Not that my opinion counts, but I couldn't tell you how many bucks I have harvested in my lifetime. I never kept track because it was never important to me to keep track.
What I can say is that I shot several bucks before I ever shot a doe. Back in the day it was one and you are done.
I think I was probably 18 yrs old before I ever shot my first doe. Doe's were a lot harder to hunt back then, because everyone hunted bucks on the first day and hunting in the game lands here, it was not uncommon to see 50 - 60 deer a day. Not to say it wasn't the same 12 deer / 3 or 4 times, being pushed past my stand.
Grandpa always said, where the girls are, there you will find the boys! How true!
We always hunted does in camp on private land, no one ever kept records of how many does we shot either.
Some years everyone in the camp shot a doe - 8 / 12 does hanging in the trees around the camp, and we never even put a dent in the doe population.
Antler restrictions reduced the number of deer sightings per a day, but also increased the size and number of bucks I saw. After moving my tree stand 3 times in 6 years, I finally found a spot that pretty much guaranteed me a buck every year. Then everyone posted their land and the deer stopped moving around like they did before. Local farmers started planting corn - for the ethanol plant, and the deer would hang out around the corn, on posted land.
It stopped snowing, and the deer hung out in the fields - green grass, and that also decreased the opportunity to get a deer there. Before the Posted Signs, the hunters put on multiple deer drives - especially the last day of the seasons, and there were plenty of opportunities.
Then the white oaks died and the red oaks had several years - no acorns, which also moved the deer to other places.
The springs dried up, and the deer hung out around the seeps and creeks, and they avoided the places with the hunters.
The Game Commission outlawed feeders - CWD - and I believe the people that bought our camp were feeding the deer year round before the mandate, stopped feeding the deer, and the deer stopped coming into the woods where I hunted all together.
I went back to the Game Lands, but the PGC opened up a road, made it easier for the hunters to get back further into the woods. This opened the woods up to more hunters, and more road hunters. The road hunters blabbed about all the deer they saw, and the Pilgrim Haulers started hauling in the Amish. The Amish got organized - walkie talkies and cell phones, and put on silent drives and started shooting everything. Pretty soon I will have to go to a Zoo to see a deer!
IN my area, this started in the north, then the hunters moved south - with the declining deer population.
A couple more counties and soon there will be no more deer except on private land.
It's pretty hard to get a buck when I only saw 5 deer total last year, and I hunted morning to night every day of the deer rifle season.
The problem is - there is too many deer seasons.
Too liberal bag limits.
Archery Season - that should only be 2 weeks long, being way too long, giving the opportunist first opportunity at shooting everything in the woods.
By the time rifle season comes along, most of the big bucks have already been harvested in my area.
The doe population has been decimated.
The bucks has gotten to the point of where they don't even rub the trees anymore.
The only does I shot last year, weighed 80 lbs.
I never saw a 3 year old doe last year!
Not even while driving down the road at night - with the truck headlights..
You either have to own a piece of land - to hunt, or you have to hunt in The Game Lands - where I live.
As long as the opportunists gets their deer, no one is going to complain - there are no deer.
When the deer population gets to the point of where no one is seeing any deer, it will probably already be too late.
Farmland being lost to housing and housing developments taking over those small plots of woods where I hunted rabbits and small game as a kid, drives the next generation of hunters away faster than anything else.
We have to do more to make this sport more attractive to the next generation of hunters - the kids, not adults with lot's of money and an archery license and camo.
You have to have rabbits and squirrels and grouse and pheasants - action, to keep them entertained.
Most kids, if put on a cold deer stand for 8 hours will quickly get bored and want to quit, just because video games, cell phones and sports gives them instant satisfaction.
Like any hobby, if we don't look at the problem - as long as we are getting what we want, eventually it won't be a problem, because there won't be any hunters left in another 30 years!
My guns will probably be sold at an auction when I die.
No one to leave them to!
Most of my stuff will be considered JUNK and thrown in the garbage dumpster..
All of those trophy's - to me, will be nothing but stuff thrown in a landfill. GARBAGE....
You can't eat the horns - is what my grandpa always told me!
