Here in Washington state hunting is so over regulated. We can't use dogs or crossbows and can only harvest one deer per year, but we also have elk (only one per year). I don't know about the rest of the country but here the state is broken up into several GMU's (game management units) and when you buy your tags and license you have to choose if you hunt either eastern WA or western. Since we live in the west side, hubby hunts here. Most western areas are populated enough that hunting is restricted (too much chance to miss your target and hit the neighbor I guess) the best places for successful hunting are near state or federal land in the mountains and of course you can't hunt there either. Alot of the land outside of "National park" boundaries is owned by big companies and only some of them let you hunt there and most insist on you having a seperate permit to do so. Most of our open seasons only last about 2 weeks each, but do include an early and a late hunt-most of the time but not always. And some good GMU spots are closed to hunting for "wildlife management".
Both deer and elk GMU's usually have other restrictions like antlerless or 3 point minimum. Here in the west, we only count the points on one side not total points of both.
So in our neck of the woods, we take what we can get. Hubby isn't out for a trophy, he hunts for food and because he's elk-obsessed. When it comes to deer, he usually takes em young and that's for several reasons. One being the meat is usually less "wild and gamey" and we process it ourselves-atleast the cut and wrap and jerkey since we don't have a meat grinder for burger or sausage.
Backstraps are great!
And in 18+ years of marriage, he's gotten 2 elk. The last one was 11 years ago so he's due but this is the last weekend. First one was a cow about 15 years ago, but the last one was a 6X7 bull and both were alot of meat. These are so big we have them butchered and processed.
We don't do bear cause neither of us like the taste. Hubby did shoot one a few years ago only because the guy he was hunting with wasn't able to take the shot for some dumb reason and he was the one with the tag.
I don't know that we have wild turkey around here unless in eastern washington
DH has never hunted them but would like to one day. Oh I take that back, I do know of some "wild turkey" but it comes in a bottle.
(is just for a joke, my drinking days are long gone thank you very much)
