Saying a Deer NEEDED to get out of the gene pool is the equivalent of saying they are on the HIT List. Something I find mildly repulsive in that you are now degrading the hunt to nothing but horns.
Nature devised a way to improve the gene pool, but we humans mess it up. Antlers are an advertisement to the does that I can keep my body at a good level and still have the extra to grow antlers, so you need to breed with me. They are also used to gain dominance over other bucks and maintain breeding rights. When we choose to eliminate trophy bucks, we interfere with that, so we should also keep the inferior bucks from breeding. A buck with inferior antlers is a meat buck to me. Of course I don't have control over enough land that it matters, but I feel better. miles
Do you think trophy bucks actually breed anymore? To old by the time they have the best antlers generally speaking.
And young bucks generally don't get the chance.
In my area it takes generally a 3.5 year old to have a chance at breeding. So I have 3 sets of antlers to study and 3 years to study the body etc... before they could in theory ad to the negative side of the formula.
And by the time they hit 6.5 you rarely have a deer thats capable of winning the fights enough to breed anymore.
This is from what I"ve seen by observing deer for years.
We managed to cull out a no brow tine gene probably 90% at one place. And those deer never showed the big bodies of the best deer eihter.... so the signs are there.
Am I wrong for my way? I think not.
Are you(generic you) wrong to shoot whatever you want? Nope, not as long as its legal. Same for me.
Yet its probably my personality. Whatever I do, I strive to do it the best I can, and for the best overall outcome. I don't get joy in just going and taking from a resource and not trying to help it. I don't get joy from shooting competitively and not giving back to the sport. I don't get joy in being a half azz fire fighter/EMT, I strive to do better every time. I don't' do my inspections job that way either, constantly trying to understand safety and how it relates to building and how to be correct for both sides of the issues, keep it safe, and keep it as low hassle for the owner/builders as I can.
I do half azz type here though generally... in a hurry and fail to take time to correct typing mistakes. I will admit to that half azz for sure.
And in the end, these discussions, and they are that to me, not arguments, get heated. Like I say, its the keyboard. You read emotion that I'm not intending and vice versa.
Hell we all enjoy the outdoors and luckily we all tend to gravitate to like types as we go along. That means the ones that want to manage, tend to hunt together, the ones that don't' do the same and that's really the best.
I feel in many ways we are VERY fortunate to have private land here. It allows you to somewhat control whats goign on. If it was all wide open public, many times the deer you allow to mature, get bopped by the next guy.
I'm thankful for our deer populations here. It would be tough for me to hunt for days without seeing a deer like some areas. It was like that here at home for years. I didn't waste the time. I get it from some areas if you have the need to kill one, you better shoot the first legal one you see.
I think at a big literal campfire most all of use would have a blast regardless our thoughts.
