BigJ71

Shed,

My wife's cousin lives near Coeur d' Alene and we plan on a bear/cougar hunt when he get's back from Iraqi (I pray that he does) If I ever get back up that way again (used to when I lived in Utah) I would like to look you up if it's ok.

Her (my wife) aunt just moved back from there. She was known as "the lady who lived on the mountain" She told us that she looked forward to going to town and meet with the ladies for their "Bunko" games. She moved out there and boughtsome property to be closer to her son. She stayed a while but then moved back here. She sold most of the land and the house but left some for her son (my wifes cousin) to hunt on. It backs up to mostly state land and logging company land.

shed33

Big,

Please do look me up. I live about 35 minutes from CDA..as for your wifes cousin, I hope he is safe as well. I bet he can't wait to get home and do some hunting. It's beautiful country out here...of course I am bias.. LOL

BigJ71

I'd like that. Like I said I hope one day to return to hunt. He is a great guy and an avid outdoorsman he used to work as a logger you know (living in logging country) just how tough that job is. He is a great guy, years ago he gave me a FN L1A1 rifle (with 120rds of ammo in loaded magazines w/pouches) as a wedding present.......my wife just shook her head

shed33

Yup Big, That gift sounds normal out in these parts! I grew up loggin with my dad...still do, I guess its in my blood....Maybe we could hook up for a bear hunt, I have a great spring spot ...

Troy

BigJ71

Troy,

I appreciate the offer, however I'm not sure when he will get out of the serviceand back to the states, but when he does you can bet that I will make every effort to get out your way. When I do, we will definitely get together and hunt.

Bear sounds good.

John

BOWFANATIC

I believe the true (original)intent of QDM is very reasonable. To keep the buck to doe ratios in check by harvesting more doe instead of imature bucks. The "trophy buck" thing was an added allure to letting young bucks walk ,and shooting does instead, and more does , and more does.

In my neck of the woods QDM stands for Quality Doe Management. Practice it or our DNR will force you!

Wolfpack

I don't know what other people's reason behind it is but where I hunt (NC), out of the 100-110 deer that I saw this season I only saw a total of 8 bucks. Only 1 buck was 3 1/2 yrs old or older the other 7 were 2 1/2 and younger. I hunted 28 times from the bow opener to the close of gun season(about 1/3 of what I wanted[:@]) so you can figure I averaged about 4 sightings per hunt. 7 of the 8 bucks were seen in Nov. What I want is to let these 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 yr olds walk to get bigger ( yes, I mean antler size because with age generally comes antler size)and take out more does to try and have a better rut. On the conservative side I would say some areas are 5 does to 1 buck, other areas it is worse. So yes, for me it is about shooting big does and bigger better bucks but the rest of the herd alsoprofits from this by the food plots, minerals, and so forth that are needed to help produce bigger bucks. My goal IS to have bigger bucks so I let most of them walk because simply put we don't have that many bucks[&:]

tsoc

I think so much of a hunters perspective on this topic is based on obviously what they have experienced in the area's that they hunt.I have gotten extremely frustrated in my home area as it relates to the opportunities available to kill older bucks.(you don't out smart their antlers,you out smart their age).I hunt hard and I hunt often and it is so infrequently that I see a 3.5 year old buck or older,it is just very discouraging.Our NYS harvest statistics have about 80 to 85 percent of our buck take estimated to be 11/2 year olds.In our archery season this year I saw 11 bucks,8 of which were 11/2 year olds,two of which were likely 21/2 year olds and one of which was 31/2 or better.
I spend 10 day's every year rifle hunting in Idaho (thank god!)not far from Troy's neck of the woods.It is always such a let down rifle hunting or muzzleloader hunting home after returning from hunting an area where there is a decent liklihood of seeing a mature buck if you hunt smart and hard.
In the 4 days I rifle hunted and muzzleloader hunted home I saw 18 deer,of those deer only one was a buck and he was a 11/2 year old 4 pointer.What practical purpose would have been served in me killing that buck?
We are way over browsed and way out of balance.I have read atlasmans theory on herd balance as I have read the editor of deer and deer hunting's take on herd balance.What they have written is that it is impossible at the beginning of the hunting season to have a ratio of more than 3 doe's to 1 buck.Biologically that is pretty hard to dispute.Of course as the hunting season goes on the ratio's widen considerably.What I think would be of greater interest at least in my home area are the ratio of doe's to buck at ages beyond 11/2 year old bucks.I think that would be very eye opening.How many doe's are there for every 3.5 year old or older buck.Considering I had over 100 hours of hunting time in our woods and saw one 3.5 year old buck and saw at least 35 doe's that I know to be different deer.
I apologize for being so lengthy,some things you just can't illustrate quickly! Our current set of circumstances is not satisfactory to me personally!

wolfen68

You have the atlasmen of your state to thank for your dilema but then I guess he justifies his selfishness and lack of discipline with an arse-scratching good time watching football and eating bambi with his buddies.[]

BigJ71

Tsoc,

Sounds like you guys need to do some QAM.

This whole post was about the difference in QDM vs QAM and how those lines have been blurred. While QDM will naturally produce it's share of bigger bucks, originally that was not it's purpose. It's purpose was to bring the herds back to a healthy status, in the process bigger bucks were produced. I think somewhere along the way people started associating them together QDM=growning big antlered bucks because there were those who were practicing QDM when it wasn't needed but it was done so......you guessed it, there would be more P&Y bucks to shoot.

The problem isthere doesn't have to be 80% P&Y bucks running around to have a healthy herd.I was just getting some of you to think next time you call what you are doing QDM when in reality all you want ismorebig antlered bucks to shoot. Not a bad thing mind you it's just not QDM.