Iowa Whitetail Forums

[booneriverbucks]

Your buck is a TROPHY!!!! & maybe some could classify as cull but I do think those terms can go together. I’ve hunted a LONG time & I’d shoot thay buck. Or have a happy hunter tag him & be stoked. Congrats!!!!

I agree with all above. “Change in regulations will automatically do _______”. Agree with that too. Some perspective or “food for thought”…. I think the regulations have been changing & it has hurt our resource. So, it’s not like regs have stayed THE SAME. We added new weapons, new seasons & we have far more tools to be drastically effective. Straight walls, late shed buck season, cell cams, higher anttlerless tags, etc, etc. Which- all good but it’s hurt the herd when it all gets added together. I personally don’t feel like dialing back a few things would hurt anything & I do believe it would help. Long discussion on “what is it?” Might be stopping the sharing of tags. Ending shed buck season. Lowering anterless permits.

HERE IS HOW I’D SUMMARIZE Iowas deer hunting & herd & can add many other states to this BIG TIME…..
we ask through POLLS nationally.. “is the country going in the right or wrong direction”. I think it’s hovered around the 60%+ mark “wrong direction”. It got high enough that was a big reason trump won & got house & senate. People want change & action!!! I would pose this… to Iowas deer hunters…. Is the hunting, management & resource going in the right or wrong direction?? I don’t need to be the one to answer that- the public does. My GUESS would be, majority would say WRONG. My gut tells me 2/3rd. Maybe I’m wrong. If I am right- why can’t we look for changes or even demand some? I personally think we are due. Less Doe tags in wide open counties & ehd areas (which is happening). Shed buck season gone. More ehd research & response & IMHO- all funding for CWD is cure/resistance research vs ONLY TESTING! Maybe we look at 3 bucks for LO’s going to 2? Maybe we don’t do tag sharing where countless guys we’ve all seen pile up 2-3 young bucks in one deer drive. I personally think 1 should be it per hunter in that gun season. Sure can’t hurt Likely will help. SORRY ON RANT . We on same page. I’d simply ask- is your region, state or neighborhood going in the right or wrong direction for hunting & the resource?

Well thanks! No doubt I still consider it a trophy although I will freely admit it is very much a very low scoring mature deer. That fits the definition of a cull buck to many. We most definitely agree on the vast majority of issues and I truly do believe we share the same goal. I could go on and on forever debating each individual issue and sometime I just might do that. I’ll save that for now! I realize you’ve read enough already! When It comes down to it I see two big changes to deer hunting in my lifetime. People tying up as much ground as possible whether through ownership, leasing, permission or a combo of all in hopes of harvesting a trophy deer and technology. Not just technology in the obvious sense either (i.e. cell cams). We have so much technology at our fingertips that generations before us did not have. When I was younger you had to talk to people that knew what they were doing, read magazines, books, beg your parents to buy or rent videos about hunting etc. Now most of that information is available for free from your phone. There are not nearly as many secrets out there about harvesting mature deer as there used to be. Is that good or bad? We all could debate that forever. When it comes down to it i’d like to look at our regulations with a scalpel at first and not a sledgehammer. Things take time to see results. I do not believe we are to the point where we have to take drastic measures to improve the hunting in this state. I also do not believe we need to alienate groups of hunters and create an enemy that we will have to battle for a generation. It really could be worse than we currently have it. I talk to people from many other states and read about their complaints about hunting and the complaints are endless. There is really no consensus or easy fix to the issues. I just think the best way to go about things for now are fixes most can agree on and do not change traditions than many see as important. I also feel our DNR and legislature have very little stomach for tackling some of these issues. I do believe where I hunt we have seen an improvement from limited doe tags and no doe harvesting during first shotgun season. It’s been a few years since we’ve had it but we did really see the results . Both of these changes may have stung at times but many realized they helped eventually. I think the vast majority can get behind stuff like this before we drop the hammer on other things we may not agree with and pick a bigger fight we may not want. Deer drives and party hunting are slowly dying a natural death already due to cultural change and access issues. I don’t think we have to speed up the process and create enemies that could decide to complain about some things we all enjoy right now and mess things up even worse for us in the future.


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