We have a lot of hogs on our lease in Texas. I shoot a .243 and only go for head shots. I've shot a couple hogs that pushed 250 pounds. The hogs are tough animals and I don't want to risk having the hog run off wounded with a shoulder shot.
I was just talking to a guy about this yesterday. He's got a property in upstate NY and his standing rule on opening day is to not kill any decent sized does because if they're still in heat, they bring the bucks around. Where I hunt in Maryland, right on the Chesapeake, it doesn't make a difference because there are so damn many deer that they're just everywhere anyway. So it depends on the area you're in.
Rut doesn't really get going here until mid/late December. And all of the management people I've talked to, around here, have said that they kill does the first part of season. They also all gave the same reason for that... because it makes the bucks have to chase more because of competition for the remaining does. Kind of just wondering what other people, not from this area, do. I'm in two hunting clubs and one of them has decided that we won't be killing does until after rut. Apparently one of them tried it last year and killed a nice buck. He's convinced the other 3 guys that this is how we need to hunt from now on. It's annoying to me. I'm trying to help my wife take her first deer and that will severely limit my options on where I can take her. Plus I think it's a load of shit. We weren't seeing mature bucks until myself and one of the other hunters started stacking up the does every year. After 3 years of that, our mature buck harvesting increased drastically. We went from only one of us killing something bigger than a 16" 8 point to all but one of us having multiple 140" plus deer hanging on the wall.
A lot of the guys I grew up with but never hunted with swear by only shooting bucks. Never does, ever, under any circumstances. This has led to massive groups of does wandering the properties they hunt. They mock and ridicule anyone who takes does, I called up there being that gun season just opened and was curious how the hunting was because I have missed the last 5 seasons. They haven't taken a quality buck in 3 years, just scrubs and spikes, but they have hundreds of does running around. Personally our family has a pretty straight forward rule, if it's your first buck then you can shoot whatever you want, after that if it's under 8 points it has immunity. Scrubs and spikes get put down immediately as well as does until we reach our tag limits. You can't eat the horns people, I hunt for venison, if I whack a monster all the better but I don't base my hunting experience on horns.
I am just about ready to tell that group to fuck off. It's only a 1,000 acre property and most of that wide open farm land. The other club is nearly 20,000 acres... I might be able to find a secluded area in that.
Same here. I've never been in an opportunity to actively "manage" the deer population in a particular area but have no qualms over shooting a doe. My cousins in west-central Illinois started letting small bucks walk and shooting lots of does during archery season a few years ago, and now they have a number of impressive bucks on their land. I'm back in the woods this weekend for my last opportunity to get a deer this year and once again I am stuck in a buck-only zone without a doe tag. Kinda frustrating, because I just want to fill the freezer. I'm taking a buddy along who has never been hunting before- should be fun.
I'll be down in MD for a week starting Thanksgiving night. We're allowed ten doe and two bucks (provided that you buy a second buck tag and shoot two does before you get the second buck). So, that said, we blast a lot of does. As FarSide said, if it's brown, it's down. That said, the guy who leases the property asked us to let the four pointers walk. Scrubs and anything bigger were fair game, but we couldn't touch the fours. Those were the only bucks I ever saw last year, and there were six of them. I could care less about horns, though. My goal is to come back with enough venison that I don't have to buy ground beef for a year
Wait, I thought NFL players were eating horn extract because it is filled with growth hormones..... My grandpas neighbor is the only other person hunting on his land and his only rule of thumb is let bucks go until they are trophy size. I tend to stick with that though sometimes the urge is too great seeing a decent sized four or six pointer. There is a herd of about 20 young does that live in our woods and maybe half a dozen different bucks I see as well as some older does that wander in pairs. So I got no issue with populations. I prefer shooting anything earlier in the season simply because it's a hell of a lot warmer in late September early October than going out in November and December and freezing your fucking nuts off.
Someone asked me via rep comment what I did the the hogs I shot, it was assumed that we just kill them take a picture, cut the teeth out and do a war dance. What we really do, is take a picture and call the ranch manager who drives out to where we are and takes the hog back to the housing area where the hogs are skinned quartered and put in a meat locker, this happens in less than an hour so you have very well taken care of meat. For the drive home I had 150 quart cooler where I stored the quarters on ice for the ride home, at home I cut roasts and trimmed the excess fat and cooked the scraps up and fed my dogs for a week and froze the bones for their daily treats, and vacuum packed the cuts up for consumption. These animals are prime organic pork, most people I know do not just go kill for killing sake, these animals may be pest but they are a viable source of food I do not think it is morally right to go slaughter them and let them rot. There are a number of these ranches that have programs where the meat it donated to the less fortunate that is called making lemonade out of lemons. These are my holiday hams by the way.
I changed up my plans for hunting today and ended up shooting a doe in the final minutes of shooting time tonight. Deciding to leave my stand early and check out a clearing paid off, as I've got a nice little yearling hanging in the garage now.
I got about 45 lbs. of vension out of the doe and in the freezer last night... could have been more but one of the shoulders was obliterated. Success tastes good. Real good.
Nice work on that stock, I would be afraid to take that in the field with me, I beat shit up. That doe looks tasty.
If you haven't been sea duck hunting--go. It's fun as shit. I never fired my gun the whole time I was down in MD hunting (never even saw anything to shoot at besides squirrels). But we went sea ducking the last day I was there and it was awesome. The birds are flying up to 60 miles an hour in fair wind, you have to lead them more than 15 feet (sometimes more) as they pass at about 30 yards or so, and you're doing this while bobbing up and down, back and forth on a boat in the Chesapeake. Oh, and I was lucky enough to shoot my buddy's 10 ga., which throws shot in ways you've never seen. Took us a while to see some birds coming our way, but once the sun was up high enough and the decoys popped, it was all I could do to load my gun again before the next wave came through. That one morning made the whole trip worth it. Best hunt I've been on so far. Look at how well I blended into the white boat...
Have any of y'all ever met a pro-staffer for an outdoors products company? Jesus, what a racket. Basically, companies farm out outdoors shows and regional shit to unpaid "employees" who are part of the pro(motional) staff. They get a discount on products and a couple of T Shirts, but basically, they're working as company reps for zero dollars. A few are professional guides, and that mostly makes sense. However, there are weekend hunters out there who try and live the life of a TV show host in hopes that someone will notice them. The few that I have met work in waterfowl, but it's my understanding that these guys exist in all sorts of hook and bullet fields. Is this what it's come to? I know hunter numbers are dropping and the folks that have stayed in the hobby (sport, whatever) are more devoted than ever, but seriously, who came up with this? "Okay, we're going to hire out regional reps to promote our products, attend a couple of outdoors shows every year and they're going to be the ones who put in the work to get the word out." "Uh, dude, we're a small company. We can't have a rep or two in every state. That's like, 100 employees. We currently have ten. We can't afford to pay them." "Who said anything about paying them? We'll give them 40% off of MSRP on gear and a black hoodie." "You really thing they'll go for it?"
I don't know what type of deal he had or if he was the type of unpaid ref you mention but a friend of the family had a gig filming hunts. He filmed me once. Pretty fun really. Got to shoot a deer on camera and do a follow up segment after finding the kill. I got a copy of the tape to brag about and show all the guys in my freshman dorm (I fucking NAILED a long shot with my .44). This is of course way before video/camera phones and mountable bow cams and youtube. I don't even know what channel it was for or if it even aired. Poking around other forums most popular deer hunting shows are dogged for being about as staged as possible while shilling over priced "name brand" garbage. Surprised there isn't a Discovery/Nat Geo reality show with some embarrassingly powerful hicks blowing White Tails away for profit. Also, whatcha know about frenched wracks of venison?
What percentage burns out and quits after a year? Or are some just happy to be there? Kubla that rack looks amazing!