does killing a deer mean success?
After reading the meat vs antlers post,I thought that I would take the idea a bit farther.Is filling your tag your measure of success on a hunt?Do you feel that you have to fill every tag that you hold or is it okay to end the season with an unfilled tag?When I started hunting,I killed the first deer that I saw.As I gained experience and killed several animals the idea of filling tags began to be less and less important and the challenge of just killing any deer soon faded.Instead I began to concentrate on trying to kill the larger mature bucks.Now I hunt hard but If I pass up many bucks and don't fill my tag it is no big deal to me.I hunt simply to enjoy the time spent with friends and relatives and to take part in the challenge to kill only the largest bucks in my area.I nowactually enjoy helping a new hunter take an animal as much as killing one myself and I really do enjoy hunting more than I ever did before.Looking at the people that I hunt with it appears that the most experienced hunters pretty much share my view and simply filling tags is not a priority for them,yet the least experienced of our group have a harder time passing up a legal animal.I am beginning to think that hunters go through stages as they gain experience and their priorities change from simply filling tags,to increasing the challenge ,to just enjoying the hunt.What are your feelings on the matter?