If it is legal and you want to shot it shot it. Honestly i am not sure i could tell the different much pass 40 yard. Heck maybe not even 20 unless i was in a tree and could see the button. Meat is meat

eats better than a old rutting buck...

[quote=Pglasgow;3523139]

Roger, I guess there are primarily two practices which turn my stomach. The first is wanton waste. The taking of a head or antlers whilst the meat is wasted. I am happy to say that hunter's whose focus is to harvest game for meat NEVER do that. In fact, in the case of taking a 4 point elk in the wilderness, just the opposite may take place, packing out the meat in more than one trip whilst leaving the antlers for rodents. Only people fixated on antlers leave meat to waste, though most don't. I am thankful for that.

The second practice that I despise is the hunting of pen raised animals. Again people with a focus on harvesting meat never do this. They buy beef with the money they saved.



You can put up the Pepto PG I assure you I do none of the above.

Roger, I can assure you that I didn't assume you did. I was just mentioning some of the unwanted practices which arise from antler fixation. I'm not the first to mention it here. Cherokee did just what he is supposed to do. He harvested an antlerless deer with an antlerless tag.

Every deer I have shot in the last 42 years has been a trophy. Some had big racks,some small,some had none at all. I have a garage full of horns,still looking for a receipe.

Charlie

I agree 100% got ya beat by three years!

I enjoy hunting and killing deer, but want some challange. And around me, bb's don't give it.

While I did kill a couple BB early on, I make a concentrated effort not to do so now. Really not that hard since they are the dumbest thing in the woods and killing something that easy does nothing for me. I pass on shots where I can't tell for sure.

In pre rut, they have had no exposure to predators(hunters) and carry themselves in a reckless way - typically 1st in the field, etc.
During rut, they are usually on their own and don't have a clue other then avoid anything with horns.

However, if it happens, I don't sweat it - they are only deer.

Got ya both beat! Been hunting these wonderful protein backstraps for over 52 yrs. ;)

Good shot in my book.

Be proud of what you shoot, and enjoy the meat the animal gives you.

All you guys got me beat :). 34 years for me.

Steve, what difference does it make whether a button is stupid or not? What I mean is ... hunting is either too easy or too hard in my experience. Either one gets presented with the opportunity or he doesn't. And if one is confident he will be presented with multiple opportunities, how challenging is that? The biggest advantage these critters have is that they can wait until after dark to move. But if they move they are targets and we can certainly take them no questions asked.

I can honestly say that the only time I have been challenged is still hunting through the woods trying to move slowly enough that deer stay put. I particularly enjoy this type of hunting in a fresh snow where I select the animal I am going to hunt even before I see him. But one needs a fresh snow and this doesn't happen frequently.

When one thinks about it, hunters do all kinds of things to make hunting less challenging. They game fence their properties, eliminate predators, make food plots, supplement food with feeders, hunt over the feeders, and so on. People who do this have luxury of waiting for the deer they know are there but to me just waiting doesn't making the hunt challenging. Most of the time, hunting feels like its too easy or to hard and whether its too easy or too hard depends solely on the opportunities one is presented.

Primarily we are harvesting a renewable resource and this harvest has benefit to both the deer population and to the public. It not too hard to harvest deer. As hunters we have a responsibility to participate, to harvest, and to utilize the harvest. Trophies are less frequent and so I would agree its pretty tough to harvest one but only if one is hunting property where they are particularly infrequent. That is, if one basically grows them, then it isn't all that difficult and it really isn't a fair comparison to hunters which can't buy those opportunities.