huntcamp

No need to plant it, just hunt the trails and catch them moving from bed to feed or opposite. Be patient. Good luck and good hunting.

Find the funnels find the deer. Start at the food source from a distance and watch to see where deer mainly come from. Then work your way in, earlier in the year the better. Narrow spots of cover or narrow ridge lines. Try to find an easy way in if possible. cut a small path if necassary. do not cut too much. Just something to make your entrance and exits less disturbing. Patience is most important. Good luck and good hunting.

Find the funnels find the deer. Start at the food source from a distance and watch to see where deer mainly come from. Then work your way in, earlier in the year the better. Narrow spots of cover or narrow ridge lines. Try to find an easy way in if possible. cut a small path if necassary. do not cut too much. Just something to make your entrance and exits less disturbing. Patience is most important. Good luck and good hunting.

Had a game camera stolen. Followed tracks in snow to persons house. They never answered the door, so I called police. Since I was the one who followed the tracks, theysaid nothing can be done.

Amen E72

My 14 pt 165 inch says we can. My dads 16 pt 161 inch says we can, my friends 145 inch says we can, my friends 140 inch says we can. My 135 inch says we can. My friends 130 inch says we can. The ones we saw that we didn't shoot says we can. The pictures say that we can. That is the last 8 years. We have no food plots just farmers fields, horrible soil, red clay with absolutely poor PH. Hay is all that grows with any regularity. Anyone can shoot whatever they want and we still have monsters around. One especially, farmer said made my 165 look small. He is not someone whom exaggerates. Neighbors lost count at 12 pts. F&S buck wasn't even biggest in state, 3 others at show were bigger, and who knows if there were anymore out there that did not bring their deer to the show. Just keep the AR down south. My arguement is not that landowners/ leasing land hunters or whatever should have their own AR's, I just do not think it should be the DNR's job top make a trophy herd. Obviously a lot of bucks survive the onslaught. When the DNR can accurately count the deer herd is the day i believe a lot of their studies. Shoot straight and knock em down

but certainly would take issue with someone telling me it needed to be managed better for the herd. That is what the DNR is telling you. And I do not need to manage better we have plenty and I mean plenty of monsters running around. Just need next door neighbor to start hunting so deer do not just run over there to be safe. Less wolves would help also. They came in opening gun season and all deer activity stopped. For 3 days I saw nothing but 5 wolves. One I could have jumped on. Like that throughout the property. I think we just have to remember what hunting is actually about. If our DNR imposes a rule like that ofcourse I would follow it. Juast try not to trip on all the dead ones as I walked through public lands. Around where I hunt things happen real fast. i hunt very thick woods and deer just show up and then are gone. Do nopt get the opportunity for much antler measurements. Have to determine very fast on whether to shoot or not. I am good at that, but is everyone? I shot an 8 pt that was 17 inch inside, nice but no real big trophy. When I shot he was 20 yards away. I had 30.06. Knew he had horns, but really could not see them. He was looking right at me and a twitch he would have bee gone. I had a baseball size hole to shoot thru at his chest. Again knew he had antlers, but was going more by body size. 180 lbs. With AR I wouldnot have been able to shoot even though I pretty much knew that he was big enough. Body size is not everything. My first buck ever 196 1/2 lb 8 pt. 12 1/2 inch inside spread. He came thru when we were dong a drive and was moving quite fast. Oh and by the way people who shoot forks should have no less rights than any of us. Not everybody is in it for trophies they just want a deer.

i ask how they gat their data, they find all the fawns? Or di they take someones word on it. No state can put an exact population number of any animal, let alone know exactly how many fawns there are. i do not care how big a tract of land people own deer move unless they are fenced in and that is another problem. I have multiple pictures of a certain 10 pt and seen him 3 miles away from where the picture was taken. Maybe those areas aren't where does drop fawns, they have their comfort zones. Yes killing does is the best way to bring down a heard and deer hunting now is better than it has ever been. People here complained about last years deer kill, it was still 5th biggest on record, many factors though, more tags, more deer. It was a hard hunt last year. That is the way I like it. It should be hard,we shoud not bve able to shoot a B&C every year. If it were to become easy where would the fun be. To each hunter their own. Most hunters do not hunt everyday and a lot just hunt 1 or 2 days during gun season. Should they be penalized for others ideals. If people do not want to shoot does, they do not have to unless it is EAB and I am one of the few that support EAB, at least for awhile. I do not care whom is taking the poll, they will make it to benefit their research or they lose the money. Deer hunting nowadays is getting very commercialized, states are seeing ho much money can be brought ina and they want their piece of the pie. I have a deer camp and not a club, everybody is equal and has equal speaking rights, all the way to the youngest. i am in it for the commaraderee. Not always the trophy. Myself i do not want it to become too much like a business, less enjoyable for every one. They can shoot whatever they want and nobody will judge. Mostly they pass the small bucks. Still plenty of monsters around even after we shoot a small one or two. Next door neighbor whom is a farmer once watched a hunter shoot oneof the big boys and all of a sudden a bigger one he never has ever seen before showed up. He is always out in his field, just shows more bucks than we think are out there. I shot a 165 inch 14 pt 2 years ago, the farmer came over to look to see if it was the big one, he said it wasn't and the other was much bigger. No pictures of mine or the other one were ever caught on game cameras. If you want to manage your herd to grow big ones I am all for it, just do not push it on everyone, we need all the hunters we can get. And on point restrictions4 on one side. I saw three mounts at the WI Deer and Turkey Expo that according to those rules would have been illegal. One was a six pt scored neer 150 inches, six point near 160 inches, and the other 5 pt near 140 inches. It would not have been to nice to have to pass those ones up. ALL DEER ARE TROPHIES NOT JUST THE MONSTERS!! Leave the business aspect in the job market.

Best population control is to take out the does. Which I see your state is trying to do. But to what extent. Do you have EAB or earn a buck, that in itself will make hunter shoot more does and less bucks. Seperate seasons for does only? Over population is greatest risk on a deer herd, a lot more than the age of it. Yes Mississippi is a bit smaller and more dense, that is why you have to be more careful. Just wait until CWD or something comes in like it did here. That is when the fun will start. If that hits in full stride, than all the QDM will go out the window. I am no biologist, but have read a lot of their work in recent years, because of CWD. And play one on TV LOL. If they are worried about antler size, they should be worried about diseases instead. Just wait until they say shoot every deer. Have gun seasons go for 3 months like they had it here trying to eradicate the herd in southern WI. Wait for the hired sharpshooters, who will cost taxpayers alot of money. We had the herd get so huge, because the DNR had no idea of how to manage it for the last 20 years. Just hope they are not making the same mistakes down there.

I agree different management strategies are needed for different areas, but should they be made mandatory for all hunters in particular area? I just think the landowners and hunters should decide how they want to manage their own herds. i guess I would rather have the antler restrictions than all of our antlerless only hunts. at least those hunts here are finally coming to an end, because we are down to only 1.5 million or so deer instead of 1.8 to 2 miliion 5 years ago. I say only sarcasstically. It jas been fun kind of debating this issue with you. Hope they spare you on these antlerless hunts. They work, but sure ruffle a lot of feathers. They hold them right before the rut.

having a small rack around is not the point. The point is why should the DNR or whomever is making your game laws down there care. Oh I know it is a money thing. More big deer shot, the more out of state dollars they can bring in. Deer are great in what they do. They can balance out the herd themselves. At least you guys do not have to worry about big winter kills. Too many wolves. And if it is anything like it is up here, we have 40,000 plus car deer accidents a year. A heck of a lot of crop damage. Killing does controls the herd the most. Sounds like you have a lot of deer if they hand out so many tags. Believe me these experiments tend to last longer than they should. I just learned a new regulation here. We cannot transport a deer that was shot in a CWD zone out of that particular zone. just more and more regs. Pretty soon we will not be able to sneeze without permission. Just be careful of what you wish for. Too many regs is not necessarily a good thing. More things people can get fined for. Just think of new hunters, not kids. Young adults, sometimes it is key for them to get a deer early in their hunting experience or they might stop. Yeah they can shoot a doe, butwhat if they do nothave much time and the only deer they see is a small fork. that fork would be a trophy for that hunter and one that would be remembered forever. My first deer was a doe and I will remember her forever. All deer ar trophies in their own right. People need to remember that!! Thing is most states hunter success rate are around 50%, some exceptions I am sure. Ours is under just looked up the totals. 680,000 hunters local and out-of-state. 280000 deer. Gun Season. Add another 150000 deer for archery kills. Gun season about 99,000 bucks and 180,000 does numbers are not actual just close. Down about 15% from 2007. Deer herd will likely be around 1.5 million. Plenty of deer and we are one of the best P&C and B&C producing states and we have no AR at all. Actually we do they have to be over 3 inches long, doesn't really matter anymore with all thedoe tags, but had to pass on a few in my early years. I know of a lot that were shot and left.

I agree we do want the same thing for the most part. I dream of monster bucks, but I know plenty of people who just want a deer. We have some crazy rules hear. Especially in the CWD zones, pretty much can shoot as many deer as we want. Just have to go in and ask for more tags. Bow and gun already comes with 5 only one buck tag each though. Put you can earn more buck tags with each doe you shoot. Those tags are good the following year also. We have T zone hunts (antlerless hunts) a week before the rut. Gun only. Screws everything up. We have earn a buck, must shoot a doe first. Every zone is different, go across the road and every rule can be different. Drop an apple core in front of your stand and it is bait. No baiting allowed in southern WI. Can up north though. Some zones shotgun only others whatever you choose. These are the easy rules, thereare a lot of rules where evev the wardens do not kno how to interpret. Heck we have doe with antlers sometimes. A doe shot last year had antlers that scored 145. Biggest doe I have ever seen a picture of. Do we really need more rules? I know different areas call for different action and nobody always agrees. Just shoot staight and knock-em down. Nothing like watching a big racked monster walk towards your stand bow or gun, nothing like it on earth.

What I am saying, it is not the DNR job to manange the herd, it is their job to conserve the herd. In WI we have 1.5 milliion to 2 million deer. Depending on who you talk to. They keep saying we need to thin the herd, so why put regulations in that hinder that. It should be up to the hunter/landowners that decide how they want to manage. We have about 700,000 hunters in the woods for one week a year, population does just fine. Last years gun and bow season's alone over 500,000 deer were taken. My guess mostly small bucks and does. I pass the little ones also. I would rather shoot a doe, but it is my choice and should not be the governments decision.

in terms of antler restrictions yes. I usually let the small ones go also and watched the spike that the other hunter shot walk 10 yards in front of meearlier in the morning. Just because I did not want to shoot it, doesn't mean somebody else does not want to. Peoples choice. I have only 100 acres of land and without what the experts say QDM practices, we have shot 8 140 inch and above in the last 9 years. Seeing a few around the 180 mark only at night, while shinning. Why should the DNR tell me what to shoot and what not to. They tell us enough already. Again if you and your party does not want to shoot the little guys then don't. Why push it on everybody else. What next are we going to have to age it exactly also. Why not wait until every deer is 5 1/2 years old. Take Buffalo County for example, all the land owners got together and decided to QDM. Everybody was in agreement. Not all areas are the same. Especially north, where living has become quite hard and people need to put meat on the families table. Are we supposed to tell them no they cannot shoot their dinner, because their antlers are too small. some people do not care about the size of the rack or even what sex the deer is, they just want meat. At least now we can shoot does as well. 10 years ago we had to apply to shoot does, which was stupid. I guess I say just keep those kind of rules down south. The only good that I could see come out of rules like those would be to reign in on all the extreme long range shots. At 200 yards low light early morning can you see exact measurements. People willing to pay fines instead of leaving mistakes lay? What if it is like measuring a fish, if it is an 1/8th of an inch too small, you must release it. Cannot release a dead buck. At the check in station, do the workers have to score the animal also? What if you shoot it and 1 side busts off and you can't find it? Where do the regulations stop? Should we make everybody shoot the same weapons? Should we only hunt until noon? Should we be only allowed to shoot a buck every other year? There is more to hunting than the size of the antlers! It is the experience and the stories. My most memorable but was not my 14pt 165 inch. It was a spindly 8pt in which I shot out from under my dad as we were both sitting in the same blind. I was 16 back then and according to those regs, I could not have shot that animal. It might have been close to the size.

Not to mention there sheer joy on taking a whitetail, not everybody has time to sit and wait for a monster. Normally it takes more than a day or so to locate a monster. Restrictions like those would do more harm than good. We are losing hunters as it is, do we need to accelerate the process. For example last year at camp, a hunter in camp had not gotten anyhing for a number of years, because he dedicated his hunting to get his kid some deer. Which is great. He finally was able to hunt for himself and he shot a nice spike. Nobody in camp said why did you shoot that, everbody was happy, including him. There are more big deer in the woods than people think. I have cameras littered throughout my place and get some pics of some monsters. Rarely see the biggest ones in daylight. I have let numerous small bucks walk, never to see them again. What I am getting at is that it should be the hunters choice not the DNR's.