ORIGINAL: Handles
Let em grow one more year and they will probably be 15" 8's and 10's.
The only thing that I'm saying is that if you want bigger bucks, well, there is a simple way to get them. Self restraint. It starts with you. Don't start with the "well the guy across my fence will shoot it if I don't" How do you know?
Because many of us have been hunting the same woods for many years and see the same type deer taken every year. What you are suggesting is to pass on deer and let other people shoot them in hopes that one will slip through the cracks and you will see him next year??.........First of all making it through one year is hard enough for these bucks, but if you think that one will survive to be 5 1/2 to 6 1/2??? LOL Good luck. You also are mentioning "the guy across the fence".........try the 50 guys putting on constant drives for 3 weeks.........and the other 50 posted up ready to shoot. Deer still manage to slip through even those gauntlets.......my brother killed a big 8 pointer there and I killed a 13 pointer last year in different woods though.
We accept it for what it is..........taking a deer is good........taking a buck is a nice bonus.........and getting a shot at a bruiser is very rare. We really don't care that much.............not saying we don't appreciate a good buck, we just don't get upset if we don't see one.
We have other places that we go and the chance of a big deer is better and we enjoy that as well.
We just enjoy hunting together..........I treasure those memories much more then any of the horns on my walls. The meat is much more precious to me and my family then head gear.
They all look the same on the grill.
Don't get me wrong..........I love seeing big bucks.......I am just not obsessed with it.
Maybe that one buck will make it through the year. Maybe not. But it most definately will not make it another day if you shoot it .
If you like to eat meat, good, so do I. Nothing like a doe to fill the freezer. If you want to shoot a little buck. Go ahead, don't complain about some one else not being satisfied with a similar buck. I've shot my share of little ones. Shooting another would not be much fun for me. If you are in an area where you have no other choice...take your shot if you get it.
If you don't like watching big bucks get shot as management bucks. Don't watch. I turn off the TV anytime I see hunting in Texas from a tower stand shooting down a Sendero. I don't enjoy it, so I don't watch. I do enjoy watching a bow hunt from an ordinary midwest farm that due to self restraint by the people that hunt the land they have produced some very quality bucks.
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