Quote:
Originally Posted by Z7Extreme
To me that is a GREAT buck!!! I have yet to see one over 100" with rifle in hand. But then again I don't usually get much time to hunt deer. This year I still have an elk tag in my pocket... was on a herd of elk a few days ago and the bull bugled his cows off the field around 7:15 am. It was November 14 latest that I've ever heard a bugle. Followed them into the timber a little bit and found a nice spot to setup on them. But the wife wanted me home by noon and I have been working away from home ever since. I sure hope they are still hitting that field when I get a couple days off!!! Good luck to you on your moose Keg and to everyone else!!
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I'm not concerned about finding a bull, I know they are there, I just have to be there when they are in the open or in the mood to come to a call.
I've never failed to get my bull when I have the time to hunt.
Elk are another matter, I wouldn't know where to start with them. I've never held an Elk tag or put my crosshairs on one. Ever.
I'm not hunting Deer this year, I'll have more then enough meat with one Moose, in fact we are giving half of whatever I take, to my daughter and her family. If she hadn't have asked, I'd be hunting Deer, it would take us a couple of years, or more to eat one Moose ourselves. But I do prefer Moose meat over all other options that I'm familiar with.
As for not seeing bigger Deer, I wouldn't worry about that. I will pull the trigger on a 100 class buck any day if I am hunting Deer. They taste just as good and are easier to handle by yourself.
We hunt private land surrounded by private land with little to no access so these Deer don't get shot at every time they stand up. That tends to lead to more mature bucks.
In the more developed land where there is more access I don't see many bucks over 100 inches even though they are less then an hour from where we hunt.
We don't try to keep all the Deer for ourselves or try to take the biggest bucks. We just don't care for rutted up roads and cut fences so we limit access to friends and neighbors and they do likewise.
If you could find land like that down there I'm betting you'd be seeing bigger bucks a lot more often.
It's gotta be tough for a Deer to survive where the hunters fight each other for access to the few patches of ground open to them.
It's not that outsiders aren't welcome. In fact there is a fellow from Calgary here right now. He's hunting my son in laws land and living in my next door neighbors bunk shack. He's welcome here, on my land and most of the land around me because he has proven he can be trusted.
What many people don't seem to get is that most of us have been burned enough times that we just don't take chances with strangers.
You may be the nicest, most considerate fellow in the province, but the only way we can learn that is by watching you hunt for a few years.
It just isn't gonna happen over night.
It may not be fair to you, but it's not fair to us either. Why should we have to take chances so that you get what you want? We get nothing out of it, in many cases and it can cost us a lot.
What's it cost you? At most all it means for you is that you may have to drive a little further then you'd like to.
For us it can mean many hours of repairing fences that were sound before the hunter arrived, and many hours of rounding up stray livestock.
It can even mean a $2,500 cow winds up coyote bait because someone shot her and left her to rot.
I haven't even touched on the cost of rutted roads because someone with a two ton four by four didn't have enough sense to stall off them till they dried up. I drove just such a road this morning. For over a mile my front wheals were on one side of the road and my back on the other, not because it was slippery but because the ruts were so deep and frozen so hard that even in four wheal drive I couldn't climb out of them.
Fortunately that was not one of our farm lanes but it very well could have been if we had granted access to the fools that made that mess.
What I'm telling you is be patient. Get to know some land owners, use respect and follow the law and in time you will see doors open that aren't open to just anyone.
That's where you will find the big bucks. Not on the grazing leases and public ground where the crowds go.
When a land owner tells you there are already hunters on his land, he is telling you that if you are patient it will be worth the wait, There will be something left worth going after.
Believe me, if he threw the gates for everyone it wouldn't be long and only scrawny Deer would remain and the trails would be obstacle courses and the camping spots would be garbage dumps.
That's just the way it is in this modern world.
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