QDM Splinter Group?

[dmcianfa]

Good to see your knowledgable about Quality practices shaman, as you know I'm all about data and using statistics to boot.  I hope you don't completely disregard quality as being a positive influence on companies or groups, such as this for example.  It is necessary to continously improve and sustain your goals as a organization.  Without it I think you can drift, and when you drift, you start to see results not being close to acceptance by the customer.  Which, is the organization in this case.  What I'm getting at is Quality is important, but is just another spoke in the wheel, it doesn't have to be the hub.  Find the hub and you'll find your name, vision, mission, etc..... 

[ranwin33]

letting bucks get to torphy size before you shot them . i wish QDM was more like ducks unlimited and NWTF

ORIGINAL: Goose

This is interesting, and have no regrets JPH, this is a good thread.

I believe that QDM is a good program. I think in its most bare form, all of the op's points are addressed.
However, I also believe that people take QDM to another level and think that what THEY are doing is true QDM and thats what everybody else should be doing, but going back to the cornerstones you will see that this should not be the case.
I honestly believe that a small number of people ruin the image of QDM because of their "must do" attitude.
Unfortunately these people are also the ones that are seen or heard the most, at least it seems that way.

I think what JPH is getting at and targeting (correct me if I am wrong) is the attitude that goes with QDM.
QDM is a great starting point to address your individual property, you can take the cornerstones and apply them to your land and more or less go from there. I think all too often, people feel that what they are doing is the right thing, and whoever isn't doing it that way is not a true QDM'er.
I personally think that it is a great idea and starting point. After that, there really aren't any set rules that say you are a true practitioner or not. If you are using and going by the cornerstones you are practicing QDM. No where does it say that you have to shoot 4.5's or even 3.5's.
From the education part of it, you should learn how to guesstimate a deers age and use that with everything else you have learned to make the best management decision. It does not say that because you live in IOWA (the greatest state for deer hunting) that you should only shoot 4.5's. No, thats not QDM, thats one persons opinion. A true QDM'er will know his property, what it holds, what it could hold, and what should be done to get there.

JPH, you are on to something here, but I believe that the biggest issue with QDM is peoples attitude or arrogance on what they are doing. Maybe thats all that needs to be addressed? Maybe a splinter program will solve that and even expose that issue with the QDM movement?

Excellent post and points.

[ranwin33]

ORIGINAL: Everyday Hunter

ORIGINAL: JPH

Everyday Hunter, did you read the OP? I ask because it, and the subsequent conversation address many of the points you have made.

I go back and forth between really enjoying this thread and regretting that I ever started it.

Yes, I read it. And I'm sure that I've seen all 10 of those points in the things I've read about QDM.

Where I think the danger is in QDM is in making deer hunting into a sport where a hunter must either own his own land, or have enough means to join a co-op, or enough time to travel to hunt. It can lose sight of the hunter who has lots of limitations -- limitations of time, money, access to property, location, no hunting comrades who have the same goals, the age structure of bucks in a local herd, and/or a few more things. It doesn't make sense to hold out for a 140" 3½ year old buck, when you can hunt only for a few days, with lots of hunting pressure, and maybe one buck of that size exists for every 100 or so hunters.

While I support the aims and principles of QDM, I own 1 acre in the middle of a 20-house development. I'm fortunate that I can hunt the property out back, but so does every other Tom, Dick and Harry. I am never likely to own hunting property. I will never be a part of a land co-op, I have enough other commitments that I can't always make hunting my top priority. I hunt alone most of the time.

Despite all that, I believe in the QDMA and QDM principles. The danger I see is that it could lead to deer hunting becoming about land ownership, farm equipment, and total control of a property just to be able to hunt. I think the problem you're seeing is that the people who are most heavily into QDM, with land and the means to tailor it for deer, are the ones who are getting the most ink. I probably don't have to tell you that the reason so much is said about antlers is that everyone likes antlers and antlers are the only practical way we select for older deer.

In my opinion, that's not the fault of the QDMA, whether QDM principles are being practiced or not, or the fact that people talk more about antlers than they do habitat. It's just a fact of life. The principles are right. It is built on science. I hope the QDMA is able to take steps so that in 10 or 20 years those guys are not the only ones left hunting. It's the social stuff (including both hunter management and the perceptions of the non-hunting public) that are the real challenges.

Often, the QDMA is compared to the NWTF. Both deal with very popular game species. Both rely heavily on science. They're structured similarly. But deer are very different from turkeys in the way they relate to the habitat.

Steve

More excellent points.  As someone who very much believes in QDM, I will be honest and say that if I were hunting public land my passion for it would be much less.

[shaman]

DMCIANFA:

My beef with  Quality is in how folks tend to implement it, not in the theory.  As an old quality guy, I'd be the last one to knock the philosophy.  Where it runs afoul is usually from upper management not buying in, or somebody trying to deliberately skew it or derail it. 

I also agree that Quality should not be seen as the center of the enterprise.  It's just a tool to get you where you want to go.  However, I'm not sure we've peeled back far enough in this discussion to what really is a common core.  I'm sure JPH sees these 10 points at the core, but I think there is a deeper process at work. To me, this new program should be able to work for any deer hunter:  anyone from the landed, antler addict all the way to that New Jersey Jor Bagodonuts we were discussing last week in another thread.  If you have a goal for deer hunting, you should be able to plug it into this process and get what you want out of it.

For instance:
Mature bucks are not going to be everyone's cup of tea.  I remember a guy on here recently who was railing over not enough attention being paid to meat hunters.  I would think that if you wanted to maximize yield per acre or yield per deer, you could.

Another instance:
Let's say you want want optimize for bowhunter shooting opportunities or shotgun opportunities or rifle opportunities.  Each has its own path due to the range of the weapon, the timing of the season, and various other factors.  That should be a goal that can be plugged into this.

Or another:
I had an opportunity about 20 years ago to hunt a large plot that was mostly used for a family of dirt bikers.  They would have loved to have someone come in and exterminate the deer, but they never stopped riding on it for me to hunt it successfully.  I passed.  A hunter with this sort of mixed goals  and mixed landuse (ATV/dirtbike and deer) should be able to figure out a way to cover both.

Or:
Let's say your party is a mixed bag of adults and kids, and you've got a very limited budget, but you've gotten a lease.  What's the best way to optimize the property for your hunting party to fill their tags?  Nobody is really a trophy hunter, but everyone is into the hunting experience. 

These are things that are not covered by QDM in a meaningful way, however, they are all doable goals once you break the big rack fixation.



Lastly, I would think that this can be done without the knowledge of a Six-Sigma blackbelt. The tools and techniques I've used in the past can be adapted. If only . . .    The hard part I see is adapting from a mentality of ridding the system of defect to  enhancing the system's strengths.   Joe Bagadonuts plugs in his inputs from an online questionaire and gets an analysis of what can be improved.

[dmcianfa]

ORIGINAL: shaman

DMCIANFA:

My beef with  Quality is in how folks tend to implement it, not in the theory.  As an old quality guy, I'd be the last one to knock the philosophy.  Where it runs afoul is usually from upper management not buying in, or somebody trying to deliberately skew it or derail it.  True, True.  I never thought you were knocking it either.  I think it is somewhat applicable to the situation here though.  Good points thats for sure.
I also agree that Quality should not be seen as the center of the enterprise.  It's just a tool to get you where you want to go. My thoughts exactly However, I'm not sure we've peeled back far enough in this discussion to what really is a common core. That is why I encourage him to state his vision, mission statement, and core competencies (which he did in OP) I'm sure JPH sees these 10 points at the core, but I think there is a deeper process at work. To me, this new program should be able to work for any deer hunter:  anyone from the landed, antler addict all the way to that New Jersey Jor Bagodonuts we were discussing last week in another thread.  If you have a goal for deer hunting, you should be able to plug it into this process and get what you want out of it.

For instance:
Mature bucks are not going to be everyone's cup of tea.  I remember a guy on here recently who was railing over not enough attention being paid to meat hunters.  I would think that if you wanted to maximize yield per acre or yield per deer, you could.

Another instance:
Let's say you want want optimize for bowhunter shooting opportunities or shotgun opportunities or rifle opportunities.  Each has its own path due to the range of the weapon, the timing of the season, and various other factors.  That should be a goal that can be plugged into this.

Or another:
I had an opportunity about 20 years ago to hunt a large plot that was mostly used for a family of dirt bikers.  They would have loved to have someone come in and exterminate the deer, but they never stopped riding on it for me to hunt it successfully.  I passed.  A hunter with this sort of mixed goals  and mixed landuse (ATV/dirtbike and deer) should be able to figure out a way to cover both.

Or:
Let's say your party is a mixed bag of adults and kids, and you've got a very limited budget, but you've gotten a lease.  What's the best way to optimize the property for your hunting party to fill their tags?  Nobody is really a trophy hunter, but everyone is into the hunting experience. 

These are things that are not covered by QDM in a meaningful way, however, they are all doable goals once you break the big rack fixation. Stating those goals are crucial at inception.



Lastly, I would think that this can be done without the knowledge of a Six-Sigma blackbelt.  How did you know I was a Blackbelt?  I never mentioned that here.[&:]  That aside, I agree too, overkill is not necessary. The tools and techniques I've used in the past can be adapted. If only . . .    The hard part I see is adapting from a mentality of ridding the system of defect to  enhancing the system's strengths.   Improving some of those faulty components of the current system is necessary though, no?  That is what JPH is trying for here as well as enhancing QDM strengths.  I don't necessarily agree with you on this point.  Ridding the system of it will not fix the problem I'm afraid.  Joe Bagadonuts plugs in his inputs from an online questionaire and gets an analysis of what can be improved.  Oooh Aaaah, I like where your going with this thought you practically read my mind.

Good discussion here, I think were on to something. 

[shaman]

DMCIANFA:

I had a boss a few years ago.  He was a bit of a crank, but occasionally he made real sense.  He'd spent half his career in manufacturing and the last half in IT.  One day he was railing at the latest half-baked quality program they were instituting at work:

"The problem with quality in manufacturing is it always puts the production guys behind the 8-ball. Everything they do is supposedly riddled with defect, and I'd hate to see that sort of mentality get applied to IT in this place.  There's got to be a better way."

Needless to say, I got volunteered to be the the guinea pig on that better way.  The real agenda in this was  not really quality.  It was just a way to  lower costs without any investment and shift the blame onto production guys and find a scape goat. However, I waded in and established a continuous improvement program that at least on paper would reduce our response times to problems.  Really what it did was just get the problems into the automated help desk system quicker, generate a ticket and send an automated response, but it showed a dramatic improvement with a small investment. I reached my goals, but the end user still complained, because the problem was not being fixed any faster.  The boss then lobbied for an extra guy on help desk-- request rejected-- problem solved. If you don't like our performance, blame management for not letting us have the personnel.

How this relates to this discussion is this:  I don't want to see the taking of 1.5 year old bucks to be inherently considered a defect.  If you're trying to grow a herd, that is not a bad idea-- shoot only bucks.  Somebody will breed the does. They always do.  That's sort of how we all got into this whole deer over-population thing; we optimized for numbers and  the deer herd exploded, and still can't get guys to change back to harvesting doe.  Anathema?  Not if you were in one of those Blue Tongue counties in 2007 here in the Greater Ohio Valley.  The deer herd was decimated , and guys want to know how to get things back the way they were. Also, it may not be over harvest of young bucks that is your root cause of defect.  It may just be that you're not controlling access to the property properly, or that you've got too many hunters for the carrying capacity or your dang ATV's are chasing off the big bucks.

Also, it is not inherent that optimizing for deer improves or worsens the overall environment.  It will change it.  Whether that's better or worse depends on what you're trying to achieve.     Defect becomes closer to the technical quality-related definition: "Does not conform to specification."  There really is no NATURE out there. It's all managed.  It's all been in our hands since God spoke to Noah  (Genesis 9) .  The question is what do we want to make it?  More deer?  More titmouses? More butterflies?

The key here is helping hunters define that specification. What is THERE idea of a better hunting environment? Then, facillitate them achieving that environment.

[dmcianfa]

Shaman,

That's the smartest thing I heard all day. Defining what you really need to focus on and the overall breathe of the group - when will you know too much is being expected relative to timing and the resources you have along with the countless ego's that are bound to be abundant in large affiliations.

Specifically state the process or methodology that you are going to target and what output do you expect to improve.  These are the items that need to be addressed in my opinion, which also relates to what you are saying in that what are your expectations, requirements, and needs.  You need tolerances in forming a system for a coalition of deer hunting advocates and everyone needs to agree to them or you will be building on an already crumbling unsteady foundation. 

I don't think anyone has the exact answers and you can only please some of the people all of the time.  However, clearly identifying these items will help build the organization and make it strong and able to sustain obstacles, that QDM from what I'm hearing, cannot overcome. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  In any case, I agree with you whole-heartidly.  You have to have a specs and limits or the vagueness will rot the core of the foundation from the inside and you will always have dissention amongst some of those involved. You said it perfectly, when stating.  "What is their idea of a better hunting environment" .  That is hard to agree on I think.  Maybe too hard for the masses.  But then again, the Continental Congress was able to do what they did.[:D]

[schlupis]

Im in, I like the what you have going here JPH although I dont have a sexy name for you. I have been sick of the whole qdm argument oh since about the time I joined this forum. I have even found myself wrapped up in some of the arguments defending what I thought was qdm, and am some what embarassed about that.

Since then I have just decided to not say I do qdm because it will always guaranteed to bring a argument up. So this is what we do and I call it SDM (Schlupis Deer Managment). LOL. We cut down select trees to open up for new growth. We plant food plots for not only deer but for turkey, grouse and have even seen bear feeding in them. So I guess they are food plots for all animals. And every year my buddy and I scratch our heads and try and think of what else we can do on the property to make it better. So I guess we are always learning from others and what the land tells us.

There are 10 of us that hunt 200 acres. 3 of us only try to kill older bucks 3.5 or older but have since learned that is not always possible and the occasional 2.5 turns are crank, we will kill a 2.5 if he fits what we want. We usually take atleast 3 does off the property a year. The other 7 hunters will kill the first young buck that comes along and any doe they see. I dont think them killing a young buck will hurt much as long as we all dont come out of the woods at the same time with one. Most of the guys dont practise scent control and dont sit on stand long so the chance of them killing a young buck or any deer for that matter every are slim.

I always congratulate people on the deer they kill no matter what the deer is, I am always happy for them. I always enjoy the story behind the deer and the kill. (And yes I mean it).

I dont anymore, try to pass off our way as the right or only way, just sharing what we do. I dont really care how people kill their deer as long as they kill the deer legally, and never take more then they need.

So like I said earlier I am in if what you think we do fits the bill.

[JPH]

Exactly schlipis! That is exactly how I see it too!
 
I still do all the things I once did. I do what I can to improve habitat, I take does, I study the herd and I try to hold out for 3.5 year old bucks(but I won't say that a 2.5 can't tempt me on occaision). I still believe in pure QDM. Heck, maybe some day I'll own 300 acres, a tractor, implements and have 60 days a year to hunt. Then I can really get into QDM big time. I just don't like the way some people use the title of QDM to look down on other hunters.
 
We recently had another thread going where a pominant hunter was critical of another hunter, in the name of QDM, for shooting 120 class bucks. This hunter bragged that he had visited the state in question and had never settled for anything smaller than 140". He siad very little about actual age, just antler scores. He did not tell us how many does he had killed or how many acres of woodlands he worked to improve. But since he would never take a 120" deer he was thought to be more committed to QDM.
 
I just don't see it that way.
 
 

[DoeEyed]

Quality Deer Health and Habitat Enhancement.
 
My contribution to the name game.