I often watch the whitetail hunting shows on Versus,and wonder "what the heck".I live in Michigan,and an 8 point here is massive,you can't do much better,maybe 200lbs max deer size.I watch them on those shows passing up deer way bigger than I could ever have an opportunity at.They sit and look at dozens of bucks walk by,and they get pretty picky if it isn't a 12 point 300lb buck,and won't shoot anything smaller.Is this what hunting has become?I would have to hunt for 6-7 years to see a dozen bucks.I just think that they should do less shooting and more eating.I am going to get a private land doe tag this year because I think it will taste better than an old stinky buck.I will also by default get a buck license,which I will try to fill,and I will use the buck meat to mix with pork or beef and give it away,but the doe is mine,I like straight venison,pounded and flash fried.I also have one more issue with Versus.They have a commercial about getting thier first deer,and Jeff Foxworthy brags about how he propped his deer up in the bed of his truck and drove around town...?Isn't that the opposite of what we should be doing as responsible hunters?We should be discreet,and clean up before going into town after a kill,and keep the animal hidden from non hunters,right?I don't know,I am pretty new to hunting,but I want to keep the sport alive and real.
It's Versus Country
- Thread starter ninjatoth
- Start date
Well, hello fellow Michigander
Most of the shows on Versus give me the same feeling. I think there is a ton of staging of the camera shots. I think they pimp way too much for their sponsors. However, it is for entertainment and who would want to watch Jeff Foxworthy shoot a spike.
With regard to eat'in, we shoot more than a few year and a half old bucks here in Michigan and they are very tasty. Also, If you will mix your ground with beef suet you will get much better flavor and it will keep in the freezer much longer (year to a year and a half if wrapped properly). Pork has a freezer life of about six months. I usually add 3 lbs. suet to 20 lbs. venison.
Where are you hunting in this fine state of ours?
Jeff.
Most of the shows on Versus give me the same feeling. I think there is a ton of staging of the camera shots. I think they pimp way too much for their sponsors. However, it is for entertainment and who would want to watch Jeff Foxworthy shoot a spike.
With regard to eat'in, we shoot more than a few year and a half old bucks here in Michigan and they are very tasty. Also, If you will mix your ground with beef suet you will get much better flavor and it will keep in the freezer much longer (year to a year and a half if wrapped properly). Pork has a freezer life of about six months. I usually add 3 lbs. suet to 20 lbs. venison.
Where are you hunting in this fine state of ours?
Jeff.
JagFarlane
New member
As has been pointed out, its for entertainment. So yeah, they want to go get a realllly big one. Though, I have seen shows where they have gone out specifically for a doe for meat, etc., but they are rare indeed.
As for Foxworthy, well considering that was in the mid-70's in GA...hmmm he mighta gotten away with it then. These days...no you're right, its more responsible to cover it. However, ensure you check state laws, I've known some that require a leg or other part to be visible while transporting.
As for Foxworthy, well considering that was in the mid-70's in GA...hmmm he mighta gotten away with it then. These days...no you're right, its more responsible to cover it. However, ensure you check state laws, I've known some that require a leg or other part to be visible while transporting.
I am hunting on private land about 15 miles southeast of Clare.I have the option of hunting right next to my house near Midland in a square mile of state land butted right up to my house,but I have only lived in my house for a year and I don't know the land that well.I will stick to the private family owned land for now,and I think that's the only place I can hunt doe anyway isn't it?
I ain't about all them high rack bucks and be hungry waiting...
But I don't see any reason to hide my take from the non hunters... They can take a flyin' leap at a rollin' doughnut for all I care...
Ain't much room to hide a live caught tied up hog. Dog box and tool box pretty much take up the bed. Don't need the dogs heat stroking trying to get at it either so we haul it on top of the box. We are always wet, dirty and usually bloody after a hunt and a requisite stop at the beer store has us in public. The blood is often our own after runnin' the briar thickets the hogs usually end up in or around.
I think hiding our kill is WRONG for many reasons. First off it is legal. Secondly, it is primal survival for me as well as a service to landowners and farmers. Third we should put it in their face if they use the woods for anything as it is our money that maintains the woods for all... including the tree hugging bunny kickers!
Brent
But I don't see any reason to hide my take from the non hunters... They can take a flyin' leap at a rollin' doughnut for all I care...
Ain't much room to hide a live caught tied up hog. Dog box and tool box pretty much take up the bed. Don't need the dogs heat stroking trying to get at it either so we haul it on top of the box. We are always wet, dirty and usually bloody after a hunt and a requisite stop at the beer store has us in public. The blood is often our own after runnin' the briar thickets the hogs usually end up in or around.
I think hiding our kill is WRONG for many reasons. First off it is legal. Secondly, it is primal survival for me as well as a service to landowners and farmers. Third we should put it in their face if they use the woods for anything as it is our money that maintains the woods for all... including the tree hugging bunny kickers!
Brent
I personally never put much thought into it,but I recently went through hunter's safety,and they really pushed hiding the kill for this reason:I think it was that either 5% or 20% of americans hunt,5% of americans are anti-hunting,and 5% are neutral.The hunter's ed theory is that some of the neutral people might get offended by a bloody carcus,and when it's time to vote on something hunting related,the neutrals will turn anti-hunter.I don't know how much water that holds,I personally think it's being a little paranoid,especially around here,because there is no school opening day,that's how big hunting is here in Michigan,I was neutral a few years ago,and a bloody carcus makes me want to hunt more,so,I don't know.
L_Killkenny
New member
Just got done the other night having a talk with my teenage daughter on some unrelated topics. The main thing I tried to stress was "don't hide from being right". As it relates to hunting is; there is absolutly no reason to be ashamed of your kill or try to hide it. Show it off all you want. To try to hide it is like admiting to being wrong. That being said, I don't go into the gas station or McDonalds all covered in blood and mud. No one there should have to be that close to it and to do other wise is rude. But hiding my trophey or the fac tthat I hunt? Hell No!!
On the deer hunting shows: These guys are hunting properties that are strictly controlled. Buck to Doe ratios are watched closely and many bucks are culled before breeding season to make sure only the best genetics are passed on. I've seen numerous shows where they go out on doe and cull buck hunts. And no, they don't just leave em lay. You go and sign up for a hunt with a guide on privaate property and see what they say when you pop a 2 year old 8 point. You won't be coming back. If more hunters could refrain from taking young bucks with OK racks and shoot a doe instead you'dd see bigger and healthier deer around you too. I've seen many world class bucks come out of the woods we hunt. We let the small, young bucks pass. We will shoot ANY buck with an ugly rack. Hunting shows would FAIL if all the showed was doe kills nad young bucks and guides would go broke if that's all they had to offer a hunter in the way of deer. Any sucker can go out and find a young 8 point to shoot. The big deer aren't dumb and that's how they get big.
LK
On the deer hunting shows: These guys are hunting properties that are strictly controlled. Buck to Doe ratios are watched closely and many bucks are culled before breeding season to make sure only the best genetics are passed on. I've seen numerous shows where they go out on doe and cull buck hunts. And no, they don't just leave em lay. You go and sign up for a hunt with a guide on privaate property and see what they say when you pop a 2 year old 8 point. You won't be coming back. If more hunters could refrain from taking young bucks with OK racks and shoot a doe instead you'dd see bigger and healthier deer around you too. I've seen many world class bucks come out of the woods we hunt. We let the small, young bucks pass. We will shoot ANY buck with an ugly rack. Hunting shows would FAIL if all the showed was doe kills nad young bucks and guides would go broke if that's all they had to offer a hunter in the way of deer. Any sucker can go out and find a young 8 point to shoot. The big deer aren't dumb and that's how they get big.
LK
I know where he was coming from... It is the same for open carry folks being frowned on by other 2A rights lovers.
I personally do not fear my hunting rights being voted out. With out us hunters the herds will suffer. Then they will have sharpshooters from choppers picking them off... ON THE NEWS!!!
I just don't see the worth in fretting over it.
I take life and I save life when ever possible... The worst looks I ever got from being bloody was walking into a store to pay for gas and buy smokes after doing CPR on a guy that head on-ed a pick up on a motorcycle... he had no chance to live but my pop and I went thru the motions especially after the family started to arrive on the scene. Once the Emt's arrived we went on our way. The clerk in the store and a customer both had the nerve to not only make faces but words too... I just hung my 17 year old head and quietly walked away...
It was just one of those "if I have to explain, you won't understand" moments...
I was almost arrested following a dog being hit by a car... I did a quick assessment and was 100% positive the dog was in the "death throes" and feeling very sorry for his suffering, with tears in my eyes, I suffocated the poor bugger to expedite the situation... The woman that hit him called the cops... I thought to report the accident but then she goes on to mention animal cruelty etc... Rather than boogey I waited and hoped I would prevail... Lucky for me the officer had shot his fair share of suffering carhit critters...
Sorry to go off topic but I just don't place much value on what others think of me or what i do.
Brent
off the subject,I know what it's like to try to save someone.I seen a head on collision,and no one would help,the people in their yards just stood there looking,so I got out of my car and ran up on a woman trapped and unconcience,so I held her head up so she could breathe,until the emts got there,seemed like forever.I never seen blood come out of someones eyes like that before.I went home bloody and a changed person.I suffered from ptsd for years after that,and when I went to court to testify 2.5 years later,I got picked on by the driver who caused it's lawyer,saying that I didnt read what happened again before court,I looked at him and told him that I don't need to read what I saw and remember.He looked mad right then.It looked like every car was swirving at me for years after I saw that.I stopped feeling secure,and still don't to this day while driving.
My friend and I went to Stateville to pick up a nice 350 class Elk that he had mounted by a taxidermist there. Quite large on thge back of a pick up. We pulled in to a gas station and an older gentleman came over and said "Lord, where did ya'll kill that deer at, my son's been hunting in Caswell County for years and he ain't never seen no deer like that."
Show'em off.
Show'em off.
plainsman456
New member
Ever since direct tv and versus got their panties in a wad I can't get it .OH well.Good Luck
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
Times change, folks' attitudes change--and not always for the better. Nowadays, way too many people think all food comes from the grocery, cut, wrapped and packaged or canned. Don't need ranches, feed lots, slaughter houses, dairies, abbatoirs, etc. (Same for water; it comes from a tap. Don't need a man-made lake. Electiricity comes from the switch on the wall; don't need power plants. Same for sewage treatment plants; magic happens when you twist the little handle on the porcelain throne.)
Back when the deer herd was rather sparse in Texas, it was common to show off one's buck as a point of pride in an accomplishment. Since even many "townies" had rural roots, they understood the bragging.
Basically, life in this country has for sixty years been very, very easy from the standpoint of having food. It was not always so. But easy living softens a society as well as an individual...
Back when the deer herd was rather sparse in Texas, it was common to show off one's buck as a point of pride in an accomplishment. Since even many "townies" had rural roots, they understood the bragging.
Basically, life in this country has for sixty years been very, very easy from the standpoint of having food. It was not always so. But easy living softens a society as well as an individual...
Why "back in the day" we used to have to wait for hours to skin and butcher a deer, because the club president was out riding it around the county to show it off. He'd hit every country store and gas station in 25 miles. Folks from all over would stop and admire it.
If it was a really good day and we killed several, or an especially big one, he'd be in downtown Richmond before the day was over.
If it was a really good day and we killed several, or an especially big one, he'd be in downtown Richmond before the day was over.
UniversalFrost
New member
only good thing that has happened by folks going urban on us is that their are fewer hunters and more deer in the woods. both good and bad i guess, but true statement. I am lucky to have come from a rural area and can relate to many of the stories of folks dragging their newly shot bucks around to every cafe or general store in the area.
Here in a some what suburban area it is much different. Last year when I stopped by the gas station to get some ice bags for the deer (the temp was in the 80's in AZ) carcass the lady at the counter (and the customers in line behind me) looked like i was a serial killer when I came in with my hunting clothes on and some blood on my leg and said I needed ice bags for the deer i shot.
luckily my neighbors were more understanding with the exception of one. as soon as i dropped the tailgate on my truck to unload the deer i had neighbors and kids coming over to "inspect" my buck and congratulate me. One neighbor that had just moved into the area a few months earlier (from san diego) came running out of her house and was crying and cursing me for killing such a poor defenseless animal. she then called the police (right infront of me) and the cop came over, but only to see my deer and ask me where I shot it and what time and if i saw anymore big bucks in the area (he missed the first few days of the season and wanted hunting tips and so i gave him more spots to hunt and he thanked me and next time we met he told me that my tips paid off and he got a nice coues buck on his 2nd day out). My neighbor still calls be bambi killer, but suprisingly enough when i came home from fishing and was cleaning the fish on my tailgate she came over again and was complimenting me on the fish and wanting to know where to fish (she was big into fishing in San Diego), so for her warped mind it was bad to kill a deer, but ok to kill a tuna or a marlin
oh and the hunting shows, i only watch a few, most of the hunting shows out there are hunting in high fenced ranches or farms and know exactly which bucks are where and when the biggest bucks go by a certain route due to the ranchers having game cams up everywhere.it is just not sporting if you ask me. i only like the shows that they are out in the real woods and not some game farm or fenced ranch
Here in a some what suburban area it is much different. Last year when I stopped by the gas station to get some ice bags for the deer (the temp was in the 80's in AZ) carcass the lady at the counter (and the customers in line behind me) looked like i was a serial killer when I came in with my hunting clothes on and some blood on my leg and said I needed ice bags for the deer i shot.
luckily my neighbors were more understanding with the exception of one. as soon as i dropped the tailgate on my truck to unload the deer i had neighbors and kids coming over to "inspect" my buck and congratulate me. One neighbor that had just moved into the area a few months earlier (from san diego) came running out of her house and was crying and cursing me for killing such a poor defenseless animal. she then called the police (right infront of me) and the cop came over, but only to see my deer and ask me where I shot it and what time and if i saw anymore big bucks in the area (he missed the first few days of the season and wanted hunting tips and so i gave him more spots to hunt and he thanked me and next time we met he told me that my tips paid off and he got a nice coues buck on his 2nd day out). My neighbor still calls be bambi killer, but suprisingly enough when i came home from fishing and was cleaning the fish on my tailgate she came over again and was complimenting me on the fish and wanting to know where to fish (she was big into fishing in San Diego), so for her warped mind it was bad to kill a deer, but ok to kill a tuna or a marlin
oh and the hunting shows, i only watch a few, most of the hunting shows out there are hunting in high fenced ranches or farms and know exactly which bucks are where and when the biggest bucks go by a certain route due to the ranchers having game cams up everywhere.it is just not sporting if you ask me. i only like the shows that they are out in the real woods and not some game farm or fenced ranch
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Dad use to come home and hang the deer in the tree in our front yard for a few days. Provided it was cold enough. When he hunted up North ( Northern Pa) the deer would come home tied on top of the station wagon.
Today we do things a little different. First of all we no longer go up North hunting. The deer are shot on the farm and I don't remember the last time a rope was part of our hunting equipment. Deer are moved either by a four wheeler, tractor or pick up to the deer cooler. Yeah we have an old truck box cooler up on blocks. After the deer is skinned and cleaned then it is back to the cooler on hooks.
PA is now a big deer state, by that the state made the move several years back to to prohibit the shooting of younger bucks. You can no longer shoot a spike in fact the deer now have three point on one side antler restriction.
The theory is that it will protect a significant percentage of younger bucks by allowing them to live longer. The side benefits is larger racks and smarter deer develop. In addition they focus on killing more does in the state to help improving what they call a natural breeding process.
It has produced many more deer with larger racks and depending on who you talk to less deer because of the larger doe kill each year. Personally I have seen far more larger rack deer than I can ever remember as a kid. However since I am not a rack hunter the program has been so so for me. By that I mean I pass up more bucks than I can ever remember because of the antler restrictions.
Today we do things a little different. First of all we no longer go up North hunting. The deer are shot on the farm and I don't remember the last time a rope was part of our hunting equipment. Deer are moved either by a four wheeler, tractor or pick up to the deer cooler. Yeah we have an old truck box cooler up on blocks. After the deer is skinned and cleaned then it is back to the cooler on hooks.
PA is now a big deer state, by that the state made the move several years back to to prohibit the shooting of younger bucks. You can no longer shoot a spike in fact the deer now have three point on one side antler restriction.
The theory is that it will protect a significant percentage of younger bucks by allowing them to live longer. The side benefits is larger racks and smarter deer develop. In addition they focus on killing more does in the state to help improving what they call a natural breeding process.
It has produced many more deer with larger racks and depending on who you talk to less deer because of the larger doe kill each year. Personally I have seen far more larger rack deer than I can ever remember as a kid. However since I am not a rack hunter the program has been so so for me. By that I mean I pass up more bucks than I can ever remember because of the antler restrictions.
Snap Shot of hunting where I live.
Schools are closed the first Monday of Deer Season. We use to call it buck season but now you can shoot either a buck or a doe.
You would be out of place at the local restaurant if you were not wearing orange. Even stranger is you did have some blood on your hunting outfit.
You would be out of place if you didn't have some blood on the tail gate of your truck.
Hanging deer on trees is still the norm during the day.
Guns on window racks is normal.
Large groups of people shooting the BS along side their trucks park on the road is common.
It would be not normal for someone not to ask if you caught a deer when you stop at the bank or local store. Yeah they still think you catch deer.
The church, boyscout and a few others open at 4:00 AM with a nice pancake breakfast for hunters.
All the new hunter (young kids) have large knives on their belt and it is normal to wear them into any business you might go such as the restaurant, hardware-store or bank.
It is normal to hear constant gun shots while in side your home. Even more normal to see deer flying past the front window on this day.
It is normal to see trucks and 4x4's parked everywhere and anywhere.
It is just a normal deer season where I live and every school is closed and most business close on the first day of seer season.
Schools are closed the first Monday of Deer Season. We use to call it buck season but now you can shoot either a buck or a doe.
You would be out of place at the local restaurant if you were not wearing orange. Even stranger is you did have some blood on your hunting outfit.
You would be out of place if you didn't have some blood on the tail gate of your truck.
Hanging deer on trees is still the norm during the day.
Guns on window racks is normal.
Large groups of people shooting the BS along side their trucks park on the road is common.
It would be not normal for someone not to ask if you caught a deer when you stop at the bank or local store. Yeah they still think you catch deer.
The church, boyscout and a few others open at 4:00 AM with a nice pancake breakfast for hunters.
All the new hunter (young kids) have large knives on their belt and it is normal to wear them into any business you might go such as the restaurant, hardware-store or bank.
It is normal to hear constant gun shots while in side your home. Even more normal to see deer flying past the front window on this day.
It is normal to see trucks and 4x4's parked everywhere and anywhere.
It is just a normal deer season where I live and every school is closed and most business close on the first day of seer season.
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