All I hunt out here is public land. We have a 3 point min.(one side western count) for mule deer. My season starts Sept 1st for archery. We only get one tag. Since they started the 3pnt rule I have seen alot more nice bucks then before. I also have whitetail around here that I go after tho the pop. on them is less, but it is growing every yr. since we don't have any pay as you hunt land around me, don't really have the same QDM that there is back east. A public land deer is a hard critter to hunt in my book and it makes the hunt more enjoyable. It's funny to watch all of the out of town hunters cruse the roads around private property cause they see a few nice bucks out int he fields. What they don't know is those same bucks move out of those fields and back onto public land. Granted there are a few deer that live on the private ranches around the area but not enough to make me enviouse of it. Some of our ranchers only let 1st time hunters or youngins hunt for those deer, which is great.
Now to the heading of this thread. Since I have never taken a deer that would score in the book. I don't judge a deer by numbers. A trophy to me is a deer that have given me a good hunt and one that is better then the last deer I took. But if I do not see a buck that I want I usualy take a barren doe towards the end of the season or no deer at all. I think to much is placed on the numbers game, i.e. P&Y score or B&C.