Hound hunting has its place in very large tracks of woods (tens of thousands of acres) where deer population is not that great. Otherwise you can sit daylight to sunset for a week and never see a deer :o
The problem is you have the hoosiers that turn their dogs loose on their 100 acres and the dogs will come back home sometime next week. :
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My experience agrees with your sentiments.
Where I grew up, it is still farm land for the most part. No deer when I was a boy. Deer are all over now.
What changed? I used to see farmers in their fields or mending fences (often there was a rifle or shotgun on the tractor). Now you don’t see anyone. The small family farms are a thing of the past. The land is leased to the big outfits that farm 1000s of acres, and they plan, spray pesticide, and harvest. No pressure from humans.
Over the same time coyotes have moved into areas that were never their territory. No pressure from humans, and lots of food.
If the buck that has been working out on my trees comes back this year, he and I are going to have come to Jesus meeting.
Its kind of the opposite here. Because of the interest in local and sustainable food, a small family farm can actually make a decent living, and since New England hasn’t been heavily farmed in the last 100 years the soil is not contaminated by pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers so organic farming, which has a good return, is an obvious choice. That being said, deer population doesn’t seem to be a problem mainly because the pressure that our long winters put on the food supply. We also have a lot of coyotes.
Changing in farming practices have changed quite bit, resulting a in decline of several species. Bobwhite quail and pheasant come to mind (although, pheasant are not native to this country). Bobwhites used to be everywhere where I was a kid. I rarely encounter quail these days.
The deer population is down in MI due to the 2 brutal winters we had.
The deer population in Missouri is way down because of all the unlimited tags we’ve sold in recent years. In theory I don’t have a problem with someone giving away deer meat, but shooting an extra 6 is insane. Likewise, I don’t have a problem with donating food to the hungry. However when you showup with a trailer full deer to dump off, that’s not responsible.
Many of the deer killed in this state are done so for the thrill of it, not to have a reasonable amount of meat in your own freezer.
I’ve never understood sport hunting. At least with catch and release fishing, the fish gets away only slightly harmed.
Actually I don’t understand catch and release fishing. If its not for food, why put an animal through that?
A good portion of my work is on best practices for catch and release of fish in recreational fisheries and reducing post release mortality in commercial fisheries.
There is nothing wrong with catch and release if it is done right.
Most anglers and hunters are very ethical, responsible and excellent stewards of fish, wildlife and habitat.
The few idiots harm the reputations of the rest
I guess I don’t understand, from the fish’s point of view, how the being pulled by a hook in the mouth and wrestled out of the place you need to be to breath can be “done right”. Again, if its for food I get it, but just for the heck of it I don’t get.
I think there are healthier outdoorsperson cultures in parts of the country but here its more like the few good hunters fail to salvage the reputation of the many idiots. I grew up in the general area I live in so I know a lot of people: hunters and non hunters. Hunting around here really attracts idiots. The standard MO is to grab a twelve pack and a gun and go in any convenient woods and shoot at things that move, even if you have strayed into someone’s back yard. If nothing moves shoot the twelve empties and leave them there. There is no concept of respect for the land, animals or private property, not to mention safety. Hunters around here routinely brag about bagging deer on wildlife sanctuaries and private property. The good hunters actually tend to take trips farther north and leave the crappy one’s behind.
Back home when I was a kid we had so many road hunters that it wasn’t safe to work in the field during the Fall without driving a truck out. Often it would take less time to just walk out and do something than to go get a vehicle and drive out but the idiots on the road couldn’t seem to tell the difference between people and deer. One idiot shot into our yard from a half mile away. He hit a tree 3 feet above my head. I never saw a deer so I can only assume he was think I was one.
I know many hunters who are now just sport target shooters because they can’t stand the “hunting crowd” today. A well trained and respectful hunter is a big asset to our ecology in the mid-west. Their just aren’t enough of them to make up for the idiots.
Paul
The main way to catch and release properly are using appropriate sized gear, circle hooks to increase mouth hooking, rapid return to the water, and use of release devices also targeting species for catch and release that have a high survival rate.
When dealing with resource management, we work at the species or stock level and not at the individual level.
When I catch and release the fish only comes out of the water if it jumps. I dont lift them out for photo ops. In my area you have to catch and release or just dont fish. I have not found a way to keep native steelhead from striking…
Back to the hunter thing. No more criminals since opening weekend. Last night I passed up a nice 3 pt because it was about 75 yards in on the neighbor’s winter wheat. No way to retrieve it without damaging his crop, even though I have hunting rights there. This moring I passed on a trophey 4X4 because about 800 yards behind him is a county road, but harvested a nice clean healthy 3 pt on my land. One shot. Dead right there. He was hanging in the butcher’s cooler within an hour. For you folks east of the rockies, he was a 7 point. We count only the biggest side minus brow tines.
I have nothing against hunting deer. I love venison. But I have very little respect for trophy hunting. No offence meant to anyone here who has a antlered deer head hanging on your wall, I’m just not super impressed by it. I’m more impressed by your freezer stuffed with edible doe.
Agreed.
At home in RI, deer are a hazard and a nuisance. Harvesting does is a much more effective way of controlling the deer population. And frankly, they tend to be much better quality meat. I don’t get to hunt very often down here, and I certainly wouldn’t turn down a shot at a trophy buck, but I would never pass up a shot at a doe.
But if I do ever harvest a trophy buck (or moose, if I ever luck out and draw a tag), I intend to mount and display it proudly. Because to me it will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime memory. And frankly, I have yet to get over that feeling when I harvest a fish or animal - that I have taken it’s life to feed myself and my family. It’s a mixture of pride, awe, sadness and a feeling of being connected with the Earth. That trophy would serve of a constant reminder of that for me. That’s why I hunt.
Keith, I know your comment wasn’t directed at me, and I understand the sentiment. But not all trophies are for trophy’s sake. And there is certainly nothing wrong with a respectful hunter having pride in their trophies. And I certainly would not be impressed either with the trophies of a hunter that does not have respect for the animals that he or she hunts, or the land from which they harvest.
My brothers in VT had deer heads mounted everywhere including one that was the largest take in the state one year. Last year one of my brother’s got a moose and mounted the antlers. He also had to buy a chest freezer for all the meat. I admit a part of it is to show off to their friends who come over to the house but our family eats just about everything they shoot…except Chipmunks…never can find enough of those little bastards after shooting them.
One of my best friends and neighbors has deer heads all over his walls. It doesn’t mean we aren’t friends, and hunting is his passion, so I get it. I just don’t have much respect for it. And, BTW, I am a far more advanced outdoorsman than he is, and he knows it.