What about Googily

[bucksnbows]

After seeing a picture of that bruiser of a buck that we have all come to know as Googily it has to make one think. Have you noticed how many nice bucks are caught on film, trail cameras, and of course pictures of past kills? Or how little any one argues that the population is high in most areas. (ya I know swampbuck, we all know:lol:)Alot of members of MS are consistantly talking about killing does on their properties. Well what do you know, there is a few things that the majority of us all can agree on, not only that, they both show an improvement. One shows an improvement in age(and yes of course antlers, lets just get that one out there too:lol:) and the other in hunter attitude. Sure there are still lots of room for improvement, but slowly improvement is happening in both the herd and in hunter awareness. It wasn't too long ago when shooting a doe was still frowned upon. There have always been nice bucks in Michigan, just now they seem to be more often.

Googily is far from just nice, he is one of the nicest bucks I have seen from Michigan in a while. I think it is pretty cool that Don won a contest from D&DH because of his picture of Googily. Makes you wonder how many more are out there like that.

[QuakrTrakr]

It just shows what is possible. About half the guys I hunt with are still from the old school way of thinking and would never consider taking a doe. I missed a chance at a VERY nice 10 pointer last fall (a neighbor got him opening day of firearm) and we took a monster the year before that the weighed 246# dressed! They are out there. The more you pay attention to details, the better your chance of seeing such an animal.

[fairfax1]

The State is so big and the habitat/deer population so diverse that it is hard to make any statement that has application for 'Michigan'......but, from my little corner of the state, near Grand Rapids, I can confidently say that there is a noticeable change occurring ---in attitude and, quite noticeably, in the age/size of buck deer. Hunters are beginning to do something different. Beginning to 'see' something different.

Whether one believes in the Quality Deer Management Association or not, what appears to me to be occurring is what I would call 'Quality Deer-think'..."QD-think" for short. And that is the belief that what we do as hunters in selecting our targets and working in a co-operative manner with our neighbors, and perhaps improving the habitats we control we will, in time, get a herd and hunting opportunities that we feel are improved.

Again, in my little corner, the trend is obvious. There is more talk amongst land owners and hunters about 'managing' our harvest. About plantings for wildlife. About sharing information. More restraint on killing yearling bucks. And though our herd is still bigger than desireable there is more effort being directed at taking does. These efforts have, not surprisingly, created more examples of that iconic symbol of whitetail deer ....the buck with the signficant rack. That symobol is increasingly evident to anyone who drives the nearby roads......the mailman, the farm wife, the schoolbus kids, and the hunters.

Antlers aren't the end-all, be-all, of these efforts. But they are a visible symbol of change. They always create what I call the 'celebrity effect'....folks get excited, animated, when they see 'em and happily tell their family and their friends about the great deer specimen they saw while they drove to work.

What is happening is good. Is encouraging.

[thumbteacher]

Great post fairfax and I have to agree.... from my little corner of MI... the thumb.... the attitudes are changing about us hunters being more herd managers.... truly responsible with the job of controlling the surplus of deer that are causing injury to motorist and a large amount of crop damage. We still have some old school sportsman that will never take a doe and we even have some that say the population of deer is low...(which is quite funny because a short drive, especially with a spot light will prove otherwise).... QDM - thoughts were planted over here a few years back when the three counties (tuscola, huron and sanilac) went for vote to have antler restrictions.... it failed, but it was a start, as nobody had ever heard of QDM before ... since that time some co-ops have emerged and the "symbolic antler" has caused more and more people to get excited about the change. Will we be the next Wisconsin or Missouri?? I'm not quite that optimistic yet.... but i do think a change is occurring and it will benefit our deer herd.