was for us until the racks were glorified by TV hunters