Do you want a cookie? Are those property huggers breaking the law? Last i checked nobody owns the deer....
You missed my point. Don't bad mouth a misinformed understanding of QDM then hunt the entire year out of multiple stands built on our common wire looking at this magical property while never planting one tree or 100 feet of foodplots. Ohio is a great example of a state with all the ingredients to produce many book deer and as more guys pass those 2.5yo's Ohio will be a top 5 state.
I've never expressed my thoughts about deer in this thread. I was just clarifying what an organization's stance was. People will do as they wish. As they should. I'll NEVER (and have never) looked down on someone for what they chose to shoot. That said, I believe we humans we have a responsibility to leave things better than we found them. And that just transcends over to deer hunting for me. Being irresponsible with shooting / management just isn't agreeable to me. I have no idea what others shoot on here, and don't care. Good day Danimal.
I hear ya on the neighbor issue...our direct northern neighbor has about 3 acres of woods, 3 hunters...and in the 2011 season shot a fork on our property (yup OUR property). Father decided not to press charges but made it very clear he will not hesitate if done ever again. There is not a hinged line right along our borders just to stress more so the line and warn them.
I've never expressed my thoughts about deer in this thread either. We own 640 acres, plant 18-20 acres of food plots, plant trees, create bedding, etc. We don't kill young bucks, but any doe is fair game, if we decided to shoot does. We draw in and hold quite a few good bucks on this property every year. Do the neighbors benefit from all of our work, while they do none? Sure, but I don't let it bother me like I let it a couple years ago. I have realized life is too short to get worked up over an animal with some bone on its head. Life and hunting is much more enjoyable now. You have a good day as well Willieamal.
The Australian idea of QDMA that we stole in the late 80’s can never be seen as a positive or negative in the overall health of the deer herd. South Carolina was first touched by the transformation of the “Sign Post” to QDMA and shall we take a look at South Carolina’s Boone & Crockett totals since. The (3) facts people need to understand about QDMA is: (1)North America has featured a healthy deer herd for 4 million years. (2)There is 100% no way to prove QDMA has a positive or negative effect. (3)Because I decide to shoot an older or bigger buck, I am not practicing QDMA. Hunters have chosen this route well before 1988.
This could be the topic for another thread, but I firmly believe this saying is impossible. The only way for us humans to leave things better than the way we found them is for us to leave. Believing that we can manipulate nature and the land better than the Good Mother can is naive and arrogant. (that wasn't directed at you Willie.)
Dan if I ever move to Wisconsin...I seriously wanna own land next to you! We sound like we treat the land the exact same way and as I grow older each year my mindset of not caring what others do is growing more and more and my frustration less and less.
South Carolina will never be a BC player due to soil, genetics and nutrition. Who's facts are those? 1)Central Wisconsin never had 1 deer in it prior to 1955. Now it's the highest dpsm in the nation. 2) Proving the positive effects of QDM are easy. Severely overbrowsed hardwoods, zero natural regen, # of book entries, ect. 3) Not true re 1988. Wisconsin is now #1 the last ten years in entries. The most important factor is letting a buck see a 3rd birthday in a state that has the right mix.
Leaving things better than we found them would not include planting food plots with unnatural(you could say exotic to the area) forage(rape, turnips, 'buck' oats, corn, exotic clovers, and soybeans - to name a few). Nor would it include planting oaks or chestnuts where historically there were other hardwoods, conifers, willows, savannah brush species, or grasses historically. Better deer management, as would be really good for healthy deer and the environment does not mean that we have the numbers of deer that allow every hunter the option to kill 2,3,4 or more deer every year. The diseases that are prevalent today such as EHD and Blue tongue are mother natures way of doing what we have not been doing well enough with our harvest...reducing the deer population. The facts are that QDM, even as they want it to be implemented in a perfect deer hunting world, is about more, 'better' deer(bigger bucks) and perhaps easier for more hunters to harvest....it is not the natural way of things in any way shape or form. As I stated before(but I'll rephrase it a bit) - there are many MANY Times the amount of whitetail deer that were here 200 years ago and that has all to do with our manipulation of the environment for timber products, big agriculture and surely more recently sub-urbanization(which benefits deer population growth obviously).
That totally depends on a persons POV and the goals to be accomplished. Do you believe tha tyour property is better for your personal use than it was when you started operating it? According to this statement I have to assume you feel you have done more harm than good.....
I forgot to add - for actual health of the herd; Perhaps if you eat your tag at the end of the season by choice(thereby not helping to meet management objectives of reducing the population to carrying capacity)...then you are not doing your part to contribute to, or promote sound management(as prescribed by the wildlife biologists).
This thread proves that the 2014 Wisconsin private land DMAP program will be a complete dumpster fire. Dmap like QDM is about dumping antlerless to the carrying capacity of the habitat which the Wisconsin hunter will never understand or be satisfied with until we get to pre EAB insane levels again. Hence bonus bucks! Yipeee. This forum like most captures the ardent hunter which is less then 1% of deer hunters. And the 1% spends little time in the foodplot or forestery thread let alone understands herd health dynamics.
People have a right to shoot what they want. Trying to push one's own beliefs onto another person is selfish regardless of what they may be. I myself lean towards the QDMA way of thinking but I never try to tell other people what to do.
What is there to understand? Most guys on here only kill what they need and move on. Real simple. Walk into the woods with your bow in hand....and then hunt. Am I missing something else?
So what I've learned from this thread is: we all agree that we should shoot whatever deer makes us happy and everyone is free to choose whatever management plan or lack thereof that they want, but everyone sucks and no one should hunt deer. This bickering is exactly what the anti-hunters love and want, so why are we resorting to this. Just move on and kill some deer. My God.
