ORIGINAL: buckeyebuckhntr
To me its not an excuse, its a goal. This past year was my third year hunting. My first two year I got a 6ptr(1st yr)and a 100 class 8pt(2nd yr)on my wall. Having accomplished these two achievements this early in my hunting career has allowed me more time to pursue larger and more mature whitetails. This past year I set a goal of taking nothing smaller then a nice 8(in this area thats a 80-100class deer) or a large 6 pt in a similar class. I had my chance to fullfil this goal the first saturday of November of this year when I had a nice 6pt come under my stand, but my instincts told me to hold off, he seemed like a younger deer w/ a lot of potential. So I went this year w/o filling my tag, but I managed to enjoy the sight of that nice buck 2 more times during the season. I put myself where the bucks were, but didn't fulfill my goal. This year I will have the same goal as last year, except I plan on taking a doe first.
I could say that I didn't shoot a buck in 05 because I have personal standards of a mature deer in the 140 class...... But it wasn't because Iwaiting on a 140 class buck to "show up", The reason I didn't tag one is because I didn't put myself in position to kill what I was after.
I believe saying that I didn't kill one because I pass everything under "XXX" inches is a way to place the blame elsewhere rather than to fess up andsay I failed at filling my tag because I never put my self in position to accomplish my goal.
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I did put myself on a buck, that 6pt was real nice for this part of the state, and would have made for a great season for some people. Other then that there were a lot of spikes and forks that I saw constantly, which hopefully will be shooters in the next 2 years. On my NYS hunting survey that Imail in each year I had 86 deer sightings, granted I'm sure a lot were the same deer on different occasions, but I was seeing deer, and a lot of 'em. The spot I hunt is similar to GMMAT's, its suburban hunting, and there are a lot of deer.