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Thoughts on My First Year "Trophy Hunting"

Big Mature Bucks are smarter than the average population same as a Big Mature Doe is.

It’s straight idiotic to make the assumption a 6 month old fawn blissfully galloping through the woods to its favorite apple tree in broad daylight on opening day of Gun Deer in WI ignoring every bit of human scent laid down by the Orange Army Invasion is on the same level as that 5.5 yo mature Buck that is now bedded 2 miles away on a remote, dry muskrat house 3 ft in diameter surrounded by 3/4 of a mile of waste deep, featureless cattails after feeding at the same apple tree at 2am and leaving to bed at 3am.

Anyone who thinks differently has never killed that 5.5 yo mature Buck. Nope, they’re the guy hunting that apple tree and regularly shooting the first baby deer they see and declaring mature bucks aren’t any smarter than that baby deer they shooter every year.

Some hunters are Beasts, a different breed, some are good, some are average, and the rest kill baby deer 4 times a year because “there are no mature bucks around”.
 
Nutterbuster said:
You should find a beast forum admin and pitch that for a t-shirt idea.
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I speak the truth.

Anyone who disagrees isn’t killing the most mature buck in the woods. They’re shooting every deer they see to fill the freezer then declaring the mature ones they never shoot aren’t any smarter they’re just not there.

Just the way it is. It takes a conscious, concerted effort to consistently kill mature bucks because THEY ARE SMARTER than 6 month old baby deer. I don’t make the rules of nature I just abide by them.
 
I see a lot of guys sitting next to the parking lot in plain view of their truck, and everyone else’s truck, blowing on their brand new grunt tube they saw Bowmar use on a Youtube video because it’s a “game changer” as i walk along a well used path that takes me 40 yards past their stand at high noon on opening day of gun deer.

Those guys are like those 6 month old baby deer. They have no clue what is going on.
 
swampdonkey said:
It’s straight idiotic to make the assumption
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Relying on insults instead of logic and data to fuel your rebuttal.

swampdonkey said:
Anyone who thinks differently has never killed that 5.5 yo mature Buck
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You're assuming things about your opposition and setting up an incompetent foil.


swampdonkey said:
THEY ARE SMARTER
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Asserting the same thing LOUDER does not make it more true.

swampdonkey said:
I see a lot of guys sitting next to the parking lot in plain view of their truck, and everyone else’s truck, blowing on their brand new grunt tube they saw Bowmar use on a Youtube video because it’s a “game changer” as i walk along a well used path that takes me 40 yards past their stand at high noon on opening day of gun deer.
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That's not the discussion we're having.

I feel like we're almost to the point where a sample with several thousand data points is about to be cast aside in favor of pics of the inside of a taxidermy shop.
 
Nutterbuster said:
Relying on insults instead of logic and data to fuel your rebuttal.



You're assuming things about your opposition and setting up an incompetent foil.




Asserting the same thing LOUDER does not make it more true.



That's not the discussion we're having.

I feel like we're almost to the point where a sample with several thousand data points is about to be cast aside in favor of pics of the inside of a taxidermy shop.
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No need to take anything i say personal and take offense. Well unless you’re the guy shooting baby deer on the regular and then declaring those babies are as smart as a mature buck. That would be idiotic in which case i could see a guy taking offense at me saying that as it would threaten their belief system on deer hunting. No one likes to hear they have a lot to learn.

That being said, only a small percentage of hunters have the ability to kill mature bucks on a somewhat regular basis on any piece of property they hunt. It’s definitely hard to do and it will humble most hunters. That’s because most hunters hunt like everybody else out there and those mature and MUCH smarter bucks know how those minions hunt, thus avoid those scenarios altogether.

This is science. The data on deer kills across every single state support this.

Best of luck in mature buck hunting if you’re one of them “mature buck are the same as baby deer” crowd. Anyone can get lucky and have one pushed by them for sure, no doubt about it.
 
It's 2021 and there's no need to discriminate between mature deer or immature deer, they all deserve an ethical shot and a place in the freezer. :)
 
Jtaylor said:
It's 2021 and there's no need to discriminate between mature deer or immature deer, they all deserve an ethical shot and a place in the freezer. :)
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Yep, sure do. No problem with killing 10 50lb baby deer a year if it’s legal and that’s what you want to do.

But to make wild claims that those tender little nub bucks are just as smart as mature bucks is downright misinformation that needs to be stopped at all costs!

How do you flag/report misinformation on forums so it can be censored :laughing:

i’m kidding for the more easily offended amongst us…
 
swampdonkey said:
Yep, sure do. No problem with killing 10 50lb baby deer a year if it’s legal and that’s what you want to do.

But to make wild claims that those tender little nub bucks are just as smart as mature bucks is downright misinformation that needs to be stopped at all costs!

How do you flag/report misinformation on forums so it can be censored :laughing:

i’m kidding for the more easily offended amongst us…
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I think we're fighting a double edged sword here..not only are mature bucks more adept to their environment but there's less of them than the less adept which goes hand in hand with age class. I think maybe without reading through all the data and posts a simple take away could be where there's less predatory pressure, disease and environmental factors etc. effecting mortality, more deer are able to make it to an older age class. Where mortality is high, you'll have fewer mature bucks and fewer deer in general making them harder to hunt.
So high mortality rates and more adept deer are going to be much harder to hunt than an area with low mortality rates and higher populations of mature animals.
Depending on the area of the country we're in, we could be fighting one or both of these factors which could effect how we perceive our deer population.
 
Jtaylor said:
I think we're fighting a double edged sword here..not only are mature bucks more adept to their environment but there's less of them than the less adept which goes hand in hand with age class. I think maybe without reading through all the data and posts a simple take away could be where there's less predatory pressure, disease and environmental factors etc. effecting mortality, more deer are able to make it to an older age class. Where mortality is high, you'll have fewer mature bucks and fewer deer in general making them harder to hunt.
So high mortality rates and more adept deer are going to be much harder to hunt than an area with low mortality rates and higher populations of mature animals.
Depending on the area of the country we're in, we could be fighting one or both of these factors which could effect how we perceive our deer population.
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Absolutely a fair assessment imo. You’d get no argument from me when stating there are less mature trophy class animals than baby deer running around waiting to be shot or killed by coyotes.

If trophy bucks were dumb and/or plentiful everyone would be shooting them regularly. Even guys who think mature bucks are dumb and there’s no need to hunt them differently than any other deer.
 
OspreyZB said:
A guy with access to GPS collared deer data from all over the country. He talks about it all the time how by just looking at the data, you might think a mature buck is a totally different species than the rest of the deer.
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And Bill Thompson has an app called Spartan Forge that uses all that info for you at a given zip code. Check out DIY Sportsman on youtube. He has an entire video on how it works.
 
katiesmom said:
And Bill Thompson has an app called Spartan Forge that uses all that info for you at a given zip code. Check out DIY Sportsman on youtube. He has an entire video on how it works.
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Garret of DIY Sportsman is a paid "Pro Staffer" for Spartan Forge so take that for what its worth.
 
Tough guy acts don’t really help us learn how to kill bigger deer. Can we just go back to having the constructive conversation we were before?
 
The only advice you need to know on this thread.

Hunt like everyone else and you’ll have the same results as everyone else. This mean by in large you’ll be killing baby deer, young does, and sub 100” bucks.

Now take that advice and apply it to your scenarios and you’ll be ahead of everyone else around you doing the same thing year after year after year in your area.

There will never be a “do this and you’ll kill mature bucks regularly” answer because mature bucks are NOT like other deer nor are they even very similar to each other. Those mature deer are doing things very differently than the rest of the herd.

The most dominant bucks in the woods will always be the toughest to kill and you will need to do something differently or you won’t consistently kill them you’ll just be getting lucky once in awhile. Whatever it is that needs to be done differently is what YOU need to figure out, no one can figure that out for you. But i guarantee if you do what most guys are doing you won’t kill the stud in the woods very often, if ever.

Guys who suddenly declare they are only killing a mature buck this year or going forward figure this out soon enough and change their tune after a season or two of not even seeing one.
 
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