Deer Ridiculous

[John the Electrician]

We take our whitetail hunting pretty seriously in Wisconsin. I got really lucky once and shot what I am told is a 160”+ buck. This one in the pick is no where ear 130” anything, sorry.

VERY few hunters will ever kill a 150” deer. I live in whitetail monster heaven.
Literally one country north of Buffalo County. A big deer in the 150” class isn’t common at all.

I meant county, not country.

 

[AES]

Where did you shoot your 51" Sable?

Kalahari.

 

[AES]

We take our whitetail hunting pretty seriously in Wisconsin. I got really lucky once and shot what I am told is a 160”+ buck. This one in the pick is no where ear 130” anything, sorry.

VERY few hunters will ever kill a 150” deer. I live in whitetail monster heaven.
Literally one country north of Buffalo County. A big deer in the 150” class isn’t common at all.

I may be off on the score. Doesn’t matter because was a pass, as I clearly mentioned. People seem to be misinterpreting my point. I don’t hunt whitetail for score and I don’t understand the huge money people pay for a 150 class buck. Point being same hunt, same gun, same fun. The point of the thread was to understand why a hunter pays what they do for a whitetail, given they are so prevalent.

 

[AES]

Apologies for mis scoring an animal I did not shoot because was too small and too early in the hunt.

Many strong typists, seemingly few who care to read the initial and subsequent posts to understand the spirit of the conversation.

 

[Ridge Runner]

From the minimums of the 31st Edition. View attachment 480657

Thanks for the info. I've never paid attention to horn size, just wanted some nice animals to show friends and family and those on the proverbial fence thinking of going on an Africa safari some good representative animals.

My two kudus are 55" and 57" and I have a 24+" Impala.

With exceptions to hunting Africa, because we can't bring bush meat (legally) into the U.S., I am a meat hunter. So I (antler) size doesn't play a big role when I'm deer hunting. Here in northeast Tennessee, some areas are extremely populated with deer, while other areas have a less dense population. The heavy populated areas and quota hunts if it's out of spots and descent body size it gets shot. In the least populated areas I tend to be more picky on the body size and try for older animals.

With the amount of does and only statewide limit (except quota hunts) of 2 bucks, once I have my enough deer meat in the freezer I stop hunting deer and concentrate on bear, boar, small game and waterfowl to round out filling my freezer.

Big, massive antler deer are great to see and hunt, but I've yet to find a recipe for antler stew, antler meatloaf, etc.

 

[BRICKBURN]

https://rowlandward.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/01-African-Minimums-and-World-Records.pdf

 

[Ridge Runner]

https://rowlandward.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/01-African-Minimums-and-World-Records.pdf

Thanks BRICKBURN, I downloaded the information now to satisfy my curiosity as to how nice my animals really are. I might have 2 or 3 more animals that qualify for the record book.

 

[chonk34]

I had some great hunts in South Africa and Romania. I don't know what any of my animals measured out at. I sure enjoy looking at the mounts and thinking about the hunts, though. I imagine that whenever I connect on my first North American game animal I won't care all that much how big his antlers are. I have some friends who only care about measurements, and I have some friends who are just in it to enjoy the whole experience. I much prefer to hunt and socialize with the latter group.

 

[TheSayHeyKid]

 

[Flipper Dude]

I guess my point would be this. I don’t pay to hunt whitetails in Texas either. Other than the thousands of $$ per year for protein and corn and gasoline. We are fortunate enough to have family property that we have always hunted on. I have paid several times to hunt in Kentucky or Ohio, although I’ve never taken a buck in either place. Hell, I had a deer lease in Kentucky for a couple of years. That made for a really long weekend. Plus, I’m really picky about the deer that I shoot. In Texas, you can’t just call up a friend and have access to 150” deer. Doesn’t work like that down here. If you don’t have property or leased property, you are going to pay to hunt. Leasing a property is paying to hunt. And If you do have property, 99% of the time, there is NOT an abundance of 150-160” all over it. There might be a really good number of 130” bucks, but true 150” -160”, no.

That said, I agree with your premise. If you ever get a chance to go to the DSC convention, it’s crazy to look at the mutant whitetail deer that are being marketed. To me, it’s off putting and sad. My $.02 only though.

 

[gbflyer]

Last time I road tripped in TX a guy could just make a couple of slow passes along some of those back country roads for a fresh roadkill. We stopped counting one day when we reached the 40’s. No need to pay a hunt fee to a ranch.

 

[buck wild]

@AES- since I was an early responder your initial post read more like " why would anyone go pay to shoot a big pen raised deer when there are all these 150-160" bucks running around everywhere you can hunt for free" . I think that's what raised a few hackles as that just isn't realty with the exception of maybe a couple of the best WT areas in the world, and 99.5% areas aren't "free".

I do laugh though at folks that say they'd never hunt a pen raised WT then go to SA and kill all sorts of basically penned raised animals. Being in the hunting industry, I might be a little more keen to the more secretive side of hunting operations and I have no problem with ANY and ALL hunting as long as the hunter is enjoying. The ethical dilemma that complexes me is if those hunters really know how it worked would they be accepting of it.

 

[C.W. Richter]

Can you please show (dead or alive) the "150s" you see all the time. I can show you what a 135-155ish looks like. A thin 130 in S. TX will typically have browtines extending to the tip of the nose and will have 10-12 points. A 150 is same but much heavier and longer points. Both look really nice (much larger than shown above.) I've seen much larger down there, and in many cases 'was not allowed to shoot a monster (because it was only 4.5 y/o not the mgmt goal of 6.5!) All the deer in the L. photo are 135-155 and the closeup on the R. is only 135ish (either 134 or 137 i forget!) A 150+ deer is something to behold. You can find them on under-hunted public or private lands, in suburbia (where the age is allowed,) or you can pay to hunt managed deer (and many in the above class are considered "management bucks," as they're looking for more, for a fee!) Nothing wrong with either. If you're a local or have friends in TX, you should be able to get access to decent deer, although there are different subspecies and some are quite puny (I won't mention areas. lol). Some are akin to a coues-SW whitetail cross that weigh 100 lbs soaking wet, with unimpressive racks. Still fun to hunt, but...'Have seen a number of 180+ deer shot over the years on E farmland and down in TX (neighbor had the state typical whitetail until just a few years ago!) but mainly see them out of season and late at night, where you least expect 'em, when they're entirely safe! 110s in the yard every day.

 

[Biddleman]

Best deer hunt I ever had was archery hunting an old doe who had blown my cover countless times, even if the wind was right. She had an uncanny knack of coming up behind me. After the 3rd time I forgot the buck and focused on her. One day she slipped up and I finally had my chance.
I drew back on her, put the pin on the vitals and said "whack", then put the bow down and let her walk as I smiled.
I don't have enough money to pay for the fun, excitement, frustration and thankfullness I had that season.

 

[Nevada Mike]

WAB - - I moved here for my bird dogs, the quail, and the Couses deer. Beautiful country here in the Canelo Hills. We have a surprising (for me) number of black bear, plus mule deer and javelina. Love it here.

 

[WyoBull]

Most everything in Texas is private and if you want to hunt yoh have to get on a lease. The lack of public land really hampered me when I lived down there.
So glad to be back home in Wyoming for that reason. Two years ago I shot my biggest Whitetail to date here in Wyoming, free range and no fences. He scored 144.
Drew that same tag this year and look forward to hunting them on public land.
Contrary to public opinion, 150 class whitetails are not running around Texas like rabbits.

 

[wesheltonj]

This is 138 7/8 net.

This is from my property in South Texas. This is the largest deer that I have taken, the next largest is 131 1/8. I shot one last year that was either this same size or slightly larger, but I could not find it in the brush. My property does not have any fences except where the gas pipeline is located and it's a low fence. The closest high fence property is a mile away to the north of me. (He raises exotics, and the high fence is not keeping them in, as I've seen them on my neighbors property to the north). The next closest is 3 miles to the east of me. All other fences are low for miles. I currently do not protein feed (I did one year waste of money, the cattle ate most of it) and do have corn feeders, but there is not a lot of nutrition in corn. I do not cull and my neighbors do not cull. I and my neighbors don't bring in "breeder" or "stocker" deer either. About 140 is the best you are going to get. I supposed, if I fenced and protein feed and kept the cattle out, I could do better than 140, but I am not going to send the money on a fence and screw up my ag exemption. (Yes, I could do wildlife exemption, but that would require me to built multiple water features, not cheap.) There is one deer that I have seen and have used the "Buckscore" software that scores over 150, but the deer does not have a greater than 13" spread and unfortunately I see his offspring too, same long tines and no spread.

Now, around my house inside the city limits were you can't hunt and everyone has the "deer buffet" planted in there front yards, I have seen some monsters.

I am not sure where you are finding all the 150+ for free, but let me know so I can make the trip.

 

[Houston375HH]

Growing up in central Texas, all I wanted was to shoot a "big deer." I didn't have the means or the opportunity to go to south Texas for the deer I read about in TTHA magazine. So I waited - somewhat patiently - and it wasn't until I was 35 (5 years ago) that I was finally able to hunt a true south Texas whitetail. I am very fortunate today to be able to work with a lot of south Texas land owners and ranchers that invite me to come hunt. I personally would never pay to shoot one of these deer, but it is still an awesome experience, great comradery and the cocktails around the camp fire taste just as good. But boy is my wife going to be angry when I bring home my shoulder mounts from 2021...

 

[curtism1234]

A 150" whitetail is a hell of a deer. I have one that was measured at 149 7/8 (come on now measurer can't you throw a guy a bone here...). In 30 years of hunting deer, I have only seen 2 bigger. Sure we always go to the taxidermist or processor and see some giant monsters, but they are brought to a centralized gathering location and still represent only a small amount of mount worthy deer.

A nice symmetric 110" 8 point makes for a beautiful shoulder mount (depending if you have the money and wall space). Folks who say that is a 140" deer usually don't know how to measure one in the first place and just guesses based off what they see on TV (which is exaggerated too). I would take estimates with a grain of salt and automatically deduct 10-15" for a more realistic number, not that numbers matter.

All that being said, I do agree a ton of money is "wasted" by folks wanting to get a 150" deer. If I already have a 110-130 on the wall, no way I am paying 5k to maybe kill a 150. So I agree with you there - go out and experience something new

 

[Tundra Tiger]

@TheSayHeyKid ... No sir. Those cosmic brownies look (rainbow colors) way too politically correct (pride month snacks??) for my tastes (haha). Make mine zebra cakes or Swiss rolls.