ORIGINAL: rybohunter
Quik’s post got me thinking.
Would your standards of a “shooter” buck change, if you thought you had a realistic chance at killing a “bigger” buck?
Shooter & big being relative to the land you hunt.
Say your current shooter is 100”. Would you pass on a 100” buck if you thought you had a reasonable chance at shooting a 130”?
And one last question, what do you consider a reasonable chance?
Well to be honest, my standards wouldn't change at all. I'm lucky enough to hunt areas where a P&Y caliber deer is not uncommon, in fact there spotted quite often. I still "hunt for the moment" in that if I see a nice deer in range and I like the look of the deer regardless of it's overall inches I'll probably still take the shop KNOWING full well there might be a big ole slammer 5min. in my future. I just don't care, I'm happy hunting and if I've decided to take the shot, I'm 100% satisfied with what I'm assuming the end result will be.....dead deer.
That being said there have been times where I've had my mind set on a particular deer and have passed on some pretty decent bucks in order to get a shot at the one I was after. This is not the norm for me as usually any nice looking 8-point is going to get a arrow, slug, or bullet heading it's way!