First , a little background, I am in NW Iowa, we don't have the cover/habitat that they do in southern Iowa and we don't grow near as many big deer in general. We just have smaller woodlots and everything gets hunted quite hard during slug season in December. We also have very little public land compared to the western states. So, anyway, the neighbors to the property I hunt whitetails on here in Iowa shot a 171" buck on Sunday. Today I get a picture of it and another 170+" buck they shot 6 years ago. The subject line of the email reads "Show the people that hunt around you what happens if they don't shoot young bucks" The body of the email reads "We could shoot some like this every year." This email if from one of the older owners of their property, which is comprised of 2 retired school teachers and their 3 sons who are young men, and only have one grandchild so far.
I have not replied yet, but have started a reply and find that it's usually best for me to not respond to things right away. So far I have changed the subject line to read "Show the people that hunt around you what happens when you enjoy God's renewable creation
" Then I changed the pictures to show the smiling faces of my daughters and wife with some of the 2-3 year old bucks they have shot. So far in the body I have typed "just a matter of priorities. These smiles are more important to me than me shooting a big buck. When you have grandkids or the boys have wives that want to hunt, I sure hope you guys will let them shoot any buck they want to. "
I don't disagree that us old guys that have shot plenty of deer in our lifetimes can and should show a little restraint from time to time if we want to shoot a big mature deer someday. My biggest reason for not shooting the younger deer is so that my children will have more options on bucks to shoot. Even at that, there still comes a time when a pretty dang nice buck comes along, right down the trail like I figured he would when I hung the stand, I have the time to skin it that day, I get an itchy trigger finger and I like to enjoy the harvest of an animal and the meat that comes with it. Sometimes that is a big doe, other times it's a cool looking less than 4 year old buck. Either way, I am going to enjoy the hunt and all that comes with it.
My request to the HT crew is, where have we seen some articles regarding the harvest of less than mature deer by our youth? I have actually seen 2 tv shows in the past few months, where the hosts always preach the harvest of only big mature deer, and they have talked about kids in the outdoors and how we need to let them harvest whatever deer makes them happy and then enjoy that special moment with them.
Everyone has their own ideas and objectives I guess. The main thing is we can't expect everyone else's ideas to line up with ours.
I have not replied yet, but have started a reply and find that it's usually best for me to not respond to things right away. So far I have changed the subject line to read "Show the people that hunt around you what happens when you enjoy God's renewable creation
" Then I changed the pictures to show the smiling faces of my daughters and wife with some of the 2-3 year old bucks they have shot. So far in the body I have typed "just a matter of priorities. These smiles are more important to me than me shooting a big buck. When you have grandkids or the boys have wives that want to hunt, I sure hope you guys will let them shoot any buck they want to. "I don't disagree that us old guys that have shot plenty of deer in our lifetimes can and should show a little restraint from time to time if we want to shoot a big mature deer someday. My biggest reason for not shooting the younger deer is so that my children will have more options on bucks to shoot. Even at that, there still comes a time when a pretty dang nice buck comes along, right down the trail like I figured he would when I hung the stand, I have the time to skin it that day, I get an itchy trigger finger and I like to enjoy the harvest of an animal and the meat that comes with it. Sometimes that is a big doe, other times it's a cool looking less than 4 year old buck. Either way, I am going to enjoy the hunt and all that comes with it.
My request to the HT crew is, where have we seen some articles regarding the harvest of less than mature deer by our youth? I have actually seen 2 tv shows in the past few months, where the hosts always preach the harvest of only big mature deer, and they have talked about kids in the outdoors and how we need to let them harvest whatever deer makes them happy and then enjoy that special moment with them.
Everyone has their own ideas and objectives I guess. The main thing is we can't expect everyone else's ideas to line up with ours.
