I’ll just throw this out there, and it’s THE primary reason I no longer work for the DCNR. I fought it hard then and I’m going to continue to do so, but the additive mortality of the Feb extension in areas it’s not needed, with legalized baiting and technological advances in deer detection is an absolute disaster and will impact population dynamics for a long time.
This is intelligent and I believe this. Truth is in my land, we just don’t shoot many deer. We have tons of deer! Tons of bucks! We only like shooting big mature whitetails. Now having said that, I like shooting deer, always have! But because my most valuable asset is time, I tend to not shoot does because I become very focused on shooting certain bucks we have pictures of. If I shoot a doe, my hunt is over.
We spend a ton of money on corn in the fall and triple grip in other parts of the year. Many of my feeders, I will have 12-15 does trying to eat on all times of the day. But that is the right thing to do! Right!!?? I feel that if I am going to take resources off the land, I need to provide for the rest of the resources! Habitat improvement, feeding, minerals, and keeping poachers away is something I can do. It is the evolution of a deer hunter. Once again, I love shooting big bucks but I also love the management of the land and the animals! It’s the whole process that I enjoy. Same goes for the guys I hunt with. By doing things this way, we should never have problems with deer numbers.
