I just curious as to everyone's opinion on shooting small public land bucks. This is why I ask:

Yesterday morning, I found an extremely fresh set of buck tracks (in my own footprints) so I followed them. I eventually found a rub line and a big scrape that had been rained on the night before. So this morning I set up by one of the scrapes and about 8:45 he came and worked it. He was a pretty large bodied deer, but a pretty small 6pt. It would be kind of rewarding to get a deer that I worked for, but I would like to see the little bucks grow. Of course the only problem is that I'm on public land and most people's philosophy is the "if it's brown it's down." I'm gonna go back tomorrow morning. What do you all think?