General Hunting Discussion
State of hunting and fishing
Again, publiclandhunter crying the blues....I'm the conservative outdoorsman. I actually release fish, I don't throw in the first 25 perch that come over the side of the boat. Everyone seems to be in a rush to fill the livewell, snap a pic and send it to all their friends. it's true, social media is killing the outdoors. It's a venue to brag and that's it.
You can call me a chit head or whatever you choose, but it's guys like you that are the social media whores. "hey guys i caught my 5 walleye's on bago". WoooHoooo, so you did something that 100 other guys also did that same day.
Like I said, stop feeling sorry for yourself. So I guess you can be a whiner and social media whore....and i'll just continue to ruin the world and aide in the degradation of hunting as we know it by filling a buck tag every 4-5 years and shooting 2-3 doe a year (like the DNR wants)....Oh yeah and being conservative on the lakes by only keeping what i can eat and releasing small fish. Yeah, but i'm the bad apple and a total chit head right? Comical.
Casey you started off so well with your post but them seemingly fell into the familiar trap you spoke so ill of in the first half. I for one am looking forward to the day and a half I get to gun hunt and possibly a sit or two with my bow and would be thrilled to get an opportunity to "rush things" and take the first dumb 1.5 year old buck because between my business and my three young children I actually am too busy. I'm not complaining, I wouldn't change anything, this is the life I chose and I'm sure there's several hundred thousand of us "non-true hunters" who are in the same boat I'm in.
I have followed lake link since it started and created an account a few years ago because the hunting forums were the best on the web and some awesome stories were being told-- benifiting everyone-- and in the last 2-3 years the traffic either went somewhere else or everyone got sick of fighting!! Nobody knows everything and everybody knows something so if we could all find a common ground that would be wonderful!! I know this state has quite the variety from far left to far right but just like the government it's time for a moderate to band us together as one again!! IMHO we should at least be able to agree to disagree and ultimately I truly believe we all want what's best for the deer herd and yes I know we can't even agree on that!! Everyone is in such a rush these days so yeah maybe they shoot the first dumbest 1-1/2 year old buck because there to "busy" to hunt and happy to fill a tag?Not many of us are deer biologists but the true hunters who don't rush things should try and help the next guy to not be so rushed!! Know I'm just rattling out loud as I often do but I would love to see the old hunting forum traffic of days past because it truly was the best on the web!! I think everyone went silent because I can't find a good forum where people use each other's wisdom to gain knowledge--done babbling-- Casey
If I'm being honest here, I would much rather be next to the guy who shoots 1 buck every 5 years, puts out some winter food, and maybe does some other stuff to benefit the deer than being next to the guy who shoots 2 bucks a year and does nothing to help the resource. Those bales he might be tossing out aren't cheating me out of anything. There is more shared resource available.
words can't explain how pathetic you sound. Cry about bait. Cry about private land food plots. whine whine whine. Pretty typical for around here.
First off I won't be hunting this weekend but if people want to, go for it. If they do release an arrow, do you think it was their intentions to put the arrow somewhere else than in the vitals?
See you talk out of your arse. If you hit a deer bad in this heat, you still have to give it reasonable time to expire. What don't you understand about that?
No the bales are about 1000-1100lbs, but who really has to time to weigh them. Oh yeah, go back and find where I said "all winter". RIght, you won't, cause that's not what i said. Just another fabrication on your part....poor little fella, do you need a hug? You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself
yeah it came across wrong, but i'll let you guys form your opinions of me, I couldn't care less. only one that bothers me is FishSqueezer, I do everything by the book. what you describe is poaching. I'm not that guy. Except maybe throw out a bale or two in the winter...doesn't make me a poacher. I shoot a buck maybe every other 4 or 5 years too. So if i put an arrow in it, I'm tagging it even if it's a bone pile.
Anything else written here I couldn't care less. I've never had a rotten deer, i've left many lay on the side of caution.
Casedog is right, push a deer and it's gone. As a hunter it's my responsibility to do the right thing in recovering that deer. My hyperbole of "Horns don't rot" or "maggots on it" was simply a matter of speech. If i have to leave that deer lay because i made a bad shot in the liver, it's gonna lay for 8 hours and I don't give a crap about meat at that point. If I go in at 5 and jump that deer, a liver shot deer will run like a MOFO and leave ZERO blood. At that point your ethics got in the way of successfully recovering that animal. I don't know what the percentage of lost deer are, but i'd be willing to bet a high percentage if of lost deer are from people pushing them.
As madforlabs said, tracking is a skill. Last year a guy called me to track. he said he "hit it good". I said did you see it fall? Nope. Well then lets wait 4 hours and go look. He was like "no F'n way". Ok, so we went but I told him if I don't see what i want to see i'm calling the shots here. about 150 yards into the track, we found a bed. He was jacked....I was NOT optimistic. So he's thinking this deer can't be far and wants to push on. What he didn't know what that all the blood to that point was dry or 75% already. All the bed and blood afterward was wet. We just jumped that deer but didn't know it. I dragged his arse out of that woods and we went back 2 hours before dark. We found that deer 100 yards from the last bed still alive. Hit it in the liver going on 8 hours. He able to put another arrow in it.
If it was warm and he insisted we keep going cause it's warm...that deer would have been in the next county.
you guys can bash all you want, but when the rubber hit the road and you are in the situation where you are up against warm potentially wasted deer or bumping it and having zero chance of recovery......i'd love to know what you'd do. If you push it, that's just as ethically wrong.
Real case example: My son gut shot a deer in the afternoon the weekend before rifle season. He made a poor decision and knew it. Based on the reaction of the deer after the shot and it staying on trail we were confident it would not go far. We opted to leave the deer over night. We got 4" of snow that night. We recovered the deer about 60 yards from the shot. The deer was covered in snow, no clue what time the snow started. Both of the rear hinds and the lower ends of the loins were contaminated.
Real case example: My son liver shot a deer quartering away. Made a great shot. The arrow extended into one lung. That deer went down in sight.
So, a couple examples of gut and liver hit deer. I'm really trying to make a point just giving a couple real world examples to some questions. I don't there are any hard fast rules and every situation is different.
Carry on...
LB came across wrong I agree, but I think he didn't mean what he wrote. If it is warm, it is indeed stupid to push a gut shot deer, buck or doe. The "will to live" comment is a little off, but typically a bigger deer can take longer to perish compared to a smaller deer with the exact same hit. "Will to live" has nothing to do with survival of a mortal hit. When an animal's blood pressure gets too low, "will to live" doesn't mean a thing.
What that means to me, I will not wait too long to follow a deer if the venison is at risk. If it is that hot outside, I will follow a deer sooner than I would if it was cold. However, if you shoot a deer at night on a gut shot, waiting till first light should not result in spoiled meat in WI.
Sorry LB, I think you pooped in the trail on that one. I think I get what you were trying to convey but it didn't come across well.
Tracking is an acquired skill that requires a decision process with great potential for making the wrong move even with years of experience. Nonetheless, my actions are always driven by the objective of salvaging edible meat. It's the ethical way to fly and I believe most others feel similarly.
Although I believe it was me and long barrels going back and forth about Wisconsin being the best deer state in the country I have to agree with LB about pushing deer!! The worst thing you can do is push a liver/gut hit deer because you "KNOW YOU HIT A LUNG" and it's gotta be dead around the next tree! I have been on over 100 blood trails in some pretty rough tracking terrain and you will lose 9.5 to every 10 deer u push early because they are servivors by nature and will leave you with no more blood to follow-- good luck finding that deer where it could be anywhere within a 2 mile radius!! The stories I could tell about blood trails and the hours spent on hands and knees looking through grass and pine needles and oh yeah the grass has red that looks like blood so your wiping blades of grass to see if it's blood!! I have seen deer do some amazing things and have literally spent an entire weekend looking for a deer that we had to get right away cuz I heard it crash!! Don't get me wrong we find way more than we don't but all the ones we lost were the ones that we got on to early!! The people down south shoot deer in the heat all the time and I think you have more time than people realize!! If you hit guts or liver it's 7-8 hours in my book and I don't think it's rotten sitting in 75 degree darkness!! My 2 cents- Casedog
In this case there is really no gray area, you are either an ethical sportsman or you are not. You're the one that said you'd rather let the buck lay because the rack won't rot. If you choose to pursue a buck differently, going so far as to let it rot, than you would pursue a doe for fear of having the antlers run off, is that ethical? I don't know how you're able to tap the psyche of deer to measure their will to live. You're full of "chit" if you say you're putting your buck tag on a "rotten" buck. After all, the yotes would take care of it in short order. I would think most people, myself included, would do everything possible to retrieve any deer (fawn, doe, spiker, b&c monster buck) before the meat spoils. And there's no way doing everything possible to retrieve a deer doesn't play better to the anti's than letting the meat rot and sawing off the antlers (those don't rot I hear). I guess we're just all ethical gifts from God for that.
PLH, didn't your mother ever teach you that jealousy will get you no where.
WI doesn't have trophy hunting...stop fooling yourself.
I don't get you people...you act like you're some ethical gift from God. So a northwoods buck walks in, you put an arrow in it but hit it in the guts. You can't tell me your chasing it. Pot calling the kettle black. If you chase it you are a absolute idiot. Pushing a deer is unethical too. It's worse than letting a deer lay so it can die in peace. The anti's would be all over someone if they heard a story of a buck running around 2 miles with all his guts hanging out. Yeah, i'm right. Leaving a deer lay to make sure it's dead is a hell of a lot better than pushing a wounded deer on a 2 mile marathon just to lose it anyway. 9 times out of 10 you'll lose a deer if you push it. Anyone that has hunted long enough has been on nightmare tracking jobs would agree
