Herd survival was never even a thought. I struggled with work / hunting balance for years. Taking kids hunting or whatever. I realized no matter how much money I made, I still had the same problems in life and my work dominated everything. I quit(got a different job) People called me crazy. But I'm happy as yugo spending time with my family making 1/2 what I did. I understand your dilemma. It's impossible to make all the hunters in Tn happy. It'll never happen. Thanks for your polite opinion
Looking for opinions on season date changes
- Thread starter Monk74
- Start date
You need to talk to the TWRA about that. Have you called you wildlife commission?
CWD is like the war on drugs. I despise drugs BTW. They'll never stop it. Just keep imposing restrictions.
What about the gene pool or your private land if you got a couple bucks that you dont wont breeding do you waste a tag on them or do you wait on a trophy we use to have odd point racks on or farm no brow on one side or no brow at all thin racked no tine lengh. This was when you could kill 10 bucks a year and we got a most of that gene gone then they dropped the limit on bucks and that gene is coming back again because no one wonts to waist one of there tags on them and let's them walk and do the breeding. I mean even deer ranches have a cull tag for that reason
What do you do about does that carry half of the genetics? Eugenic harvesting in a wild population is not productive, practically or biologically
JeepKuntry
Well-Known Member
I would open the season up a couple weeks earlier. Shorten rifle a bit and finish the season archery hunting. With most modern ML's it wouldn't hurt my feelings if it went archery, gun, back to archery.
Over time most of that gets worked out if your a cattle farmer or you going to let your worst bull do the breeding or will you use the best one you got so over time the Gene's get better every time there breed .l agree that does play a part in it also but and old doe usually dont get a pass like a little 6 or 7 with no brow tines would
You laugh now, but it's almost that way in unit cwd, and the way twra thinks the sky is falling, it's coming soon statewide sooner or later.
jaybird62
Well-Known Member
"In our rather stupid time, hunting is belittled and misunderstood, many refusing to see it for the vital vacation from the human condition that it is, or to acknowledge that the hunter does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, he kills in order to have hunted." Jose Ortega y Gasset.That's a great analysis of my statements. However, Tennessee's game populations aren't low and I don't contend that. Can you say that more than one buck ( a buck someone is happy with) is necessary? Oh yea. I don't believe Colorado has low elk populationI do appreciate the civil and engaging conversation though. I guess I'm older now and think differently. But if you read this. Think of every buck you've shot in TN in your life. Every one has a story no matter how small he was. What would the story have been like the next year or the year after? I believe as hunters we better evolve quick, or my grandchildren and yours won't be hunting when they're grown. Thanks again Jaybird
If I tag a buck and the season is not closed, it is my preference to continue my "vacation from the human condition" with an opportunity to put a tag on a second buck of my choosing. On the other hand, shooting does for meat and management purposes is more akin to work.
Your suggestion is that my "story" might become more meaningful if I allowed that second buck to walk. Instead, killing it becomes a marker to relive that hunt, and is not diminished by the size of the rack.
From a biological standpoint, you might also want to check out some of the posts by BSK on passing a 3 1/2-year-old buck to let him grow, thinking that he'll even survive another season or two. If I'm not mistaken, the percentage of bucks in the total population that reach the elevated 5 1/2-year-old status is not significantly greater today than it was when the season buck bag limit was 10.
MickThompson
Well-Known Member
If you aren't hunting row crop- heavy areas, this your reality- much of east TN, the Cumberland Plateau, eastern and western Higland Rim, and so on.
I believe at one point @BSK or maybe someone else made the observation on here that TN bucks want to be (meaning they average) 105-110" 8 pointers when they grow up. Sure, there are outliers on the high side, but there are also outliers below average as well.
MickThompson
Well-Known Member
I doubt he has since national forests are managed by the US Forest Service and not the TWRA. TWRA does some cooperative work but the reality is on a forest that's roughly 650,000 acres, timber harvest is what drives wildlife populations, and the USFS is not cutting at a rate that can sustain much in the way of game.
CNF needs to be logged all over the place. And bears need to be killed 5 times more than they normally kill. And no more bear reserves in the forest. Logged and burned and managed at all would be excellent. Basically in east Tn we have Cherokee forest which is extremely rough and mostly unproductive from what I said earlier. It would be nice to have some more big tracks of public land to hunt that are managed. And not all quota. Middle Tn has a bunch and west Tn has big tracks.
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
In most years, more deer are killed on ML weekends as rifle weekends. There is no real difference in what is killed between the two. The only difference is another license to generate revenue.
Now back in the 80s, ML kills were MUCH lower. But we were hunting with percussion cap, patch balls, or Buffalo cast lead bullets. A 75 yard shot was a LONG shot back then.
I'm a proponent of logging forests responsibility. Most logging iv seen in TN is a disgrace to the profession. However,It absolutely helps wildlife. The Cumberland river basin is the most ecologically diverse deciduous rainforest on the entire planet. Game animals are not the only animals. In short I agree with you but we can't eliminate all old growth forests for the sake of hunting. Again I respect your opinion and thanks for being so honest.
Boy do I remember those days. I think it's better for deer nowadays with more accurate and reliable MZ. I remember squeeze the trigger and pray.
Valid points. First, what is a "significant " percentage? Also the number of bucks reaching 5 1/2 years old is low everywhere except for ranches and high fence. And where doe that data come from? Hunter A says he passed a buck. Hunter B says oh yea, I killed him. ? There's one undeniable fact that no hunter can argue. I don't know what'll happen if I pass a buck. He may make it, he may not. But, I know for certain if I shoot him he won't. The old " the neighbors will kill him" attitude is a tired outdated argument. And if going out hunting for meat and only taking doe's seems like work to some. I really wouldn't consider that guy a hunter. Just a bragger.
Had the same problem. I found they weren't old enough at our place. Maybe when the dropped the limit hunters on your place were more picky. Small bucks walked. Unless you've got three or four thousand acres. Your not influencing the gene pool. I've personally killed bucks I know and clocked on my trucks odometer 2.4 miles away on a straight highway. Di-calcium phosphate and selenium and to mineral site helped a ton. Everyone forgets a buck gets half his dna from the doe. Big doe's pumping out milk rick in calcium, phosphorus and selenium gives buck fawns a big head start.
I don't shoot doe's period. I usually only hunt November because around here most decent bucks are in a hole somewhere come thanksgiving Sunday. The doe's seem to feel safe on my place. 12-14 in my creek bottom each night. Does a single guy looking for love go somewhere with 2 girls or 14? Just my strategy,might not work for some but it works for me. Talking about deer of course.
Hilarious but I could totally see Illinois or New York doing this.
Probably, CWD is no different than blue tongue. It's nature's way of checks and balances. I've found a couple deer dead from blue tongue. The overwhelming majority of the herd was fine. By killing the yugo outta every deer win a CWD zone All they're accomplishing is killing more and more deer with natural immunity.
