I know one thing, I shot a 340+ bull elk a few years ago and had the horns mounted. Been kicking myself ever since and found out I could still do the mount but it will cot about $1200 so no way. It woulda been an extra $450 at the time. Oh well.

What is the Beatty Buck?

Here's the Beatty Buck. It was the world record until this past season, and was aged at 3 1/2 years... Yeah, you should let him walk.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/news/jan0...buckrecord.htm


http://www.northamericanwhitetail.co...w_aa901beatty/

Yes, you should let him walk. By doing so you would allow him a couple of more years to grow and, more importantly, spread his genetics into the herd.

That being said, if he walked in front of me I would have dropped him like a bad habit.

If I adopted that policy here in Alabama I would probably never get to mount a deer. I don't have any kind of minimum requirement. I can't really write a specific quantitative standard for what makes a buck a wall hanger to me but I know one when I see it. Does that sound stupid? I think it encompasses a lot of thinks. For example, I have a buddy who has a mount of what by even Alabama standards is a very average 8 point deer. He would never mount a deer that size now and would not have then if it had been a gun kill but it was the first nice racked buck he ever killed with a bow. And that makes it special to him.

We follow this advice on our land and I do wish the people around us would too but then my reasons are selfish. I want to kill big bucks. However, there are people out there (I know some) that don't give a rats @$$ about a set of horns. Who am I to say that they are wrong to hunt just for meat so long as they obey the game laws in their area and don't kill more than they can use.

No "ranches", high fences or leases for me. Just dedication and many years without killing a deer. Lets just face the fact that everyone wants to shoot a big buck but most have no will power and have to kill something so they take their trophy buck 3 years before he is ready ..... and think they have really accomplished something.

IF HE AIN'T BIG ENOUGH TO MOUNT, HE AIN"T BIG ENOUGH TO SHOOT. a simple rule that we all can live by

It looks like one deer that would have been great next fall won't be there.

Today I was walking the snomobile trail that goes through my dads land and I found a buck with his head gear sawn off. Body left to be eaten by others. My first guess it was poached but this area isn't even close to a road. For them to shoot this deer from a snomobile seems strange. No reason to carry a gun snomobiling. There is a slim chance this buck died within 20 feet of the snomobile trail.

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I agree. I myself got head mounts done of a large 10 point, a doe, and a button buck... all harvested with a bow. It makes the wall look REAL nice. Unfortunately, they all had to come down... to make room for other mounts, rugs, and pelts. I think that ANY deer you shoot is a trophy. My youngest brother (God keep you safe little brother) shot a small fork horn for his first deer ever... we got it mounted for him. It's not the size of the animal, it's the memories that the animal holds. If I shot a deer, no matter what size, that held some special memories, I'd probably get it mounted myself.

How i decide is how big it is. This year i got a beautiful 8 pointer and it also was my first buck so i was definetly getting it mounted. But even if i want my first i still would of. So for me as long as it has 8+ points i get it mounted

Where i hunt their are to many guys on our land and on neighboring lands to lets big 8 pointers walk away for the next year. But even before the new antler restrictions we had a rule of 6 pointer or better and that worked out really well. I think you need a large amount of land to really manage your bucks well