We're talking does, boys. What characteristic when your trophy hunting does really turns your crank?

For me, it's the one that stands still long enough for me to shoot it. What's your "it" factor when trophy hunting does?

dry ones......

Thats like asking when do you change a flat tire......

nice legs and rump!

A big ol mule headed doe from the swamp was always popular around the skinnin rack. So big, you could have a six pack finished by the time all the meat was in the cooler.

Standing in the road

Doesn't matter to me unless she's got little ones in tote.

Ones that stomp, blow and generally keep all of the other deer in the area wound tight.

This is always the first to meet her maker

This was a satirical thread to the boys who can't find happiness unless they pass up a 27 point buck to shoot a 28 point buck......

I try to gauge my does by their willingness to stand in a spot that is easily reachable with the truck. If I can plant one mid-field with a potential for an easy roll-out, I'm happy. I deduct points for every foot of elevation they lose running downhill after the shot, and every log I have to cross pulling them out of a ravine.

Sounds like a reasonable scoring system vice the Boone and Crockett.

The Shaman Drag or Drop Index.

If bonus points are given for the lack of weight involved, then RWE has the all-time first place record for a typical.

And I drove right up to it, too.

Netted some nice tenderloin nuggets and 2.5 1-gallon bags of jerky.

Lying beside the road. (Little West Virginia humor there)

Me too Scott !

I like to shoot the older dry does.One of the best eating does I've killed,also the biggest,was an eight year old doe.Look for the big long heads,also the ones that look a little grey between the ears.

Spots? Nope...bang!
Within range? Yep...BANG!
Standing still long enough to get a sight on her? Yep...BANG

A tag!

The last deer I shot was with my then 8yr old son. It was on the last Saturday of the season. We hunted for a wet 7 hours and he'd had enough and wanted to go home. I wasn't about to argue!! Problem was it was at 3pm, as we know the one of the top times to be in the woods.

We were almost to the road, about 300 yards away from the gate and I saw a doe up on top of a hill that had been logged the year before. I thought it was a decoy to get people to shoot from the road, it stood so still. It took some convincing for me to see it was real. It shook the water off before I was 100% sure!

I got out of the explorer, went to the back to put on my orange and get my gun out.... it stood still. I put it on...it stood still... I loaded two rounds in the gun...it stood still. I walked around to the front of the rig for a better shot and it finally turned totally broadside. I brought the gun up and BOOM! Down she went! She rolled down the hill to the damn logging road. I drove the exploder up 50 yards, gutter her out, and loaded her up!

Not the way I really wanted to get one but... it doesn't get any easier than that.

Shaman, you're either on to something here, or on something.....

I definitely thing one of the criteria for scoring does should be close proximity to the vehicle. Extra points are to be awarded to anyone who can con someone else into dragging said doe out for you. Extra special extra points to those capable of getting someone else to gut it and drag it out for you.

Here's a look at our "Garden of Stone."



About 10 years ago, I started putting a small stone out to mark the spot where I'd killed a deer, so I could later walk off the distance. Pretty soon, there were a sizable number of stones between those two hay bales in the pic.

If I take the truck out to that location, there's a spot where I can open up the back and deer slide right into the back with no lifting.

I prefer to shoot does in locations where I haven't seen lots of bucks, as opposed to shooting does when hunting an active scrape line or something of that nature. Weather also has something to do with it. If it's 80 degrees or pouring down rain, I might wait for another day to shoot meat.

Just a bigger one, so hopefully it's a couple years old or more so I'm not shooting a young "button" buck.

"Dances with Does"
If you can't take a good buck, it's always a happy day to slam a nice doe.

I have never had a clue why some I shoot and some I don't.

I have watched some for a couple hours or more and then finally pulled the trigger. Some I have watched for that long or more and decided against. Some I have shot in an instant like a flushed grouse. I do know that I have an extreme prejudice against shooting what I believe are older does. The toughest deer I have ever eaten have all been ancient does. Last year I was very careful not to shoot the old doe in the neighborhood who acted like she owned the whole world. I was sure she was at least 8-10 yo.

First choice is always a buck fawn.

I think savage99 just realized his long-lost brother due to separation-at-birth.

??

Miles, you have just stated the antithesis of good herd management.

Well, first off, 50% of a year's fawn crop never sees it's first birthday.

Second, buck fawns contribute zero to the herd until they are at least 1-1/2 years old.

Third, if you leave the older bucks alone there is no shortage of them for breeding purposes.

Remove the members that contribute the least to the herd that have the least impact on the herd is a pretty simple idea. I shoot does, but I am very picky in that they either have to have no fawn with them or just a single fawn. The does with more than one Fawn are older and contribute the most to the herd. Once a doe hits 3-4 years old she'll start having twins/triplets and can easily continue that for ten or more years.

I shoot for my table, generally. Right now, in the area near my home I have way too many deer and I am in the process of adjusting that so adult does are on the hit list too. Up until just recently they haven't been a problem, but now they're a plague. There's an old doe that might get turned into grind meat if she makes a mistake starting in about two weeks. I might at some point shoot a big enough buck again, but I am pretty doubtful I'll ever see one again that is big enough.

Ahhh yes, the logic of nonsense.


LOL. So, take a buck fawn.


How do you suppose they get to age 1.5?



You DO understand that fuzzy faces with buttons will one day become older/mature bucks? (if allowed to mature)

"You DO understand that fuzzy faces with buttons will one day become older/mature bucks? (if allowed to mature)"

my hunting group has a $50 "fine" for shooting a button buck

In MY camp, shooting a button buck would get you an accompanied trip to the end of the lane, a good swift kick and told never to come back!

Are you so ignorant that you don't understand that 50% of the buck fawns in a year's fawn crop don't make it through the first year, hunted or not? Can you add the mortality of 15% or so per year for bucks so, if you start with 100 buck fawns 50 don't make it to spring. Of the remainder, even without hunting another 8-9 die anyway, and roughly 7 the following year and 5-7 the year after that.

That's one of the reasons why mature bucks do most of the breeding. It's why you don't need many bucks to support a herd.

Buck fawns are singularly the most expendable herd members, and mature bucks are much, much less expendable.

I understand perfectly.

Almost 50% of all fawns don't make it to 10 weeks of age but nothing you wrote explains why shooting a buck fawn should be a "first choice" other than some are going to die so we might as well shoot them.

Maybe things are different in your area but two points of emphasis come from our wildlife department:
1. Antlerless harvest
2. Let young bucks (including buttons) walk

Skane and Whelennut,

Please explain to me the logic and sound management in not shooting them. You are sacrificing 3 deer in hopes of getting a "shooter" which is far less palatable. This, when those three sacrificed are gone, hunted or not.

East Central Minnesota is notorious for big deer with tiny basket 8 point racks so in this area sacrificing those 3 deer oft times goes into "saving" a deer that shouldn't be breeding anyway if your goals are worthwhile. If you pass on the big antlers and take the small antlers you might accomplish something given enough time.

This is labor day weekend. drive 35 from Hugo to Hinckley tomorrow morning and you'll likely see 6-8 dead deer each way. Drive it Tuesday morning and you'll likely see about that many all over again. Just because of the increased traffic. That amounts to less than half of what actually gets killed then.

When half of them are going to die where is the logic in not shooting them? Maybe in your area half of all fawns die very quickly. Here, it is not so quickly but the end is bout that give or take a little. Deer like pheasants, you can shoot almost all the males and not affect the population much at all year to year.

Here, There's a deer zone in which I can kill an unlimited number of antlerless deer, but only one buck. That's because the mature bucks need much less control because they tend to be such a small percentage of the population.

Near my home, it's not unusual to see huge deer with a 8 point rack so small it could hold a mid size cantaloupe. What the hell is the point in sacrificing 3 deer for one of them?

Intentionally shooting a button buck is not an accident!

And neither is wasting three out of four of every buck born in the hope it will grow horns big enough to stoke an ego when we all understand that out of the deer that live that long maybe at best half of them might be worth hanging on the wall anyway.

Pee down your leg about it all you want, but that's life in Bambi's world. An you get to allow those bucks who never will grow a big rack breeding opportunities and thus further diminishing the characteristics in the herd that you are trying to select for by not shooting those wasted deer.

For my money, we had more big racks taken yearly back fifty and more years ago when virtually every hunter in the state was a brown and down hunter.

It depends on what the goals are. It seems like a fairly sound management for numbers strategy, but a poor management for antlers strategy. The Minnesota DNR pretty much manages for numbers, except for a couple of areas in zone 3 that have points restrictions. Buck tags are OTC statewide.

Around the metro area, land parcels are small. You would need participation from a dozen or more landowners in order to do effective QDM (antler management), and it would only take one to screw it up. In the northeast, you've got wolves, the ultimate if it's brown, it's down hunters, so management for numbers makes sense to me there as well, at least until we start managing the wolves better. In the area that I hunt on the North and South Dakota borders, there are some outstanding antlers out there, and I'm only aware of one camp that deliberately practices QDM, but you only get one buck tag in MN, so once nice heads start showing up, people start passing on the yearlings.

No one is disputing the need for reasonable herd control in certain over populated areas. Responsible hunters get it!

AND, I don't need a lecture from you about how deer hunting was 50 or even 60 years ago.

Now go pee down your own leg!

I'll type this slowing in hopes you'll keep up:

You have adult sex ratios that are askew.

If fawns are born in equal sex ratios, the only way to achieve and maintain a balanced adult sex ratio is through female harvest.

Bucks have higher natural mortality rates due to hunter preference, fighting, post-rut stress, bigger home ranges, etc.

This is why you're allowed only one buck and limitless does.

But in your infinite wisdom, you're targeting the one animal that stands the chance (along with liberal doe harvest) to one day balance that.

Shooting a button buck every now and then isn't the end of the world. But to make them the #1 target is logic only a liberal could likely understand.

Good day all. Any doe without fawns is fair game in my book. I prefer bigger older deer, but that is simply because it gets me a better meat per gut pile ratio.

I like it!

I'm for shooting deer to fill a freezer. I love to shoot does. In the area of MN I hunt you get one deer and it has to be an antlered buck with at least one antler 3" long.

I believe If you want to shoot a buck fawn, intentionally or not, you should have to burn your buck tag on it.

Shooting them on purpose does virtually nothing for herd management. If your area has small racks and big deer...you have too many deer. Period. It's not rocket surgery and has been proved over and over many times. You're probaby only seeing the 2.5 year old deer, and shooting them. Hinkley has some GIANT racked bucks.

MN bucks can get heavy quickly a 2.5 year old buck with a dressed weight of 200 pounds is not a shock to anyone that hints ne MN.

In some states they require muzzle loading to be done with iron sights.
I have seen many a button buck be mistaken for a doe with low powered scopes and iron sights.
To penalize someone who has shot a button buck thinking he was a doe for meat is wrong.

Where I hunt, during the season does tend to group together. You'll see a group of 5-9 antler less deer moving together. I try not to shoot the largest doe, as she will likely train the smaller ones and I will not shoot a fawn. I try to shoot the middle sized does, since they aren't the matriarch, but aren't fawns. I make sure not to shoot all of the middle, as one of them will replace the matriarch. I hunt a 3 point per side area, and hunt in a club with traditional values, so button buck shooting is very frowned upon. I'd rather not shoot a deer and retain the respect of the club members. I passed on a very good sized lone antler less deer last December, since I couldn't be sure if it was a button or not.

Great idea!

Buy binoculars.

Now I'm not saying I haven't shot one by accident. I have. The first deer I shot was a nubbie and it wouldn't have mattered if it was a 13pt with a drop tine. I was a deer hunter at that point.

There are also plenty of people that just don't care what they shoot. They just want some meat. That's fine with me too. You think they care if they have to burn their tag on a nubbie. Nope. And I have no issue with it.

But to target them over all other deer is weird and against actual deer management.

Uphill from the truck......and close

I like when they stand still and present a nice broadside target for the 22-250 and 60 grain Partition combo. Even better if they do so in a place that I can drive the truck to and make loading easier.

I'll type this real, real slow for the two boys who ride the short bus.

EVEN IF YOU DO NOT SHOOT ANY IMMATURE BUCKS AND EVEN IF YOUR NEIGHBORS DON'T SHOOT ANY 3 OUT OF 4 BORN WILL NEVER REACH MATURITY.

If you live in an area like east central Minnesota like I do even those reaching maturity have no guarantee of having a decent rack. Yeah, we get a few down around Forest Lake/Wyoming but until you start getting up to Rush City they are really sparse even though further south they see less hunting pressure. Around Hinckley, 8s and 10s that will ever score past 150 are sparse but still better than further south.

As far as peeing down your leg there Whelen nut, back when I was a kid hunting N/W of Park Rapids in an area when deer season "opened" late August and no one practiced QDM, but just shot what they needed, when they needed one we saw a couple big racks in the crew every year. That with no one passing any deer during deer season. That area is a simple matter of genetics. If you want that kind of genetics you gotta be working really hard to find and kill the four YO plus deer with sub-standard racks. Something way harder than shooting the big ones you have to pass on to improve the gene pool.

Even at Hinckley there aren't but a couple of parcels big enough that an individual parcel practicing QDM has a prayer of improving antler genetics

So, using YOUR numbers and YOUR logic, if 3 out of 4 little bucks are never going to make it anyway, hunters should intentionally shoot every little buck they see to increase the chances that more of them reach maturity? That should work out really well!

That's not what I said, nor what I implied.

You can whine all you want, but here's where it comes down to.

Three out of four bucks born will never live long enough to become mature bucks. WHETHER YOU HUNT THEM OR NOT.

Of those that do live long enough, perhaps half of them won't produce trophy racks.

Now, tell me this... Will producing more deer by not shooting does produce more or fewer bucks. Will more deer result in more bucks living long enough to be a potential trophy?

Hint... more is better. Except, when it comes to whining.

Killing buck fawns in some circumstances may result in additive mortality rather than compensatory mortality and you may wind up with a small number less. But, it just isn't going to be easy to say how many except in pretty extreme circumstances.

THAT is precisely why zone one is killing bucks only this year and there is no stricture on whether it's a spike or a big one.

Keep digging you should get out of that hole eventually.

OK.

Why don't you explain to all of us just why the DNR is using precisely that approach to rebuild the herd in the 100 zone??? n Not restriction one on points just shoot bucks. LITTLE BUCKS COUNT JUST THE SAME AS BIG ONES.

This oughta be good.

How did we get on antler restrictions? I thought this was about shooting button bucks because they taste better and they are just going to die anyway?

Keep digging!

We got here because some ass on the forum seems to think killing bucks, small bucks in particular is an unholy corruption and I ought to burn in hell for even considering it. Certainly, then shooting a button buck is less harmful because it has at best a 50% survival chance. Whereas, as they get older, up to a point, their chances of survival another year increases. Thus the DNR's plan for rebuilding the herd in the 100 zone is on the same path to perdition is it not? Unless of course it works, just like it has in the past more than a few times. More deer = more bucks.

You just keep riding the 50% fawn survivability train. I'd love be to one of your neighbors.

If nothing else, you're entertaining.

Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us as to what the fawn survival rate is in Minnesota's wolf zone.

Oh, so now it's the fault of wolves that you intentionally shoot button bucks?

JFC...

I hunt in a MN wolf zone each gun season - I see it and understand it firsthand.

Please provide some clarity here - one minute you're talking about the need to shoot a bunch of deer and how you target button bucks. In the next breath you rationalize your action because of the wolves.

If your propensity for talking in circles is commensurate with your woodsmanship, I certainly hope you carry a compass in the woods.

Read it and weep.

You want more adult Deer then reduce the killing of 1.5year old Deer. Reduce the number of button Bucks killed and you still would have an increase, tho smaller, of adult Deer. Now if everyone killed nothing but buttons, what do you think the result would be for future years?

No mention of 3/4ths of buttons not making it to adults. Whether hunted or not. Hmmmmm????




http://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2006/10/button-buck-dilemma?page=full

a career button buck hunter,thats a first for me.

a career button buck hunter,thats a first for me.one club i hunt has a 150.00 fine for killing button bucks.

+1

OK. First, it's your ability to grasp that there are two separate distinct Places I am hunting. At my home where I have had discussion(s) on this board about having too many deer. There I am shooting females. Shot four last year and probably will do so again this year. Deer camp is up by Hinckley. There we have a very noticeable shortage of all deer. I chose not to hunt there last year at all because the population is that low. When coupled with the over population of deer where I live, there really was no difficulty in choosing.

Now back to fools. Let's start simple since you are the one who doesn't understand 1/2 and 3/4. Can you grasp more and less? if you can demonstrate you have that concept down we can proceed to whole numbers for you and Whelen nut.

wolves share

The long-term MNDNR study concentrated on female deer (about 450 during the course of the study), because there are more of them in the population, and due to their reproductive potential, they have a greater impact on population dynamics than the males. During the 15-year study, the annual mortality rate of female deer (not including newborns) attributable to wolf predation, ranged from 4% to 22%. The highest rate was observed in 1996 during the severe winter of 1995-1996, but most typically, the mortality rate of does attributable to wolf predation was closer to 5-10%.


an estimated population of 3,000 wolves in Minnesota take approximately 45,000 to 57,000 deer per year.

in my opinion,wolf season should never close.

Following the challenges of the fawns’ first
winter, there is typically an annual recruitment into the population of at least 35%. Consequently, even after the significant challenges of the first year to the survival of the fawns, a high number are still added to the population.

For the record, if it hasn't been obvious from the responses here, no one has been smelling what you're cooking. But please continue.

Whelen Nut has forgotten more about whitetails than you'll ever know so you might consider staying in your lane.

Menards is having a Labor Day sale on shovels.

You mean like how he's forgotten that every time the DNR needs to rebuild Northern Minnesota's deer herd they revert to bucks only and damn if it doesn't work every time?

Don't hide behind him, he can't count any better than you. He hasn't shown comprehension of more yet either.

I had been forewarned you were an arrogant clown - you have not disappointed.

come up with???


You have3 yet to come up with any numbers. You have yet to demonstrate you comprehend even such a simple comcept as more or less and that.s the best you can come up with???

You're not even worth a [bleep] at insults.

OK, back to the characteristics of baldies that get me to shoot them. In parts of MD we have unlimited doe harvest. So, I like the ones that stand side by side, tallest, middle smallest, so one shot from the tree stands knocks then down like dominoes, Joe.

Here's some numbers for you. Midnight special sale at Menards. 8' handle shovels $12.95

[quote=JoeMartin]OK, back to the characteristics of baldies that get me to shoot them. In parts of MD we have unlimited doe harvest. So, I like the ones that stand side by side, tallest, middle smallest, so one shot from the tree stands knocks then down like dominoes, Joe. [/quote You have to admire a man who waits till they're lined up like that to take the shot-hey, ammo's expensive these days!

Well, I've got to get them lined up just right for the 22 HP to make it all the through all of them. Those little 228 bullets are getting hard to find, Joe.

For most of my adult life we have not been able to shoot does. Consequently I have only killed a few. Last one was way back in the middle of no where and one of the hardest drags of my life. Therefore I would say close to the road would be a characteristic I would like.

I wasn't aware that it did. That's news to me.

If only 1 out of 4 bucks are making it to "maturity", how do you know you're not shooting the one that will make it? Would that not mean that 0 out of 4 make it to "maturity"?

You are removing bucks from the herd that nature/time has not had enough opportunity to tell you which one of the four is the fittest.

That's a good question! Something that people who cannot grasp even get a grasp on more or less deer can't see.

Study additive and compensatory mortality in population dynamics for the answer. In simplistic terms, if you only had four buck deer to begin with your question might be answered with yes, it could possibly kill the last buck by shooting one of the four. In reality, it works very well because one of the things that happens is pressure makes survivors much more wary and increases the survival odds of the other three. This is most easily observable in ruffed grouse. In down years, they become very, very difficult to kill. Even with very good dogs. They become runners and will flush wild. There is no hunter mortality to worry about with them and they can be hunted without affecting the population at all in down down years. Same with pheasants in roosters only states. That's why bucks only seasons don't decrease deer population (or practically speaking the buck population), but rather increase them (more vs fewer).

Shoot the does and you reduce the population and reduce the number of bucks.

Shoot the bucks born that year, the deer in the herd most likely to die that year, and you virtually cannot hurt the deer population unless you have a very small population or, they are extremely isolated.

Capiche?

Your "math" only works when the doe:buck ratio is less than 6:1 at most, optimally 5:1 or less. Any more does than that and you have does going unbred.

QDM would be a good idea for you to look into, as your approach is counter-productive to legitimate herd management.

I fully understand those terms and I still do not see your logic. Your "reality" would have to take in assumptions, such as the one you posted about being wary, that I cannot accept.

Sweet Jesus!!!

Show me one county in Minnesota that ever got down to 15% buck component of the deer population. This is exactly what I am talking about not understanding more and fewer.