Thats a really good point actually...i have never had any evidence of this with any other buck besides this one...makes you wonder if he would have been around more often if i had infared cameras with no visible light...

My goal is to some day take a clean 5x5, 3 1/2 + and 125+. I've never gotten a clean 10 pointer. I've got plenty of 8s though and this one I just couldn't pass up. This is one of 3 bucks that I was targeting in 2006. I figured him to be at least 5 1/2, look at that body! The pic was taken from my stand on Oct 17th, 2006. I had a shot at him on Nov 11th and missed! [:-][&o][][:@]

He is quite symetrical with very few deductions and looks close to 150 net as an 8 pointer. I didn't see him last year which is common for some ofthe older bucks in my area, but I think he may reappear. I hope so, he should be about 7 1/2 and a real beauty even though he's "only" an 8!!

Sorry, i didn't mean to jack the thread...ill move this to a new thread!

Back on topic...

No, I wouldn't shoot him. I would like to think that no team in this contest would really care one way or the other though. If my teammates did care, thenI would be glad to lose and get on a new team the next year.

IF it was the last day andIF I was the last hope on the team to put us over and IF I wasn't hunting on our main property - I'd do it for the team.

I don't think anyone on my team last year shot a buck period. I think I might have been the only person to shoot AT one (and when you shoot for 43 and the deer is at 31.... you come up totally empty )....

But what I took away from last year was about ten new good contacts and acquaintences whom I shared my season with hunt by hunt and week by week. I think it was a lot of fun, even though we finished about as low on the scoreboard as we could get. I think that for us in our positions the contest was perhaps not successful, but certainly very enjoyable, and that is what its designed to be... fun.

Absolutely....NOT!

I would. I havnt hunted enough in my life to be a "trophy hunter". I would be more than thrilled to have another buck under my bowhunting resume. Plus, it would mean i was on the winning HNI Bowhunting Contest team, which we all know is the greatest thing that could ever happen to anybody. Peirod.

If he was a trophy to me then YES.

No... I've passed up much bigger although my teams haven't been close where it cost us. One I wished I wouldn't have passed up. Really under-estimated him. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid !!!

If the team needed50 inches to beat the KING andhis littlepony team of jesters... well that is just a no brainer. I wouldn't be doing it for just my team,I would be doing it for all our sakes on HNI. [8D]

Tim