Mule Deer Fanatic

What is the point in being a Mule Deer Fanatic?

It’s always nice to see mule deer, especially a large buck. You can always enjoy stalking a buck. Photographing mule deer is also very enjoyable. Reading about mule deer is  exciting. Hunting mule deer, if you can draw a tag, is getting right up there. Ultimately, though, a mule deer fanatic wants to harvest a trophy buck. If one is fortunate enough to have several trophies on the wall, that person really qualifies as a mule deer fanatic.

In order to frequently have the opportunity for a trophy buck, there has to be an investment ( and an incentive ). The investment may be made by purchasing expensive, high-quality, guided hunts. Alternatively, success can be achieved by a DIY hunter who simply has a lot of tenacity, desire, and knowhow.  Some have been fortunate enough to have access to great mule deer hunting by owning enough of the right property.

I believe it is getting harder and harder to be consistently successful. One thing that every mule deer fanatic needs to do is exert influence, as much as possible, toward better mule deer management. One should not consider himself a true mule deer fanatic without doing all in his power to promote an abundance of mule deer.

The idea of abundance has not been a high priority for game managers. It is, in fact, scarcity that is most popular today. Game managers must cease their love affair with predators before we will ever see abundance again. Weather, habitat, human encroachment, hunting, and even poaching combined do not cause the scarcity that is caused by predation.

If you want to be classified as a mule deer fanatic, I believe you need to be like a nagging child that won’t go away – when it comes to voicing your wishes to those that are in control. Interestingly, individual game biologists are not in control, even though you should certainly talk to them. Even heads of departments are not that influential. None of them is elected. You really need to go after state Governors and legislators, who are elected. However, if you want to get to the top, then talk to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or more importantly the Mule Deer Working Group. I believe this group has become the major factor in keeping scarcity in place. They would much rather fund a study to prove that predators don’t have a negative impact on deer, than to fund serious predator control – the former accomplishing nothing and the latter benefitting mankind.

Here is a link to this group. I wish that all mule deer fanatics, everywhere, would overwhelm this group with a common cause – mule deer abundance. Read their conservation plan and you will realize that “conserve” means to feed predators and reduce hunting. If you don’t like that too well – then do something about it. Send an email to every person in the group and let them know that abundance will not be achieved until predators are controlled, and that when mule deer are once again abundant, then we will consider feeding the predators. Show that you are a dyed-in-the-wool, true-blue MULE DEER FANATIC.