ORIGINAL: LittleChief
The word "successful" as it applies to hunting means only one thing to me. You've succeeded in your objective. If your objective is to hold out for bucks only, 150" or better and you only take one deer on, say, 15 December but it meets that requirement, then you're successful. But what about the days you hunted before that? Were you successful? It's just my opinion here, but each day I hunt and don't take one, I didn't succeed on that particular day. I may have had a great time, and I may still be a "successful" hunter, but on that day, I didn't succeed in accomplishing what I set out to do.
I know the term is relative. A hunt for a specific buck can run weeks, months or even years, but in the end, what defines success in relation to deer hunting?
As far as success goes in relation to "The Kill", I can't tell you how many people I have talked to in all my 42 years of life, that have told me they used to hunt, but never got anything.....so they stopped.
How long do you think anyone would keep hunting if they havenever killed anything?? Without the kill, the exclamation point of all our efforts, it loses it's luster .....