Sad Story

[cayugad]

While this might not be your preferred fashion or method of hunting, I personally see no problem in it. From the way I understand this, everything he did was legal. Just, not in your opinion a way you want to hunt. That does not make it wrong only different from your ideas.

First off this man put in a lot of expense and effort putting in a food plot which by the way benefited not only him but many other local hunters because of the food plots ability to draw in and keep animals in the area.

This food plot also benefits the local deer herd and other species of animals with the added nutrition and not to mention promotes antler growth of bucks in many cases.

I think the person was real lucky, just plain lucky. Just because he had a good place to sit and watch for deer is no guarantee that any deer would have came through. I know people around here that plant food plots and have no luck at all. The person was just lucky. Good for him. If I had been that person, you can bet I'd of shot the deer too.

This idea of fair chase, well that's all fine and good. But.. if you left your vehicle, loaded your rifle, climbed a fence and was about to start across a clearing to your favorite spot, and saw a nice buck coming across the clearing.. are you telling me because you had not been in the woods more then 10 minutes, or had to track that buck, that it makes it any less gratifying to harvest it?

This person had a choice.. he could shoot the deer even through his season would end about as soon as it started, or let it go and take his chance with a different animal or this one at a later time. I never look a gift horse in the mouth. So I guess I am not much of a hunter also. Even though I've hunted hard over 10 days and have yet to see one. Yep! I'd of blasted that bugger...

 

[Pork Chop]

No, that does not make you a trophy hunter, it makes you a game manager. What I mean when I say trophy hunter in a negative connotation is those morons that kill a deer solely for the mount. They waste the animal. If someone hunts until they get a trophy, but uses the animal, that is OK. The wanton waste is the issue in my book. And of course poaching as most everyone has pointed out as well...

 

[Pittsburghunter]

Having a grown food plot is one thing what me and my buddies found up in Pittsburg a couple weeks ago really fried my ass and if I was alone when it was found I would have sabotaged the area.

Some flatlander (that's what we call people from Mass up here) had put up a tree stand with a whole bag of feed apples and a full bag of corn as well right under the tree stand. This clown owns the camp across the road from ours and feeds deer well past the legal date to feed.

Pisses me off to find that sort of thing. I should have stole the stand and set it up in another tree a couple hundred yards away. He did all this during m/l season just before the regular rifle season. He just set it all up and drove back home for the week.

 

[Runner]

Does your state use daylight savings time? I left the house at 5:30 opening day myself. I walked 200 yards to the boat, crossed 300 yards of lake with a trolling motor, and climbed the tree with my climber that was already set up. I use open sights and I figured I was late by the time I was set. Him leaving the house at 5:30 and being back by 7 on the size farms in MO is not hard to believe at all.
The hunting conditions here do not have anything to do with the conditions in Texas. I was hunting a 180 acre farm with a fifty acre lake in the middle of it that breaks it up into smaller pieces. There were six guys hunting 100 acres of mainly grass on the property that borders the east line. Three guys to the north, and I don't know about the west line this year. The south line is a road with a steady string of trucks slowly cruising looking for a target to shoot at all opening weekend. Any legal buck that moves 300 yards and that pokes his head off the property opening weekend, dies. Only those with at least four points on a side are legal here. No culling the six point baskets out. They and the spikes get to breed. Almost every adult buck seen is killed. If you let them walk, there is a guy 200 yards away that shoots them. Some public ground has been known to have 100 hunters per square mile opening weekend. I have been helping manage ground strictly for the benefit of the game for over 20 years here. The big farm sold this spring. After twenty years of controled harvest, lots of food plots, 500+ acres of pasture/hay field over sown with clover and lespedeza, and 500+ acres of oak woods, the herd on the property was about half the size it had been 20 years earlier. During that time in no single year were more than 12 deer killed off the property by people that were supposed to be there. Here, you are pretty much stuck with the rules the state makes and the effects it has on the game in your area. Right now that is unlimited doe tags and one buck with at least four on one side minimum with a gun. Two bucks with a bow under the same restrictions. Bow season starts in mid September and runs until mid January. The gun season is 11 days. The youth season is two days. The muzzleloader portion is 11 days. The late doe portion is three or four days in January. At no time during either the first, main, or late rut are the larger bucks safe. A three year old spike can breed in complete safety thru out the entire period. The conditions here are in no way comparible to the conditions in Texas!