This year i've been watching them hunting show's seeing them kill those big bucks on tv got me passing alot of smaller bucks one's i would usually shoot. An this year seems to be a bad year for me i've only killed two does crossed my mine twice on a 8pntr bout 16in wide i let walk. I geuss what i'm getting to is that since i'm deer hunting an not just buck hunting would be to start filling some buck tags on whatever i see at this point, if i dont somebody else will..

Shoot whatever makes you happy. I've never understood the "if I don't shoot him somebody else will" rationale anyway. It makes means that you are only killing the deer so somebody else won't If it's not a deer that really makes you happy then let somebody shoot it that will be happy with it.

That said, this is the end of the season. Most young bucks that have made it this far will survive until next year.

When you are hunting for food, and a small buck is all you see, I have no problem with shooting because I know with no doubt that deer will be killed if I don't! Where my property is, I can't afford to pass things up because of that fact! I have no problem with bein picky and bein able to manage the deer you hunt! Just my 2 cents! Lol

Well Said Neal .. kill what makes you happy.. but don't kill it because you are afraid someone else will.. if you will be dissapointed with a 16 inch wide 8 then don't kill it.. I have eaten my tags quite often because I am very picky.. I sometimes say I may regret passing that buck later, but looking back after the season is over I never am..

I agree kill what makes you happy! I passed up 10 bucks during the last week of bow season til the last of rifle season. Then decided to shoot one during the last week of rifle but never saw one but hopefully a couple of them made it! About the TV shows they can definetly spoil you but you got to consider they are hunting ranches that feed deer year around to get the horns to grow and for my personal feelings is i would feel better killing a small buck in the wild than shooting one of those bucks on them ranches plus a whole lot cheaper

Doug

I have let 10 or so small bucks walk. If you want to see them grow let them go. Now if I need meat for the freezer I will put a buck down out of necessity. Has nothing to do with what others may or may not do, it all orbits what you need do. Shoot what you need. As you can tell, I am basically a meat hunter. If you have enough meat for the freezer then let them walk.

Vic

I think we have gotten caught up in the shooter buck thing a little too much; commercialization of our hunting has turned it into greedy tug of war. There is more fighting amongst hunters now than ever. Where are the days when you walked up to a farmer and asked to hunt his/her land and a hand shake was all you needed, offering to help them with some of their chores, giving them meat from the kill in return. Big money is killing hunting, outfitter charging thousands of dollars to kill a buck and if you kill one too small or too big you will have to pay more. What happened to the days when you killed and buck or doe and it was all good. Today, we sit home and watch big money hunt, only to hear them say “we hunted hard for this buck” REALLY, you sat in a box waiting, picking and selecting the deer you wanted. David Morris of The Bucks of Tecomate make me sick, I like to see him come up to the mountains of Va. climb around for a week looking for deer and see how wonderful of a deer hunters he is. You see a buck and you want to shoot it…..shoot it. I’m telling you big money is going to ruin your hunting by either pushing you out or just making you sick of it. Last time I checked, I could not find a recipe for those antlers.

I agree 110%!

vabirdhunter i agree 100% i used to have a farm in King George were i met this ole timer at the dump helped with his trash we got to talking a bit an it ended up were i was hunting his 230acre farm rite on the river. 8 years later he passed away his kids took over (non-hunters) an leased it to a hunt club an i got pushed rite out the picture. Were i stay if your not member to some sort of club your chances of finding land are slim to none. I have ran into a few good folks here an there that own 30acres here an 60acres there that let me hunt but it still nothing solid an there property is surrounded by clubs, can't afford to join one they run rite around 500 a year. There is a recipe for those horns you boil'em and drink the broth.. lol.. I guess what i'm getting at if it will it will for me shooting a big in it's got to be in the stars or luck.

Interesting in that I hunted with an outfitter in Texas several years ago for turkey's. Hunt by Texas standards wasn't expensive. I believe $500 for three days in an area full of birds and 4 or 5 thousand acres of land to roam around. ATV supplied as needed, food, good lodging, great guys, etc. Everything as good as one could think of and since there is truly no public hunting land in Texas it was a pretty good deal for all. Flash forward a few years later and the cost of the hunt was over $1,000 per person for 3 days. Food quality was less then it had been and we were hunting another location (less land). The difference IMO was the outfitter had brought in Jerry Martin and his fellow pro-staffers from Bass Pro. Course the Bass Pro guys got the 5 star treatment and of course they hunted at no cost (free advertisement for the landowner). Bass Pro told him (the outfitter) that he was charging far too little for the turkey hunting and that by raising the prices and advertising he could greatly expand his revenue stream (key words being revenue stream).

Anyway, we quit going. Bass Pro wanted to keep coming (at no cost of course) and gradually over time the turkey hunting just ended for this particular outfitter. Apparently the big money (aka Trophy fees) only truly existed with Whitetails and exotics and accordingly turkey's weren't worth the effort involved with them unless the prices just went outta sight. Interestingly enough I was watching a hunting show in Texas this morning (home sick on the couch) and saw another outfitter listed as being just the place to shoot a trophy deer in Texas. I went to their website and saw the following:

Whitetail hunt $2,000

Trophy fee dependent on size of the Whitetail. For something less then a 130 it was like $1,500. 130-140 class deer $2,000 and then 140-150 like $2,500. Then the big jump happened. The 150-160 class deer was like $4,000, and that meant you were in for a total of $6,000 to shoot a 155 class buck, and it went much higher dependent on how the animal scored once they got it back to camp and scored the rack.

I mean WOW. Guess what it means (and this should be no secret to anyone who watches the sportsman channel is your wallet (or affiliation with an outdoor TV show)) is what will gain you that true wall hangar that everyone wants. Sad sad state of affairs in my opinion and that as much as anything else is what's spoiling it for almost everyone else.

Agree that big money is messing up hunting. How is a poor man supposed to feed his family on inexpensive meat if money takes all the hunting places off the list. Where I live there aren't any NF type lands. The closest open forest is a 2 hour drive from my house. Now I am not poor, but have known many over the years that venison was their meat source for the year. I am fortunate to have access to what I do. Who knows how long that will last. I let small bucks walk to grow larger, not just antlers, but bodies. This year I have also shot 2 fawns. Wife likes to eat them and the lady that lets me hunt her 8 acres wants the numbers reduced. If fawns are all that come, so be it.

I don't know what is to become of poor folk who can't afford to hunt with a club. Money/commercialization is driving the train and I want off.

Vic

the shows and the ego of "i have a big buck" sindrone take the fun out of hunting. Now I love to kill a big one like anyone else. But when I got so consummed with it that it was all I could think about and do I made a change. I just started hunting like I used too, for the fun of it. If I see a nice buck I shoot it. I don;t care if it goes on my wall or not. I let all kinds of bucks go each year too. But I'm not ever getting to the point again that its not fun anymore.