Don't you Alaskans get "Harvest" Tags for Individual critters?

[quote=Ryan McLeod]Killing is just one part of the harvest. Some people put more emphasis on the killing part rather than the whole process. Harvesting to me means to take something from the land for your own use at the appropriate time of year similar to reaping your crops when they are at their best and have reached their potential. A guy could kill something and not take it at all.

Well to me when I and all my kin and family "get are deer killed" it means putting 4,5,6 deer in the freezer witch we eat yr round.know there's a lot of boys from the city that come down here and "harvest a mature buck" cut his head off and Chuck him off in a ditch. Happens every yr! They usually "harvest" there's, it don't matter to me what it sounds like. Slobbery is slobbery. In are state fish and wildlife advocate for responsible "harvest" while have NO wanten waist laws on the books. Kill your deer fill out your "harvest" tag and leave it laying nothing they can or will do.
When you see a blatantly waisted natural resource witch you and yours reliy on heavely, it ticks you off and dosent matter what it's called for pc or "management" sake. We don't even have a warden in the county oh I'm sorry "conservation officer"
Colt

I agree with you especially the part about wasting. Its unfortunate that a few bad apples have you so set against the word harvesting. Fall harvest to me means putting away 15-20 caribou, 3 or 4 moose, 100 bunnies, many gallons of assorted wild berries, fish eggs, etc and that just the fall harvest from early august to freeze up.Ill always use the word harvest because its the perfect word for taking what you need from the land. I watch the bunnies change color until theyre ready just like a farmer watches his crops grow to maturity. I suppose its only when the word is used properly that it is fitting. My opinion has nothing to do with pleasing anybody or sugar coating. Ive been around dead animals since birth and I was able to tell at a young age the difference between that caribou that was just feeding and that caribou with a hole through its head. The real explanation offered to me was why we took its life and the respect due to the animal whos life you took. Shoot, I used to have to walk about thirty feet away from the kill site to spit out my gum.

No I get it, I'm just trying to convey my point, and would tend to agree with you. We raise a big garden and put up close too 50 gallons of blackberries plus what we sell.i get all the mushrooms and wild greens I can in spring and fall. We eat squrriel all fall and winter turkeys rabbit and beaver I eat turtle fish and frogs all summer. I love too hunt but really love hunting and gathering to eat. I totally get the harvest part. I just don't use it.
I have got a question though how big is your family! Me my wife and little girl eat 4 or 5 deer a yr and we eat deer atleast 5 nights a week plus I pack it for lunch and sometime breakfast, the rest is Turkey small game fish turtle and some yrs I kill a couple hogs. We almost never buy store meat maybe once a month. But I do get a deer or 2 through summer of the rd. ( I work for the highway dept) and usually about 15 sets of backstrapes that I can salvage from other rd killes. So I guess I just answers my question it takes me more than 4 deer It looks different when you write it down!
It's super frustrating being a taxidermist as much as I love too hunt and kill spring gobblers. They won't even take there breast meat when I mount one, I eat um with my birds and customer that puts me at around 15 to 20 birds every spring. Not too mention the suckers that don't eat thighs or legs just waist.

Colt

Must be a long line at "NWT Sausage".

!974 edition of Websters Dictionary says grain ,fruit ,crop, or vegetables ,nothing about animals. Oh well they changed the meaning of the word. I hope I GET a elk. Sorry for the fuss . Some folks now say "He passed " instead of died.

LOL. Yep, I don't really hunt either, it's easy to just harvest where I live. Hunting kind of implies that there is more of a challenge to it. My goal is to hang a half dozen deer on the forks of the H- International, and do it in short order, so as to free up my time for something else. I am not a "Cabelas" type model hunter that buys into all the gadgetry and gimmicks, and fancy clothing of the deal.

You have to kill the deer in order to harvest it. I don't get all emotional about the dispatch, myself. Anybody that gets too serious about that should go home and put on a dress.

Apparently trapping season can't come quick enough.

-TJ

Ive got a really big family and lots of freezers to keep full. Just on my Moms side alone shes got nine sisters. Im the main provider of country food to my whole family. That's why I get to shoot 250-300 geese every year in May. On my last caribou hunt I brought 9 home and only kept 2 for myself. I shot 2 moose last night and it will work out to me keeping 1 and giving pieces of the other to my aunts and their families. tracked 3 moose for a couple hours before getting a shot, knocked the first one down at 220 yards and the other stood around and let us get closer. Shot the second at about 50 yards, two young bulls, one with regular small antlers and one with.........NO ANTLERS!! First time ive seen that in my life.

Called a bull to 30 yards from my stand last night. He sure looked tasty. Had to let him go. Well, opportunity harvest again.

Yeah Dirt, I was getting tired of "Track soup" myself. Finally found a fresh set of tracks and followed them and it all worked out.

Man id give my left testical to live we're that much different game is. We are serious game eaters and the only varieties I get are small game, only big red meat we get is whitetail. My wife will never move far from here. That ship has sailed.
Colt

Colt, it sounds like your testicle is safe. lol

Yeah and you know what sucks is I had the opportunity to go too Alaska for work when I was 18 before I got married, but at that time with my situation it didn't seem like the responsible thing too do. I'm stupid, I could do it know but it would no doubt cost my marriage she would go but would not be happy!
Colt

I think the only thing more “progressive” than trying to change words to please people, is getting offended at the words others use. We all use different traps and guns, and we can use different words too without grousing about it on T-man, right?

For myself, I use the word harvest exactly because I want to illustrate the similarity between hunting, gathering, and agriculture. A vegetarian kills plants to eat, I kill animals. A rancher raises them on grass, I let them raise themselves in the woods. The end result is the same, “kill and eat.”

This is how I argue hunting to anti’s most of the time: every single living organism lives by breaking down the tissue of another organism. Plants live off the dead organic matter in the soil. I live off slightly fresher dead organic matter . When an animal dies and rots into the soil, its nutrients are absorbed by plants that can be eaten by a vegetarian. I just skip the middle man and eat the critter directly. I regularly use this logic to discuss with vegetarians. In the end, we’re all eating the same molecules.

Now, regarding “sheltering” and “sensitivity” Redsleeves it sounds like your cousin just isn’t a very smart parent. I’ve got a 2 year old who loves moose and bears. Watches cartoons about them and all. And she also says “Daddy go shoot one so we can eat his meat!” I think she loves meat even more than cute animals, and she knows exactly where it comes from. When we go trout fishing, I let her play with them in a bucket. And when we’re done she watches me cut them open and clean the guts out, and then we cook em and eat em, her favorite part.

We’ve just taught her to understand the simple circle of life. Just like berries are pretty on the bush, when we pick them they’re all gone, but we get to eat them. Animals are cute and furry, and sometimes we kill them and eat them. She also knows that everything dies eventually, and if we kill it then we can eat it instead of it wasting. My dad, her grandpa, raises meat chickens, rabbits and goats. She loves them alive, and she loves eating them dead! She just has a real good grasp of the whole picture, which is how I think it should be. Personally I think that “sheltering” a kid from the certain realities of life, like death and where food comes from, is one of the dumbest things a parent can do.

I go to the woods to “harvest” on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s meat, sometimes it’s fish, sometimes berries, or chaga, or firewood, or sawmill logs, or fur. It’s all the same to me. Sometimes harvesting means killing something with a pulse, sometimes not. So that’s why I use the word, because it fits it all.

I always took the term "harvest" as related to hunting as PC BS. Guess I have seen it used that way more then not.

After reading here it is easy to see that those in more remote areas that depend on the land(and are thus more connected to it), to make all or part of their living consider taking as a harvest.
Those from developed areas that consider take as a sport,not a necessity,consider it just a kill.You hear it all the time with people from up south calling trapping a "sport".

Your stupid, with all do respect. My people have farmed crops and lived off game and wild foods ever since we made tomahawk claims,and yes my people go back to the settlers in my county, we come from the land work it down to the ground bleed on it for on it .ive never considerd it a SPORT it's a way of life.before I got married I lived on fur checks in the winter in summer if it rains I got no work to the river I go fish turtles frogs hand to mouth, or to wild berries 15 a gallon pick a gallon an hr don't let up bills to pay,selling mushrooms or roots and herbs. first 2 yrs I was married me and my wife eat nothing but game and fish, know it's still about 90% that's a lot of rabbits squirrels deer and turkey on a less land then others have to do it on. I know what it means to be connected I know what it means to grind a living outta the woods,people in remote places dont have that market cornerd. Crops fail you know, no rain, no sun to much rain next thang you know your big 18000 doller yearly check dont come in and youve worked all yr for it enyhow,you know what you eat then enythang you can kill or trap.
I come from people who woulda pulled you off that high horse then eat it!
Or was you just wanting to argue
Colt

Your stupider.I don't ride a horse but if you do you can saddle up and ride on down to the wal mart,lol.

Sorry shouldn't have called you stupid. But you kinda struck a never hunting fishing trapping and farming is all I've ever done. I live off the land it's not as nice as big wide open land Taylor made for sustinace living but I pull it off and work hard to do so. Its not a sport to me it's just what I am and what I do and ALL I do and ALL I've ever done.and ALL I'll ever do! Hope you except my apologie!
Colt