Pet or prey

[captain caveman]

How far from house to be fair chase?  Was feeding horses one evening and saw couple of whitetails feeding on hillside about 100 yds from house and put on a stalk.  Would like to say it ended with tablemeat but did result in a close encounter and some short notice excitement.  Interesting how our perspective can change within short distances the game in our backyards goes from pet to prey.  So how far away is far enough for you guys?

[hardwaymike]

As long as I don't have to step around them when I leave the porch they are fair game. Well as long as the wife don't know about it, lol. No pet deer here. Just backstraps and burger rubbing around fattening up on our grasses.

[RedStag5728]

Haha we like to watch the deer around our home, we have 100 acres that backs up to our 20 acres which we have permission to hunt, but we also have a 400 acre farm about 30 miles from the house. The deer around the house live in the 120 acres around us (our 20 acres + neighbors 100 acres), so we try not to extensively hunt it. So I would say anything beyond that point.

[ron w]

If there is no collar with a name tag....the stalk is on!  

[The Night Stalker]

Funny you ask, I hunt right out my back door but most of the deer are not pets,. My neighbor has a deer named Zoe. He raised her with goats milk and she wears a red collar. She follows me to my stand sometimes if she sees me. Her fawns freak out but she comes to me if I call her. She is about 3 now.

[captain caveman]

We had an albino deer my kids named the phantom 3 years ago.  After watching it all summer I found myself perched 18 feet up a tree in late October with it the phantom 10 yards away completely unaware of my presence.   I passed up the shot knowing I couldn't come home with bloody white button buck with a name thrown over my shoulder.  So yes I second the name thing.  Sad thing is neighbor found it dead that winter in his hay field.  I guess this didn't pass the name test good point.

[Stumpkiller]

My property is seperated by several streams.  One runs between the house and the barn.  We have a 4 ft wide x 32 ft long wood bridge that starts 40 feet from the end of the deck on the house and ends up 60 feet from the barn.  Two nights ago a deer walked across the bridge, looped around the yard to within a few feet of the deck and back across the bridge.

Almost every morning we see deer around the house.  These two crossed the road 30 yards from our front door last weekend (that's the driveway - image taken through our livingroom window).



Pets?  No.  Just deer finding easy food around mowed yards.

We keep turkeys and one day I looked out at our breeding pair (Fred & Wilma) and the hen was "entertaining gentlemen visitors".

      http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/Stumpkiller/HPIM0560.jpg[/IMG]  


But Fred has been known to woo visitors as well.

     

Again, pets?  No.  Just wild animals trying to live with the incursion of humans.  Thank God whitetail and turkeys can adapt so well.

In 2006 I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee I arrowed a small buck 250 yards from the house two weeks after the procedure.  I was happy to hobble out that far.

I seldom see bucks near the house, anyway.  My property s 1/2 mile deep and I like to be 500 yards from the house just because it does feel more like hunting.  I don't purposely feed or encourage the deer.  That (IMHO) is every bit as bad as shooting pet deeer.

[captain caveman]

Yes I'm amazed how much excitement can be found so close to home.  Trad archery makes it much more interesting.  That is why I'm so addicted to it. It's an instant get away whether it is urban bow fishing, shooting in my yard,  or shooting deer with names these adventures are therapy to my soul and escape from the frantic pace of our modern lives.

[Benjy]

Originally posted by ron w:
If there is no collar with a name tag....the stalk is on!      

X2!

[old_goat2]

Originally posted by Benjy:
 

Originally posted by ron w:
If there is no collar with a name tag....the stalk is on!      

X2! [/b]

Yeah that and it doesn't eat out of my hand:) Where I hunt deer often, the river bottom is only a couple hundred yards from the house and there aren't any pet deer there, just supper on the hoof still as far as the farmer and his wife are concerned!

[Archie]

I don't think the squirrels in my yard are pets... but the neighbor does.  And I figure that if I want to keep the privilege of shooting in my backyard... his pets are my pets.

[wvtradbow]

I know the older I get the softer I got,It's kinda hard to stick an arrow in one that you see almost everyday,walking the dog or getting in the truck going to work. We had one in the neighborhood with an orange tag in it's ear..Haven't seen her since gun season,she may have wandered too far from home....

[tippit]

For five years I had a radio collared doe around my stand.  She would find my stand an come right in each year.  She was off limits for me...but she brought a few girl friends that didn't have her no shoot status  

[Bill Carlsen]

Here's a pic of a partial flock of turkeys drying out after a rainstorm. The flock had been around our house for several years now and sometimes numbers over 100 (last Fall when they got on the fence they broke it). I had the Game Warden come over once and asked him about what was legal in regards to hunting them. They come to my wife's bird feeders in the yard and I have a corn feeder across the pond on our 5 acres. Since it's illegal to hunt them  over bait I wanted to be sure that I wasn't breaking any game laws. I  had several sites in mind for my blinds and my choices were fine with him. Before they built a community in back of us we had about 400 acres of some of the best deer hunting in this area. Now there are very few deer that visit us on a regular basis but there is a bit of conservation easement land that abuts us. I've done real well with the turkeys and have yet to kill a deer nearby. Having wildlife near your home is simply a blessing and I have no problems hunting near the house. They are no less wild around here. If I had a deer or turkey "adopt" me and eat out of my hand I wouldn't shoot it. But that has not happened yet.

[Paul/KS]

My dog and cat are my pets. Everything else is "prey"...  

[xtrema312]

Originally posted by ron w:
If there is no collar with a name tag....the stalk is on!      

Well I grew up on a farm and we had lots of wild and not wild things around.  We eat everything that was not a dog or a cat and most all of them had names. Some had tags and collars also.  :D

[Lowrider]

I have 8 acres here at the house with approximately 600 acres scattered around with about 5 or 6 people that hunt that on a regular basis. I have a feeder 50 yards from my back patio with a small food plot I planted for the deer. We have seen as many as a dozen at one time. They are our pets but the hunters around here don't share that same philosphy. It pains me to be outside shooting my bow and here a shot on the surrounding land. I have actually had them come to the feeder and eat and watch as I shoot the bow and retrieve arrows 75 yards from them. My brother and I have 400 acres 25 miles up the road with deer, hogs, and occasional turkeys. I am happy to hunt there and leave these as pets.

[Blackstick]

I don't shoot the fox squirrels in the backyard, but rabbits in season are another story.

[wapitirod]

when they start eating the wifes flowers their dead.

[redpepper49]

ok if they are not in the mowed part of the yard.