Would he have been a shooter?

bklysen

This is from bow season, last year.



He passed by me (very obscured) probably 25 yards out, I was in a tree stand toward his rear-end. He cleared that obscured line and into the open, right in front of the camera where he stopped. Too far for me to consider then. But it was interesting to see his reaction to that shutter....amazing to see first hand how they can pick up that subtle, slightly different, sound. Anything out of the ordinary.

Anyway, perhaps a silly question. I know we all have different views on meat vs. antlers/regional size, etc. These are Whitetails around here. Actually not a real big deer for here at all, but my freezer has been neglected lately. Anyway, I just got the cameras back up and that got me to reviewing the 'trespassers' from last year...:tooth:.

Amazing what a little cold snap can do to get a guy's attention, and those juices flowing again. I'm anxious....

bklysen

cpj wrote: »

With a bow, dead deer walking.
With a gun, depending on how much season was left....he may or may not be jerky.

Pretty much my take, looking back. Mute point in a way because I wasn't comfortable with the obstructions, so he walked. But it was the LAST deer I saw with bow in hand last year. Just the way it worked out with my schedule, etc. Ya just never know.

Farm Boy Deuce

Like you say it depends. Last year I started the season with a rifle I had never blooded, my rule was, "if it's brown it's down." That will happen this year as well. After that I look more at size and sex. I prefer to take mature animals. If it late in the season and I am not doing well see my rule above.

tennmike

I'd take that one in a heartbeat. I hunt for meat, and that buck looks nice and fat. Antlers make poor soup.

Razorbacker

The only way I wouldn't have taken a deer like that was if I was on some expensive hunt somewhere looking to Take nothing less than a real bruiser. But here at home, I'd shoot without a seconds worth of second guessing and immediately thank God for his bounty. Just look at those fat hams.

jaywapti

Since I'm mainly a meat hunter I would have taken him.

JAY

snake284

Well, here in the Great State of Texas they've got a 13 inch law now. Has to be 13 Inches minimum between the main beams or it's illegal, unless it's a spike or Antlerless and you are in an area where you can shoot antlerless or you have a permit for one. Here in Texas our whitetail population runs between 3 and 5 million deer, the largest deer population in the U.S., but yet we have some of the most resrtrictive laws. Makes sense to me, NOT!

Fisheadgib

He would be a nice rack in a year or two. When I hunted in Wisconsin many years ago, you pretty well shot the first buck that you saw. Where I hunt now in Alabama, I won't take a buck unless I plan to mount it. Does taste better and I'm not as lenient with a big fat doe.

Buffco

snake284 wrote: »

Well, here in the Great State of Texas they've got a 13 inch law now. Has to be 13 Inches minimum between the main beams or it's illegal, unless it's a spike or Antlerless and you are in an area where you can shoot antlerless or you have a permit for one. Here in Texas our whitetail population runs between 3 and 5 million deer, the largest deer population in the U.S., but yet we have some of the most resrtrictive laws. Makes sense to me, NOT!

That's one of the reasons you have such a large herd. Ga's herd is down below 900,000 from a high of 1.2 million. DNR is trying to get that number back up. They halved our tag limit last year.

Bigslug

If he's readily identifiable as having two points or more on one side, he's legal in my area and I'm pulling the trigger, launching the arrow, throwing the rock, or latching onto his throat with my teeth. I got a lot more space in the freezer than on the wall.

As I've said before, I regard people who pass on legal deer with the same suspicion I usually reserve for the DNC.

Fisheadgib

Bigslug wrote: »

As I've said before, I regard people who pass on legal deer with the same suspicion I usually reserve for the DNC.

You must not get too many opportunities to shoot deer if you feel obligated to kill every one that you can.

Buffco

Fisheadgib wrote: »

You must not get too many opportunities to shoot deer if you feel obligated to kill every one that you can.

I'm the same way, fish. I've let one deer pass in my entire life. Reason is, after 10 years of attempting to call myself a hunter, I simply have not seen many deer. I average about 3 years between kills.

Linefinder

That deer would have gone into my freezer.

Mike

Bigslug

Fisheadgib wrote: »

You must not get too many opportunities to shoot deer if you feel obligated to kill every one that you can.

1 kill of a 1x2 for 4 hard hunting seasons in a 3% success rate zone, plus a strike-out in Colorado due to bizarre weather and deer knowing where private property is. I pretty much regard cluster-bombing the mountainside as "sporting" at this point.

Fisheadgib

Bigslug wrote: »

1 kill of a 1x2 for 4 hard hunting seasons in a 3% success rate zone, plus a strike-out in Colorado due to bizarre weather and deer knowing where private property is. I pretty much regard cluster-bombing the mountainside as "sporting" at this point.

I feel your pain. Like I mentioned earlier, in Wisconsin you would shoot the first legal deer that you saw as there were a lot of hunters and the season was only 9 days to boot. South central Alabama has a huge number of deer and If I didn't see at least two or three deer every time I sat in a stand I would think something was wrong. We can shoot three bucks a season and two does a day for three and a half months. I usually looked to put six does in the freezer every season. I've only shot two bucks in about the last 25 years but both of them are mounted.

snake284

Buffco wrote: »

That's one of the reasons you have such a large herd. Gad's herd is down below 900,000 from a high of 1.2 million. DNR is trying to get that number back up. They halved our tag limit last year.

Yeah Buff, I guess you're right about that. But it gets frustrating sometimes, especially if it's an older deer with a high narrow rack. I've passed on deer that had rather large thick bases that were barely illegal but I knew he was at least 4 years old if not older. He was just an inch shy in width.

snake284

Bigslug wrote: »

If he's readily identifiable as having two points or more on one side, he's legal in my area and I'm pulling the trigger, launching the arrow, throwing the rock, or latching onto his throat with my teeth. I got a lot more space in the freezer than on the wall.

As I've said before, I regard people who pass on legal deer with the same suspicion I usually reserve for the DNC.

The key operative word here is Legal. And in Texas you can't afford to take a chance and kill an illegal deer. Or let's put it this way, you could buy a lot of Prime beef for what one illegal deer will cost you.

Fisheadgib

It's not as hard as you would think if you have something to use as a reference, like the ears. The lease that I used to be on had an eight point or better rule and the spread had to be outside the ears. Even on the smaller whitetails that most of Texas has (I'm not talking about game ranch raised monsters) the ears are going to be around 13" from tip to tip so you just have to shoot bucks with racks that spread outside the ears.

Six-Gun

cpj wrote: »

That 13" law is bull .
Antler restrictions I get, we have them in certain counties. Have to be at least four points on one side. Well, that's pretty easy to judge...if you can count to four.
Judging 13"? When 12.75 will land you a ticket? Yeah. Some complete ing moron came up with that idea.

Amen. I said this years ago, but I wonder how many otherwise decent bucks are buried out in the Texas backwoods because they came up .25" short and the shooter didn't want a massive fine over a feature they can't accurately judged until the deer is already down.

HAWKEN

It would have been for me, I'm a meat hunter.........Robin

bobbyrlf3

Well, I haven't been hunting for long (since '01-'02), and having never actually shot a deer, I most definitely would have taken that one. I can always lie about how big it actually was. :tooth:

Varmintmist

I'm not positive he would be legal in my wildlife managment unit for a adult hunter. For a JR its down.

We are 3 points up one side, brow tine does NOT count. A point being one inch or better.

He looks like a y buck with bumps on his left and I dont see a legal point besides the main beam on the right.

So for me, nope.

snake284

cpj wrote: »

That 13" law is bull .
Antler restrictions I get, we have them in certain counties. Have to be at least four points on one side. Well, that's pretty easy to judge...if you can count to four.
Judging 13"? When 12.75 will land you a ticket? Yeah. Some complete ing moron came up with that idea.

Don't tell me, write a letter to our Parks and Wildlife. I think it's stupid also, but that won't get me off the hook with the man.

snake284

I get the size thing, but width is a bummer. There's a thousand deer out there you could put a normal size stetson over their rack, but the rack may be 14 inches high. Now a 2 year old buck isn't going to have a rack near that high. Some deer don't grow such wide racks, they will be high like I described and that deer will be a trophy in many books.

Laws like this are put forth by a relatively small group of trophy hunters that have a lot of money. It's like our fish laws. A spotted sea trout has to be a minimum of 15 inches and you can't keep but 5 now. Redfish have to be betwen 20" and 28" and the bag limit is 3. And they have about legislated flounder out of existence. The bays are full of fine 14.5 inch trout that are nice to eat and fun to catch, yet we have to leave them to feed the dolphins. They don't seem to pay any attention to the size limit (or the bag limit). They eat millions of trout every day. Yet we have to throw back good eating fish because the Coastal Conservation Association lobbies our state legislature so they can control Parks and Wildlife. They're not as much about conservation as they are Trophy Fishing. They used to be called the Gulf Coast Conservation Association. Anyway, it's getting very hard to take your kids out and catch a mess of fish anymore. It's BULL!

snake284

Fisheadgib wrote: »

It's not as hard as you would think if you have something to use as a reference, like the ears. The lease that I used to be on had an eight point or better rule and the spread had to be outside the ears. Even on the smaller whitetails that most of Texas has (I'm not talking about game ranch raised monsters) the ears are going to be around 13" from tip to tip so you just have to shoot bucks with racks that spread outside the ears.

At first when they came out with this law it wasn't 13 inches, it was that the ears had to be inside the main beams when in the alert position, which is not their widest. Then they put a number on it and made it harder. The alert position is at an angle between 30 and 40 degrees or so, not straight out at the farthest distance. On my deer lease there are several as big as 18-20 inches, but there's also a slew of 10-12 inchers.

USUFB

Snake, I was under the impression that the 13 inch rule is only for certain counties, not the whole state. Has that been changed?

And I agree, it is a stupid law. Like sixgun said, I bet there are many otherwise respectable bucks either buried or home butchered because they came up a fraction of an inch short.

Six-Gun

Oh, and regarding the original post, friends and I have talks like this all of the time about "would you shoot him or not" regarding various bucks. Just yesterday, a friend and I were trying to squeeze the last drop out of dove season (poorly I might add since the fields are pretty much shot out) when this fella showed up (click picture to see video). He initially walked into the field and started walking past us at just 70 yards. He got well past us when our scent must've caught his nose and he backtracked back past us, giving me a quick chance to film him and send the video to another hunting buddy. I asked him the same question: would you shoot him?

At first, the buck doesn't looks terribly impressive. His points aren't crazy tall or anything, but when he turned to run, we could see that he had very good mass on his mainbeams. The consensus was that he was a shooter. Sure, you CAN get much bigger deer in Ohio, but a 70 yard opportunity during gun season at a deer like this is worth taking in my book.

Six-Gun

See, it seems straight ahead in most areas to shoot a deer like the one in the video on public land, but when bucks like the one below in the pic are showing up on public land at a better clip than most places, you have to take pause. This one was shot by a childhood friend of one of my hunting buddies somewhere in the southeast part of the state.



You only get one buck a season here. If you want a true wallhanger by Ohio standards, you might want to wait... Me? The one in the video link is getting shot and possibly wall-mounted - far better than any other whitetail I've ever shot.

Farm Boy Deuce

The deer in the video would be dead. Right now dead.

snake284

bklysen wrote: »

This is from bow season, last year.



He passed by me (very obscured) probably 25 yards out, I was in a tree stand toward his rear-end. He cleared that obscured line and into the open, right in front of the camera where he stopped. Too far for me to consider then. But it was interesting to see his reaction to that shutter....amazing to see first hand how they can pick up that subtle, slightly different, sound. Anything out of the ordinary.

Anyway, perhaps a silly question. I know we all have different views on meat vs. antlers/regional size, etc. These are Whitetails around here. Actually not a real big deer for here at all, but my freezer has been neglected lately. Anyway, I just got the cameras back up and that got me to reviewing the 'trespassers' from last year...:tooth:.

Amazing what a little cold snap can do to get a guy's attention, and those juices flowing again. I'm anxious....

I've looked at this thing a dozen times this week or since you put it up. It depends on where you are. In Texas I would have to look at him straight on. I can't tell how wide they are. But I don't think he's all that big so i wouldn't chance it unless I could look him straight in the face or straight from behind.

snake284

USUFB wrote: »

Snake, I was under the impression that the 13 inch rule is only for certain counties, not the whole state. Has that been changed?

And I agree, it is a stupid law. Like sixgun said, I bet there are many otherwise respectable bucks either buried or home butchered because they came up a fraction of an inch short.

Good point USUFB, and I'm not sure. But I know that a lot of counties went to this law after a few years. In other words I know a few years back not all counties went by it. But it seems they all do now, but again, not sure.