I have no problem with it. But if a doe walks by on the last day, it will taste better than the tag!!

I set my standards according to what I want to accomplish, be it bucks or does. If that animal does not meet my needs, there is no reason for me to kill it. My boys will put plenty of meat in the freezer. If I shoot something less than what I intended, I feel I have shortchanged myself. But with that said, at times I do hunt merely just to hunt, without an agenda in mind, which in and of itself is a goal.

I guess the bottom line is that I hunt to enjoy myself. I have a particularly nasty Alpha Doe this year that I have my sights set on. She is teaching others bad habits and must be dealt with. She is a very worthy adversary, much more so than the young bucks I am seeing regularly. I will try and deal with her this year while I wait for some of these younger bucks to grow up. All things have their own time and place for me, and I attempt to deal with them in due course. It is my way.

I have no problem eating Tag soup!

Hatchet Jack

Me too! I have had a greater hunting experience eating buck tag soup. I get to watch more bucks go about their daily routine without disturbiing them (what a beautiful sight) . There is a great satisfaction, that some may never know, in eating buck tag soup.

I've been on a fairly decent string of filling my buck tag in archery season. I know one of these years(maybe this one for all I know) It will go unfilled due to me raising the bar on myself. i am ok with that. It tookme a while to get to this point but I am happy I am here. Don't get me wrong, I will be a bit disappointed in myself if I don't fill a buck tag, but I'm guessing that would pale in the disappointment I'd have in myself if I cavedon my own standards.

And just as an aside.....I realize I live in a hard hunted state and every deer I pass may end up dead, but so what. It's not the future that makes me hold back, its the present. Coming into each season bucks exist of the caliber I want to shoot. And they will exist next season as well. They may be the ones I pass on, or they may come from out of the blue, I don't know.

I'm just glad I get to shoot 3 bucks per season if I choose to,which I haven't done the last few years,but it was my choice not to shoot also.I don't really have a set standard where I will shoot or not shoot it really depends on my mind set at the time a shot presents itself whether I shoot or not.For example if I have been seeing deer on a regular basis then I am more likely to pass on a deer {bck or doe} than if I've been hunting hard and not seeing deer.I've been hunting the same land for several years and I have not seen an increase in the quality of the antlers and I know for a fact that a lot of young bucks are being passed on by myself and neighboring land with no large increase in big buck kills.I'm not caught up in the trophy buck fad and still think a hunter should do what feels right to him at the moment of truth.and not worry about what others may say or think as long as it's legal.Some does are more of a challenge than bucks anyway.Don'tet me wrong I do passon deer but I don't set acertain score that a buck must meet,it really doesdepend on what my mood is at the tome.we get 6 deer per season and I only killed two last year,but could have killed 6 but didn't see anything that made me want to pull the trigger.I say to each his own even you who do set standards,good luck with that.