Atlasman

Personally I dont worry about the "challenge" to much. The main reason why people manage deer, especially in south Texas, is to improve the size of bucks, plain and simple. In south Texas if your not killing big bucks year after year then your doing something wrong and you need to take a long look at your managment program. When I go hunting, killing A mature buck is nota hard thing to do, killing an immature buck is a gimmie and my hunt would be over the first 30 minutes in the stand. But the "challenge" comes and the excitement comes when you try to find that ONE special buck. He might be the highest scoring buck on the ranch, he might have a drop tine, he might have alot of trash, he might be a huge 8 pointer, or any number of things that interest you and makes you want to hunt that deer. Even on the best managed ranches in south Texas finding and killing a true trophy buck (170"+) is still not a common thing. I remember back in college we would go out on some of the biggest and best known ranches in the region doing deer captures. We would have helicopters out there, the gunner would net the deer and the students would take information and data from them etc. Each year we caught several hundred bucks. I think we caught about 2000 bucks by the time I got out of college andI bet we didnt catch more then 50 bucks that would break the 160" mark, and keep in mind we where on the best ranches in the state I mean these places where getting $10-$20,000 for a 5 day deer hunt. Just these deer captures alone prove how hard and rare a true trophy buck is,.......