Why Trophy Deer Hunting Is a Trap

This story, “The Trophy Trap,” was originally published in the November 2006 issue of Outdoor Life.

It was almost 40 years ago that the first whitetail came into my life. I dropped him on a granite ridge in New York’s Hudson River Valley, where, on a clear day, you could see the Empire State Building 40 miles away. The buck was only a forkhorn, but I was beside myself with excitement. 

Finally, I had entered the cadre of hunters who had taken a whitetail. In those days, that feat often took some doing. 

Back then, we knew next to nothing about white­tails. I worked as post forester and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for eight years in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and one of my jobs was to manage the hunting program on the academy’s 16,000 acres in southern New York. I recall seeing large scratch marks under trees where some animal had pawed away leaves, but I had no clue what had done it or why. And neither did any­one else I talked to. 

Deer Hunting’s Modern Era

Then came new research as modern wildlife man­agement started to steamroll along, and we learned that those pawed areas were spots that somehow were linked to whitetail bucks before and during the rut. Now we call those disturbed areas “scrapes,” as every whitetail hunter from age 8 to 80 knows. Along with the research came the inevitable desire to “improve” whitetails and grow bucks with bigger and bigger racks. Studies on nutrition and genetics unearthed the means to grow super bucks. Intensive management was suddenly the name of the game around the country. People devel­oped genetically altered monster bucks, put up fences to contain them and began to sell their semen for about as much as my pickup truck cost. Since then breeding has become big business. And in some circles, hunting has become a matter of horn inches rather than the experience itself. 

Horns Ain’t Everything

Am I complaining? Not at all. In fact, some good pals of mine run commercial whitetail preserves where intense management produces big racks for their clients. That’s their business. And it’s here to stay. I simply see it as a sad commentary when we focus on the size of the rack rather than the smells, sights, and sounds of a damp oak forest and the raucous cries of jays and crows. Everything in the woods contributes to the total experience — and if a spike or forkhorn buck shows up, then you can be proud to flip off the safety, squeeze the trigger and smile all the way home. 

Happily, this big-buck syn­drome hasn’t affected everyone yet. Plenty of hunters, young and old, are still thrilled to down a forkhorn buck, but new management concepts threaten the option of taking younger bucks. Biologically speaking, it’s indeed smart to let the younger bucks in some habitats live another year or two. My problem with the new techniques is that we continue to focus on the size of the antlers. 

Proponents of associations that pro­mote minimum antler restrictions steadfastly insist they aren’t focusing on trophy deer. But it seems to me that when you require a deer to be of a cer­tain size before you can shoot it, it’s trophy hunting, pure and simple. Yes, these techniques work in some areas; it just bothers me that we are forced to adhere to those rules. Call me old­fashioned if you like, but I hanker for the good old days. 

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Appeal of the Best

I wrote about this subject recently and a reader wrote back and called me a hypocrite. He said that I write for OUTDOOR LIFE and that this magazine endorses trophy-buck hunt­ing. Well, hellooooo. Show me a hunting magazine that doesn’t promote big-buck hunting. There aren’t any. Show me a magazine with a forkhorn buck on the cover. There might have been one, once, but I never saw it. 

It’s human nature to appreciate qual­ity. That’s why the Guinness Book of World Records and the Miss America pageant have such appeal. We admire the biggest, the best. 

A hunter who gets a truly big buck, even when it’s total luck, becomes an instant hero. He endorses products, appears in ads, gives seminars and is a big name in hunting circles. The vast majority of these trophy owners just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Most did not “pattern” the buck, watching it for months before the season and discovering what trails it used. The lucky person was simply in the correct tree stand when the buck happened to walk by. 

Whitetail hunting today is totally for­eign to what it was when I killed my first buck. In much of the country, farm­ing practices and more restrictive hunt­ing produces older bucks with larger antlers. High fences and nutritional supplements aren’t necessary in those places. Pals who live in the Midwest, for example, say that a few decades ago they never saw the likes of the bucks running around now. I’ve been hunting Iowa for years. The size of the bucks showing up these days is scary. 

All of us would like to shoot a big buck, myself included. Personally, I have a problem with antlers. When I see them, as long as they’re legal, the rifle is likely to swing up to my shoulder. There are exceptions, such as on a recent hunt in Kansas where I was told all sorts of 150-class bucks were waltzing around. I never saw one. I passed on plenty of other dandy bucks, ended up never firing a shot and cussed myself all the way home. Then there was the time in Saskatchewan, when a buck scoring 162 walked under my stand. It was pure dumb luck. I shot him, and I’m proud of him, and he’s my biggest buck ever, but I’m even more proud of a little six­pointer that hangs next to him. 

But that’s another story. As they say, a trophy is in the eye of the beholder. That’s the bottom line.