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NOT worst pull ever

BSK said:
That size rack wouldn't be unprecedented for a 3 1/2 in my area. I'm adjacent to some HUGE bottomlands in soybeans and corn. First two pictures are of a 3 1/2 from a couple years ago. He scored right at 140. Third picture is a 3 1/2 I'm positive broke the 150 mark.
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It's amazing how big 3.5 year olds can get in TN.
 
Shed Hunter said:
It's amazing how big 3.5 year olds can get in TN.
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Problem is - and I'm absolutely guilty of this - those top-end 3 1/2s usually get shot, hence we don't get to see what they will become at maturity.

Even if the discussed buck is only 3 1/2, I'm shooting him at first opportunity, guaranteed.
 
BSK said:
Problem is - and I'm absolutely guilty of this - those top-end 3 1/2s usually get shot, hence we don't get to see what they will become at maturity.

Even if the discussed buck is only 3 1/2, I'm shooting him at first opportunity, guaranteed.
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Buck hunting is always a roll of the dice. It's a game show. Do you take your winnings now or do you carry it through to the next round in hopes of compounding it, but at the risk of losing it all?
 
Ski said:
Buck hunting is always a roll of the dice. It's a game show. Do you take your winnings now or do you carry it through to the next round in hopes of compounding it, but at the risk of losing it all?
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Exactly. And considering how infrequently we get the chance to see/shoot a particular 3 1/2+ buck, passing one up is an extremely risky gamble. Almost every year for the last 20 years we've had at least one buck over 140 using our place during deer season, and probably 10-12 of those years, we've had a buck 150+ on the place. Yet how many of those have we killed? Just 4 between 5-6 hunters. Not a very high success rate, by any means.
 
Ski said:
Buck hunting is always a roll of the dice. It's a game show. Do you take your winnings now or do you carry it through to the next round in hopes of compounding it, but at the risk of losing it all?
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Truer words have never been typed. With that said, the risk and pain associated with letting one walk is a lot lower, and easier to live with, when the hunter does not "have to" kill a buck each season.
 
Ski said:
Buck hunting is always a roll of the dice. It's a game show. Do you take your winnings now or do you carry it through to the next round in hopes of compounding it, but at the risk of losing it all?
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Spot on

But similar to what @Andy S. said, letting one walk is enjoyable to me. Did that a lot in 2021 to never see them at all last year. Oh well, knowing I could have is what gives me confidence and keeps my fire burning
 
Andy S. said:
Truer words have never been typed. With that said, the risk and pain associated with letting one walk is a lot lower, and easier to live with, when the hunter does not "have to" kill a buck each season.
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I'll be the first to admit I definitely want to kill a buck every year. I've gone "buckless" several years, but I certainly don't want to. All that time, money and effort put into managing my place and I want to come away with something each year. But then my standards aren't that high, so I have a good chance of being successful.
 
BSK said:
Exactly. And considering how infrequently we get the chance to see/shoot a particular 3 1/2+ buck, passing one up is an extremely risky gamble. Almost every year for the last 20 years we've had at least one buck over 140 using our place during deer season, and probably 10-12 of those years, we've had a buck 150+ on the place. Yet how many of those have we killed? Just 4 between 5-6 hunters. Not a very high success rate, by any means.
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Killing mature bucks isn't easy and isn't common. It never fails that we hear people say that in order to kill giant bucks you have to let the big bucks walk. While there is some wisdom in that sentiment, I find it to be grossly overrated and dismissive of the fact that those big bucks either never get any bigger regardless of age, or else they walk to the neighbors to get killed. Of all the bucks I get on camera & keep track of year in year out, I'd have to guess single digit percentage of them are still around as 4 & 5 year olds. They either relocate, which is most common with 3yr olds, or they get killed. Unless you've got a giant property the odds are heavily stacked against you if you think letting a big 3yr old walk will get you a chance on him as a 4yr old.
 
Ski said:
Killing mature bucks isn't easy and isn't common. It never fails that we hear people say that in order to kill giant bucks you have to let the big bucks walk. While there is some wisdom in that sentiment, I find it to be grossly overrated and dismissive of the fact that those big bucks either never get any bigger regardless of age, or else they walk to the neighbors to get killed. Of all the bucks I get on camera & keep track of year in year out, I'd have to guess single digit percentage of them are still around as 4 & 5 year olds. They either relocate, which is most common with 3yr olds, or they get killed. Unless you've got a giant property the odds are heavily stacked against you if you think letting a big 3yr old walk will get you a chance on him as a 4yr old.
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I'm in a somewhat unique situation in that the vast majority of the bucks I'm hunting in November do not permanently live on my place. If I pass up a particular buck, I have to wait until the next November to see him again. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes it doesn't. And I'm assuming because I don't have a resident set of bucks, what we kill one year has almost no relation to what we see the next year. We can kill 5 or 6 bucks one year, and the percentage of the buck population that is mature the following year is exactly the same as following a year where we killed no bucks. Year after year for the last 20 years, the percent of the buck population that is mature comes up around 8-10%. Doesn't matter if we killed a bunch of bucks the previous year or no bucks. So, the idea that by passing up more 2 1/2s and 3 1/2s we'll have more mature bucks simply isn't true. But again, this situation isn't common to most properties. It's simply because of our location and the surrounding habitat.
 
I've only shot a few bucks in my hunting career. Mostly I just go for the 1 1/2 yr does. They taste better to me. I'm not opposed to shooting a Bullwinkle if one should wander by, but I'm not salivating at the mouth looking for one. At this stage, it'll have to be an 11 or better (or a drop tine) for me to even consider pulling the trigger on a buck. If all I see in the woods are does, I'm fine with that. MEAT! I'll just leave the horns for those that cherish them more than I do.

I love those @BSK videos, tho! Fun to watch.
 
Terrier said:
I've only shot a few bucks in my hunting career. Mostly I just go for the 1 1/2 yr does. They taste better to me. I'm not opposed to shooting a Bullwinkle if one should wander by, but I'm not salivating at the mouth looking for one. At this stage, it'll have to be an 11 or better (or a drop tine) for me to even consider pulling the trigger on a buck. If all I see in the woods are does, I'm fine with that. MEAT! I'll just leave the horns for those that cherish them more than I do.
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My problem is, 1) we don't yet need to kill a bunch of does (we are still rebuilding from some low population years), and 2) I've killed so many does in my career that I hate fooling with butchering them. As a family, we kill enough bucks each year to keep us all in meat. But the days of busting does like crazy will probably come back. Our population is definitely rebounding fairly quickly.
 
Andy S. said:
How many acres do you control?
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Eh, I've never added it up but somewhere near 1,000 acres spread over 8 properties in 3 states. The largest property singly is 300 acres. Smallest is 30. Any given year I'll be running cams on 6-8 of them and doing some level of habitat work, food plots, etc.

The one common thread is that most 3yr olds don't show back up the following year. I can only assume an unknown number of them are being killed. However, the number of 4yr olds that come back as 5yr olds is fairly high, enough so that I'm convinced letting a 4yr old walk gives you far better odds than letting a 3yr old walk. I'm not sure if they're just better at surviving, roam less, or have just settled into a smaller core area as they age. Whatever the reason, it's a pattern that plays out over & over. I've got pics & videos of many great 3yr olds that I've never seen again, but very few 4yr olds that I didn't get again as 5+yr olds.
 

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