Originally Posted by abolt300
Originally Posted by ikillbux
We recently had a somewhat heated debate at the military base I hunt on about the "4 on one side" rule. That's been the requirement for the past few years (with NO other stipulations), and it has devolved into a full-on slaughter of every young buck with "4 on one side". I do not know the exact total harvest, but I'm thinking there were about 100 bucks killed this season (+,- 10), and of that total number I would bet my entire year's income there weren't 5 bucks over 110". This is a place that for the past 15 years has given up MULTIPLE 140" bucks every year (two over 160" the last 3 seasons). Just a general assumption, normally we'd kill maybe 25 to 40 bucks in the 120+" class, I don't think we had a single deer that big this time (maybe one). There is zero difference otherwise, no seasonal or habitat changes, nothing. Believe this or not, I didn't SEE nor even HEAR one single coyote this whole season.

Even though we sell roughly 250-300 licenses each year, in reality there's only about 75-100 hunters out there for most of the season (at any one time anyway). If there is a difference, it's that there's a substantial influx of new guys that started LAST YEAR (being out there as long as I have you become something of a brotherhood). You know everybody, we have an active Facebook page, etc. I will say we had a constant, and I mean constant, clash on the Facebook page about "Guys, cool it with killing all the piss-willy bucks!!!", then "By Golly, it's legal, so I'll kill whatever the @#$@# I want to!!!" If you think there's no repercussions to you "killing whatever you want to", you're dead wrong. Period. Not one single person I've talked to even reports to "secretly" seeing a "big" buck this year. They are NOT THERE.

By the way, this place has long been under Auburn University DMP. They do multiple deer studies each year, nighttime infrared trips, all sorts of stuff. The top 3 management tools are: trigger control, trigger control, trigger control. Nothing else matters. "4 points on one side" just
assures your best young bucks get killed early.


Let me gues....you're in either year 4 or 5 of this "4 on one side" nonsense. Fact of the matter is you are not seeing them because they are not there anymore. The best bucks in every upcoming year class are being killed/high graded out as 1-3 yr olds. If you repeatedly kill all of your young 8 points in successive years you've wiped out the deer that should be your larger antlered, older age class bucks 3-5 yrs down the road. It is a very easy and quick way to screw up a deer herd both genetically and age structure wise unless significant trigger restraint is exercised which it sounds like is not happening. Sounds like AU is well on their way to screwing up a good thing. Is Gus Malzahn also running AU's DMAP program???????

Auburn isn't screwing it up, it's the dumbarses who can't keep their booger hooker off the trigger. Deer management is more about hunter management than anything else.

Dying ain't much of a living boy...Josey Wales

Molon Labe