I am personally for a tag system. Reasons... The local village idiot that lives next to my 800 acre lease. He comes in when we are not there, rides the roads day and night, shoots all moving deer. And what can we do?? Nothing. We do manage our place and so do the neighboring clubs. GW's are non existent where we hunt. The Hrvest record we currently use... even IF he did fill out a record, after he shoots three small bucks, he can just go print another.. who will ever know? Some might argue that the Meat hunter has to shoot spikes because it is all he may see.. well it dang sure will be if he shoots the first thing that walks. If there are spikes in the area, there are does, and most likely there are bigger bucks. Nothing wrong with being a meat hunter, but it doesnt mean you cant hunt to promote a better quality of wildlife. It is known that an old doe will only birth one fawn, whereas a young doe is more likely to birth two. Kill the old doe when possible. Now with all that said, I am not saying it is just wrong for someone to shoot a spike. If it is just all you see and just have to... fine. BUT.. it is the guy that shoots multiple spikes in a season. That hurts your deer population waaaaay more than what a doe will. We would all see more deer and better deer if everyone atleast attempted to practice a little qdm. If you havent, I urge all of you to watch the show, "Wild Justice" on NatGeo. You can see some insight into the lives of the california GW's and maybe appreciate some of us that have a genuine love for the outdoors and a passion for protecting our wildlife.
