Where I hunt, on large acreage that is privatly owned, I would pass on the buck. ONLY because of his age. That buck might lock antlers with another buck and die before I see him again, or maybe coyotes would get him, but thats a change I'm willing to take. We actually have a buck on the ranch that we passed up the last two years because he was not old enough. Last year we aged him at 5 1/2 and his sheds from last year (both found about 100 yds apart) had a NET B&C score of 183" as a typical 12 pointer. WE have killed alot of big deer in the past and we have alot of mature BIG deer still on the ranch and we will always have big deer, so for us, passing up a buck because of his age is an easy chose most of the time. And that 183" that I mentioned above would ACTUALLY be a new Tx state record if somebody where to shoot him with a bow. He would notbreak the state record if killed with a rifle. The current state record tyical killed by a bow was actually taken on a different ranch just 15 miles from ours.