The way I hunt is changing...AGAIN.

I've watched hundreds of does walk past my stands in the last ten years, waitin' on that buck. Some years he came along, some years not. However, the world we live in is changing, and my family is changing. My two small children have become a teenager, and a 115 pound, football playing, 3rd grader,...groceries are up, up, UP, and full of a bunch of B.S. thats bad for us! These two main factors are also accompanied by a recent human population explosion in my deer woods... Really my mentality changed last year. I've grown an in- season garden for years, but last year I got some jars and started what's turned into a canning addiction. Then I made the decision to fill the freezer, and I shot the first doe and her yearling that came along, and left the "buck waiting" to my daughter who started hunting last year, and who ended up shooting a doe of her own before season's end. This spring I bought a heifer and a steer and bottle raised them, they're pastured at my in-laws, and I have put a rabbitry in the back yard. So, this fall it won't be a suprise to me, when I find myself willing to shoot the first steak I see. I'm certian I will return to the "buck hunting" mentality, in the twilight of my hunting years, when the wife and I are suffering from empty nest syndrome... but for now, and I suspect for about the next 10 years,... It's all about bring home the bacon

Go get 'em guy!
Best of luck to the family!

anybody priced beef lately?? WOW!!

At my house, we have forgot what it tastes like. If we are eating meat it's coming from something we killed

Sounds like a very rational approach to deer hunting and life in general.

With beef prices sky high, I'm sure you won't be the only one looking for meat first and antlers second this season.

As you said......bring home the bacon!

Well stated Randy, I've always been a meat hunter first, if antlers happen to fall with that meat, well that's icing on the cake

Nothing wrong with killing deer for the freezer, but bear in mind our deer herd is not an unlimited resource.

Given Indianas generosity with tags, if enough folks in an area get real aggressive harvesting deer, you could see a significant population decline.

I'm thankful my county reduced the antlerless tags and late antlerless season for this fall.

I came from brown and down ancestors, but I took a different road starting at about 22 yrs. old(I'm now 39)... Since then, I feel like I've been a good steward of the herd in both counties I hunt. Both have historically been on the high end of bonus doe tags, and I have rarely killed more than a buck, and one doe, during any given year, and went home some years with a belly full of tag soup.... I've done my part to conserve the herd, and as stated in my first post I intend to return to a "let 'em go" mentality later on in life. A growing and hungry family is the #1 factor in this temporary change, and it wasent a change I came to easily... but as I was thinking on the matter, one thing I concidered is all my neighbors. I didn't use to have any neighbors on my best place...I could let deer walk and see 'em again in a couple days. Those days are gone. I'm surrounded on every property line by brown and downers(or at least I assume so, from all the shooting) It's gotten so bad I've really made a different place my primary. Well, if they want every deer on that end of the county dead, I will help 'em out, I could use the groceries.... Maybe when all the deer are gone, all the people will be gone too, things will come full circle and it will just be me and Jesus on the hill again...

Has anybody priced what it takes to get a beef big enough to put in a plastic wrapper at the store???? WOW!!!!! However, I do agree…..Its out of line.

I get hungry for a GOOD steak, I just go out in the pasture and cut me a hunk off!!!!