well since here in IL we can bow hunt from oct 1st to the second week of january except the 3 weekends of shotgun i will normally take a doe the first day just to get my meat.then since i dont shotgun hunt i wait till after the the first weekend of shotgun to really go after a big mature buck since no one shotgun hunts our land or the land around ours so i let the shotgun hunters scare all the big guys on to our land.Now with that said if a big ole buck steps in front of me opening day i won't waste a second to drop him and since we can take two bucks a year i will take one early and then wait for that big big really big one until the last day if i have to.last year i shot a real tall thick 9 pointer the 3rd of oct and never took another buck the rest of the year but did take two does