Buck Manager | Buck Manager

Millennials & Hunting Heritage: Some “Like” It

Millennials Hunting for Meat

What makes a person want to hunt an animal, whether it be a squirrel or a white-tailed deer? Admittedly, it’s strange to imagine myself never having experienced hunting. But if I was an adult that had never gone hunting, would I feel a need to learn more about it, try it, or would I even understand it?

It’s tough to say because again, I really cannot imagine myself not hunting. It’s an activity that goes hand-in-hand with the way I was raised from the beginning of my life. I guess we, like many generations before, were locavores. With the food industry now a big business, hunting and gathering food locally is now coming back to roost, so to speak.

For those persons never exposed to deer hunting or even small game hunting, whether it be as a child or a young adult, it would take a lot of initiative to gear up, get out there and try it all on their own sometime later in life. People definitely do it. It takes a lot to be a self-starter, regardless of the activity.

Hunting an Innate Action

The act of hunting is definitely something natural within humans, but it’s not necessarily easy to start doing—at least not in today’s world. Let’s face it, hunting is much more of a financial commitment today than it was in the past. Even a just a few decades ago, before hunting leases were the norm, everyone at least knew someone that knew someone were a person could do some sort of hunting.

Now, hunting land translates into income for landowners, so in some cases that means even children of landowners are not allowed to hunt the family land.

There are still public lands, but depending on when and where a first-time hunter went, well, that could ruin a person for life. There are a lot of great public hunting lands out there, too, especially the managed state and federal properties.

Locavores Hunt for Fresh Foods

Source: “Millennials are now our society’s largest group, but they don’t participate in hunting at the same rates as baby boomers,” Warnke said. “Meanwhile, the boomers are aging and dropping out of the hunting population. Their losses wouldn’t be so noticeable if more millennials started hunting. In business terms, the hunting community leaves a lot of money on the table by not engaging more millennials.”

Warnke said millennials represent a great opportunity for hunting, much as digital cameras once did for Kodak.

“People forget that the driving force in digital photography was a Kodak employee who Kodak ignored,” Warnke said. “Kodak didn’t embrace change, and look what happened to it. We can’t afford to ignore millennials, especially when so many of them are open to hunting, including females.”

Warnke said half the millennials in adult “Learn to Hunt” programs are young women. That trend is also apparent in DNR license sales. In 2006, females made up 7.66 percent of the state’s roughly 645,000 gun-deer hunters. By 2014, female participation accounted for 10.6 percent of gun-hunters.

Female participation rates for gun-deer hunting are increasing fastest among millennials. For instance, female participation never exceeded 20 percent for any age group until 2007, when girls represented 20.6 percent of all 12-year-old gun-deer hunters. In 2014, girls represented nearly 26 percent of 12-year-old gun-deer hunters.

Deer Hunting for Food — Image pureairnatives.com

Our Hunting Heritage

Hunting is something that can be taught, but it’s also something that can be learned. Hunting is a natural part of every animal, including humans. It’s in our DNA from the beginning of our lives. Like other activities millennials choose to engage in, it takes experience to become a proficient hunter, but we all start with the same amount of experience, zero.

In a time when many our concerned about our hunting heritage, it’s refreshing to hear about people with little or no hunting experiences taking to the outdoors. These new hunters join the rank and file and I welcome their participation. Historically, hunting has always been an activity of locavores, before we had a term for simply living off the land.

READ: Tips for New Deer Hunters

It’s a good idea that we return to the land. Many are far removed, to the detriment of our society. As Aldo Leopold wrote, “There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements.” Call these new men and women taking to the field millennials or locavores or whatever you wish, I’ll simply refer to them as hunters.

Big, Record Book Buck Shot Illegally in Louisiana

Big Louisiana Buck Down, No License

Get this: A deer hunter shot a monster, 200+ inch buck without a deer hunting license. Now, we’ve all made mistakes while out hunting, but this bowhunter in Louisiana simply takes the cake — a big, fat, huge cake with tree trunks coming out of its skull! This indiscretion more than likely falls under “bad decision” rather than a mere mistake.

This white-tailed deer-hunt-gone-wrong turned out not to be straight-up deer poaching, but the fact that the successful hunter called up a state wildlife agent to score the big buck, well, that was just another dumb move on his part. Of course, that’s kind of the way it works with criminals that eventually get caught, they just don’t know when to stop.

LA Wildlife at Work

Source: Officials say Senior Agent Douglas Anderson received a call at 10 a.m. Saturday about a trophy buck that had been shot on a private lease in Avoyelles Parish near Simmesport by a guest hunter. The club wanted someone to come measure the giant buck for record keeping purposes. Upon arrival, Anderson was informed that the big deer may have been shot by an unlicensed hunter.

He says he interviewed the hunter, Glen Toups Jr., 40, and Toups confessed to not having a basic hunting license, big-game license or deer tags. The agent cited Toups for the violations, and seized the record-worthy deer, which was unofficially scored as a 208-inch buck.

Taken by a licensed deer hunter, it would have qualified as one of the largest bow kills ever in Louisiana.

The state’s largest non-typical archery buck was a 219 1/8-inch deer taken by Billy Husted in Tensas Parish in 2007. The No. 2 deer was Rodney Lee’s 203 5/8-incher taken in East Feliciana parish in 1983.

Mature Buck Fooled, Not Game Warden

A mature white-tailed buck is a smart animal. Apparently, the Louisiana hunter was able to fool the old buck, but couldn’t get one past the LA wildlife department. It takes good deer habitat and a deer with a freakish genes to put 200 inches of bone on a free-ranging buck. It happens every year, but not on very many bucks. That’s a truly impressive animal.

Unfortunately, since the buck was shot illegally, he will not get his proper due in the Louisiana state rankings. The poacher not only took the buck, but also stole the opportunity for one of his fellow hunters to legally harvest it. Wonder if he’s still in that hunt club?

Deer Hunting Season Good for Bowhunters

Texas Bowhunting Good

Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana were blessed with late-winter rains that carried through spring and into early summer of this year. The relatively mild winter last season allowed white-tailed deer to come out of winter in good condition and then they stepped right into excellent habitat conditions. In short, deer populations are in good shape going into the fall hunting seasons.

Reports from the field indicate that buck antler growth is well above average by age class this year. This is simply the result of an ample food supply and good habitat conditions that lasted into mid-summer, a time when the majority of antler growth has already taken place. This is good news for both deer and bowhunters.

Good Food, Good Bowhunting

All that food, as well as great cover, leads to increased reproduction and recruitment into our deer herds. That means more white-tailed deer, as well as bigger deer. For those hunting in Texas, the archery season has been especially good!

As good as the first-half of the year was rain-wise, since about mid-June it’s been a complete opposite—very dry across most of Texas. This has caused deer movement to increase into the fall. With many areas reporting low acorn crops, whitetail have been hitting feed stations and fall food plots hard, at least in areas that caught some of sporadic moisture earlier this month.

October Lull

Source: With the long drought gone for now adult deer are fat, healthy and likely reproduced well this spring and summer. “They should be in great condition and there should be a good crop of fawns from this year,” said Craig Endicott, northeast region supervisor for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Archers in the field the first few weeks will find deer concentrating on natural food sources, he said. Oak trees are loaded and the chinkapin oaks already are starting to drop their small, sweet acorns, he said.

“Persimmons have been productive too so there is plenty of soft mast out there as well,” he said. Deer may be difficult to see, but the October lull will fade away once the bowhunting season ends and even cooler weather begins.

One of the greatest challenges for archery hunters this year may be something they had not faced during the years of drought – heavy vegetation and a lot of natural foods. “If anything that’s the only problem, the woods are a lot thicker and that can kind of hurt the hunters just in terms of visibility,” he said.

Bowhunting for Beginners

Hunting white-tailed deer at close range is no easy task. Doing so with a bow only makes that job more difficult. For anyone that plans to take advantage of bowhunting season, the first step is to get a bow that you are comfortable with. That takes a bow that fits you, that you can draw comfortable, are experienced with and have confidence in.

READ: Plan for Deer Hunting Success

The rest boils down to outsmarting deer so that you can get them within range for a bow shot. Whether you are in Texas, or elsewhere, the key is using the wind to your advantage. Despite what folks say, a whitetail’s greatest line of defense is its nose. Stay downwind of the deer you are hunting and the shot will take care of itself, assuming you put in the practice beforehand.

FAIL: Giant North Carolina Buck is a Fake

No Luck, Fake Buck

A would-be big buck and state record turns out to be a total hoax. North Carolina ~~deer hunter~~ poacher Nick Davis even fooled an official scorer, but the disproportionately-large antlers did not trick the whitetail hunting community. Continued pressure from deer hunters finally spurred action within the state’s wildlife agency.

Davis recanted after investigation by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC).

The deer was reported to have been shot last Wednesday by the Surry County deer hunter and was measured by Joey Thompson, who happens to be an official scorer for the North Carolina Bowhunters Association. He put the big whitetail buck at a gross score of 223 1/8 inches, a net score of 208 2/8 inches.

Too Good to be True

The buck looked good. Too good. The remarkably white antlers were almost flawless. Hunters continued to point out the pristine rack and commented that the antlers were too white. The inquisitions prompted the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) to take a closer look.

Wildlife officials eventually determined that the antlers were not from North Carolina, but apparently the small-bodied buck was. Based on casual observation, my first thought was that the buck has genes from a northern subspecies of whitetail. It takes a big-bodied buck with a large skeletal system to grow antlers of that size.

North Carolina, or Pennsylvania?

Apparently, the antlers were from a Pennsylvania buck that had been screwed onto the skull plate of a recently taken 3 point buck. As it turns out, the young buck was poached using a rifle. Ouch. Davis finally confessed to wardens that the oversize antlers were from another state.

READ: Yes, A Mountain Lion Killed This Buck

Davis almost pulled the switcheroo off, but some skeptical hunters turned out to be right. That’s not always the case. Davis hoped his giant, fake buck from North Carolina would get him a little attention from the deer hunting community. As it turns out, Davis got way more publicity than he ever wanted.

TPWD Will Test Your Harvested Deer for CWD

How to Get Deer Tested for CWD

Wondering how to get deer tested for CWD after the shot? Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) will test your harvested deer for chronic wasting disease (CWD) during the upcoming deer hunting seasons. They start on October 3 for archery hunters and properties participating in TPWD’s Managed Lands Deer Permit (MLDP) Program.

CWD was recently found in two captive deer breeding facilities, one in Medina County and the other in Lavaca County. As a result, TPWD will increase efforts to strategically sample hunter harvested deer during the 2015-16 hunting season.

How to get deer tested for CWD in Texas? — Image aces.edu

Testing Deer for CWD

Whitetail and mule deer hunters are encouraged to assist with this statewide monitoring effort by voluntarily submitting CWD samples for testing this fall. TPWD biologists will collect and submit samples to the Texas A&M Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at no cost to the hunter. Tissue samples from the heads of harvested deer must be collected within 24 hours of harvest, up to 48 hours if kept chilled. It is very important that the deer head not be frozen.

Since 2003, TPWD biologists have been monitoring the state’s free-ranging deer population for CWD. Using statistical sampling tables commonly used by animal disease experts, biologists set a sampling goal that would detect the disease with 95 percent confidence if at least one out of every 100 deer was infected.

Thus far, biologists have collected nearly 30,000 samples from hunter-harvested deer across Texas’ eight ecological regions, in most cases surpassing 95 percent confidence standards. To date, CWD has not been found in Texas free-ranging white-tailed deer.

CWD Sampling Based on Risk

The sampling strategy for the 2015-16 hunting season is being refined to target CWD disease risk levels within the state’s 33 unique Resource Management Units (RMU). These RMUs are wildlife conservation areas that TPWD uses for all other deer management decisions. Criteria for establishing risk levels include factors such as deer density, susceptible species importation history, proximity to a CWD-positive site, etc.

Sampling goals will rely upon hunter harvest submissions ranging from 60 to 433 (lowest to highest risk) deer for each RMU, and if biologists can achieve these goals, will result in excess of 7,000 samples. TPWD will also specifically target sampling/testing efforts within a 5-mile radius around the CWD index facility in Medina County to determine the prevalence and geographic extent of the deer disease in that specific area.

“In the wake of our increased concern about CWD in Texas we are ramping up our sampling effort statewide,” said Mitch Lockwood, TPWD Big Game Program Director. “We will be collecting samples from deer and elk, and other cervid species, in every county where deer hunting occurs.”

How to Get Deer Tested

Hunters wishing to submit CWD samples from harvested mule and white-tailed deer for testing should contact the local TPWD biologist for the county. Biologists will provide information on how to get deer tested for CWD. In addition, biologists will provide a CWD sample receipt hunters can use to track test results online. TPWD anticipates test results could take 3-4 weeks to process.

In some cases, biologists may request to retain the entire deer head for later sample collection; a resource document will be given to the hunter as proof of sex in those instances. More information about the disease, CWD testing of harvested deer, safe carcass handling tips and deer processing precautions can be found here.