So here's the question.... Do you shoot a small buck at 20 yards broadside? I am hunting public land in southern Illinois and have been seeing a lot of small bucks present me good shot opportunities. Throughout the season I have passed on probably 15 shots on deer. This would be my "first" deer ever. Early in the season I shot a doe at 6 yards and never recovered her. Just last week I found the carcass out hunting with my arrow through both lungs. So do you let the small 1 and 2 year bucks walk or do you take a good shot when it presents itself? I also shed hunted this land a lot last spring and found close to a dozen sheds all of them being young bucks.
i'm shooting first, and asking myself whether or not I should have waited while eating him, then thinking- "no". it honestly depends though. In NJ, I can purchase additional buck tags, so it isn't a big deal. If you were limited to 1 tag, and KNEW for a fact that larger deer were present, I would wait through whatever season your state is currently in.
Shoot what makes you happy. Me personally I have zero interest in shooting a small buck if I wanna kill something I just whack a doe. I try to aim for 125 + if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.
This is the negative side to hunting shows and trophy hunting. Its your first year, your number one goal should be getting some kills under your belt. After a few kills its time to shape your ideas of a trophy. Go kill bud!
Well next time a quality shot presents itself I will take it even if it is a small buck. But would you shoot a doe with fawns?
Will a small buck make you happy? If so shoot it,if not don't. Its that simple. For a number of reasons I shoot the fawns,but again you do what makes you happy and are comfortable with.
Its rare to have a doe without fawns may not be present at the time but they're usually around. Once season rolls around fawns are fully capable of living on their own. When I first started hunting I loved killing. Any flicker of a deer made my heart race because doe or buck it was probably a shooter. After nearly 20 years of hunting and harvesting some great bucks I like where I am as a hunter but parts of me miss that excitement I got with just seeing any whitetail. Now when i see something I think doe/buck/how big. Hunting should be experienced in stages, and each should be embraced. Good luck, hope to see some success pics real soon!
I will be back out tomorrow and hunting in the same spot I did today presuming the winds are right. Hopefully I will be able to get put one on the ground.
I agree with this. On all the hunting shows if your not shooting a huge monster buck you haven't had a good day. I say shoot what makes you happy! I you feel like you need a bigger buck to make you happy then wait.
You said you lunged the 1st one but didn't find it. What happened? Like others have said, shoot what YOU want. Getting a few kills under your belt no matter the size of deer will do you MUCH good. Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
Everyone on here is right. Shoot what makes you happy. Also, its your first deer so go for it! Once you get the first one under your belt it will only get better! EDIT: I didn't even see Schultzys post! haha. Great Minds think a like
Schultzy there was very little to no blood on the doe I shot. It was not a complete pass through shot and the arrow stayed in the deer with about 8 inches of arrow sticking out the opposite side of the deer. I believe it may have hit at least one shoulder of the deer as it hit the second rib towards the front of the deer and I believe the third rib on the opposite side of it. It was hard to tell where the shoulders would have been because of how decayed it was when I found it. I grid searched most of a 40 acre field but failed to grid search all of a tall crp grass area where grass was 5 to 6 foot high. The deer must have circled back before it died and with no blood it made it difficult to track. Unfortunately theres only one way to become better at tracking blood and thats to shoot another deer.
You should always shoot what makes you happy, especially on public land. Since there's no way you can do any QDM on public land (it's impossible because not everyone will agree to do so) just shoot whatever you see that meets your expectations because it's important to get that first few kills. Once you kill a few then you can start raising the bar.
