I agree Matt. I think cell cams and corn are getting more mature bucks killed because people are holding out for specific bucks thus killing more of the most mature deer.

A 35-40% increase in buck harvest does not point toward "more people holding out"

I don’t trust any numbers put out by any gov agency. Especially if they are getting numbers from game check.

I say no. I am very much in favor of people hunting how they want to and not being mandated into a state regulated trophy management mindset. The cell cam and corn combination has made it very easy to kill deer. There’s less deer making it into the older age classes because of it.

I am very much anti-government so the way I feel about it and the way I often phrase my thoughts regarding any potential regulation is "Education is more effective than legislation".

Buck harvest is definitely trending towards an average age higher than in times passed, largely because of all the education that has been put out over the years through groups such as the QDMA (NDA).

In the meantime, I'm just saying that it's very frustrating when we put so much time, effort, and money into growing an impressive upper age class of bucks and the neighbors are just shooting them as babies over a corn pile and cell cam.

Afraid i gone be frustrated to SEWoods

One of my good friends in Choctaw county raised a stud - at 4 he was mid to high130s easy w split brows. He asked everyone to let it walk - he was a great deer - neighbor killed him over corn pile

I will hav to get lucky to kill a mounter amd corn has gotten so expensive

May need to rethink and go pay $$ to go to iowa every year for 5 days - seriously

Believe man. We agree on most things you’ve posted. I was just playing devils advocate. It sucks to put a bunch of time in a buck with potential that somebody else shoots. But I’ve come to realize it’s not my deer till I put my hands on it.

Sometimes I think more quality deer were killed when dog hunting was legal. And I’m not talking about deer the dogs ran. We hunted a small place in the middle of several big dog clubs and there were some big big deer that got killed a day or so after a big drive.

Of course there were. When killing deer was a random occurrence instead of a targeted assassination like it is today, more bucks reached older age classes, and some of them were super stars. Most ALL of the BIG bucks killed 20-50 years ago were 6-8 years old. We had higher scoring deer before game cameras. Now every 3-4 year old is a target on someone’s camera, if not on multiple cameras over multiple properties. There’s no chance for deer to live old enough to hit 150”+. I know of places that could eliminate 90+% of any age class of buck if they wanted to do it. They’re not hard to kill. The only deer making it to 4-5 or older are the ones we, as hunters, allow to live. Hardly no one is passing deer that could be really great deer at 6-7. The bucks that are living to be that age are ones nobody wants to waste a spot on their harvest record.

Agreed.

It's not so much the corn that bothers me. I mean, if it's your private property, I'm going to ere on the side of freedom and private property rights.

It just frustrates me that every John Doe in Alabama can do absolutely nothing other than fill their corn feeder up, sit at home watching TV, and wait until he gets an instant notification of a promising young buck at the feeder behind the house and shoot it out his back window. Fair chase has gotta come into play at some point, but I don't know how you can balance it all out and I know the GWs are gonna have an impossible time enforcing any change to what most feel entitled to now that it's been legal for a couple years.