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First day of rifle season and you encounter a 170”+ deer.

What do you do???

  • Total voters
    126
Boll Weevil said:
Is this a trick question?
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No sir not a trick question. I guess the question is "do you shoot it if it technically isn't hunting?" Is there a line there for you? Of course it would be an awesome trophy but if you really didn't do anything to earn that trophy should that play into your decision to kill it?
 
opportunity is opportunity in my eyes. sometimes they just present themselves. doesn't make you any less a hunter. one of the biggest turkeys i ever killed was in my yard. I had hunted early 3 mornings in a row and planned on sleeping in. neighbor had called to tell me it was in my yard. eased out too my truck, got my shotgun and made my way to the other end of my house... looked like Elmer Fudd creeping to the corner with my barrel up. turned and blasted him at 50. my camo that morning was a pair of old white ball shorts and a bright yellow cut off sleeve t-shirt. hey, it just happens sometimes
 
If I shot one from my porch I'd be arrested . I don't live on my property but if I was getting out of my truck and seen the buck of course I'd shoot it . But the buck would have to stand there long enough for me to get my rifle out of my case and load it ...so unlikely I'd get off a shot . We was heading to our hunting property in Lewis Co one year and a big buck was on our side of the of the property . The guys I was with was trying to get their guns when I said go in there and hunt him right it's the rut and there's a good chance one of you might get a shot. They didn't and of course they blamed me . It would have been poaching to shoot from the road although no houses where around for miles but still...I didn't want to be part of that .
 
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Bushape said:
No sir not a trick question. I guess the question is "do you shoot it if it technically isn't hunting?" Is there a line there for you? Of course it would be an awesome trophy but if you really didn't do anything to earn that trophy should that play into your decision to kill it?
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Now that I understand the full question, I let the buck walk. I want to be able to look at the trophies on my wall have be able to recall the memories of the hunt. Shooting one from just off the right-of-way, porch, gate (etc....) has no appeal to me.
 
Bushape said:
No sir not a trick question. I guess the question is "do you shoot it if it technically isn't hunting?" Is there a line there for you? Of course it would be an awesome trophy but if you really didn't do anything to earn that trophy should that play into your decision to kill it?
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Sitting on my porch and it just wanders by then no I wouldn't kill it because I wasn't hunting it. If it was a hunting situation then absolutely I'd shoot him day 1.
 
No offense, but this question is like asking a football player, "so you start a game,and a ball is tipped and comes toward you. It's not a play you practiced - it's a tipped ball, it's not a planned play you've sweated and worked on over and over again. Do you catch it or let it drop?"

The answer is always - catch it! Any sport/hunting/fishing contains some measure of "luck" (or whatever you want to call it - undeserved results) - period. And that's part of what makes it enjoyable. If it was always do the same, with the same result - that would be work. And it wouldn't be much fun.
 
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I guess I have a story which illustrates this pretty well. Around 1998 I was hunting all morning. I decided to leave and head home. I got in my car and proceeded around the block when a buck crossed the road in front of me. He was heading to the stand I had just left. He wasn't a big buck, but I noticed him limping pretty bad as he went into the field. I decided to park the car and see if he stopped in the drainage that went up toward my stand which was in the field corner. He had made it farther and was 150 yards quartering away. Now had the deer not been wounded the story would have ended. I had made a reasonable stalk to get in position to take the shot and did so. My longest shot ever to that date and did so with a handgun. Was that hunting? Road hunting? Unethical shot with a handgun? Did the stalk make it hunting? Did the fact he was only 200yards from my stand make it hunting? Or the fact he was only a 3 point make a difference? From the details I gave, clearly this was a very memorable hunt. But to some, maybe not. But hunting involves more than that 170 inch rack.
 
Would you shoot it if it was a well known neighbors pet with a collar on it? It's walking up to you grunting to get fed and petted as you sit on your porch drinking your morning coffee.

Would you shoot it if it were in a 25 acre high fence pen and it wouldn't cost you a dime?

Would you stomp the gas if it crossed the dirt road in front of you and kill it with your truck?

I guess my point is... most hunters have to feel good ABOUT the kill, NOT the kill itself, no matter how big the buck is. The ones who don't care at all ABOUT the kill, just the kill itself aren't really hunters.

That being said, what feels good ABOUT the kill is very different from person to person.
 
boy that is tough. i have let some really big ones go because the deer was tame, or i has brought a rifle rather than my bow. i have shared those videos. the killing of the deer means very little. However, it would be hard to pass up a fully mature deer that was 170. now if it want mature, which i know would be unlikely on a deer scoring that, i would definitely pass
 
I totally understand the question and it's one I've had on several occasions. I think it varies with the hunter. There are those that get enjoyment from putting a mount on the wall and there are those that get enjoyment from "hunting". There's obviously no right answer and each is perfectly fine. Do you consider a paid hunt in a fenced property hunting? To some they do, but me personally, I don't. My enjoyment is the hunt and not the animal. My favorite hunting stories and memories do not involve harvesting an animal. It's a very philosophical question and I would be curious to see how people vote based on their age. For me the animal has become far less important the older I've gotten and it has nothing to do with the number of animals harvested.
 
Here's the biggest buck I've ever gotten on camera in TN.

IMG_2065.webp
 

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