To begin with, I am not as experienced as most of you are, but that does not make me any less ethical, determined or concerned about any of the deer I shoot or how I go about harvesting my deer.
I would like to say that I walk the middle ground and now try to explain that comment. I hunt three different properties, and believe me, I spend enough time in the woods to know the herds of those properties very well. In spot one (State land), you are darn lucky to get anything, and although I do see deer quite often there, it's a hard kill, and you've earned anything you take off of that land. Some jerk is now baiting 10 yards away from the bait I have been maintaing since September, not to mention having had my equipment stolen twice, AND somebody shot a deer from IN MY STAND. I have however, let small bucks pass there this year. In spot two (Club property), you are hunting much wiser and educated deer that have been hunted hard and driven on a regular basis by other hunters. This property is loaded with deer and I frequently see herds of 6 or more, but it's a much harder hunt. I also gave a regular spike a season pass on this property during gun season and missed a really nice buck with the bow.(Shot a tree) Spot three (Private property) houses two really nice bucks along with several other smaller ones, a three legged doe with her two fawns, and then many passer throughs, but generally large does with their fawns. In an effort to harvest one of the larger bucks, I hunted this property hard this year, saw deer at just about EVERY sit, but let EVERYTHING pass for several weeks, but no had no luck with the bucks there.
So, I am what I would call a meat hunter who still has concern for the growth and potential of the bucks on the properties that I hunt, but I am NOT a Trophy Hunter. I get laid off every year in January and February and do look forward to being able to spend as much time in the woods during that time as I do, but believe me, I do not shoot everything that I see. It makes no difference to me if I shoot a doe in Sept who will be pregnant in January or shoot that same doe in January when she is pregnant, as either way, ultimately, three deer will have been removed from next years herd. As far as seeing the babies in her belly goes, heck, for the longest time, I would bring them home and show them to my children and turn it into a learning experience, and if I could have found a recipe on line I would have turned it into an eating experience as well. We eat veal, don't we? Well, personally, I don't, but same idea, isn't it?
As far as shooting the shed buck goes, it wasn't intentional and it was an honest mistake, but it was legal, and is it going to keep me from hunting in January and February? Nope it's not. I'll certainlly try to be more careful in my identification, as it's something I would prefer not to do, but I only harvested one buck this year, a small 5 point, so it was a mistake, but not an OH MY GOD GO CRAWL UNDER A ROCK one. And another thing, I could very easily not have posted anything at all and just put this one in my freezer, but I choose to share my experiences with everythone here, the good, the bad, the ugly, and it was a fantastic shot too, so I make no apologies for shooting the shed buck. It's a part of hunting, and he's a part of my diet. I follow the rules, all of them. I don't shoot every deer that walks in front of me, I never will. I exercised great restraint this year in not shooting on many occasions as I won't take what I believe to be poor shots, long shots or questionable ones. Actually, walking in yesterday, I could have shot a deer from on the ground at 40 yards, but I knew that 300 to 400 yards beyond the woods were houses, and what if, just what if I missed and my bullet were not stopped by all of the trees in the woods? So, I did not shoot. Instead, I waited, made a little noise, and waited again for the deer to leave and then continued to my stand. I truely believe that I am making the right decisions and for the right reasons, but if the law says that I can hunt in January and into February, I will do so.
