Let’s just say you started seeing twice as many bucks as you do now…….the buck population on your property doubles……Would you choose to shoot more than you do now or would you still kill the same amount and keep the same standards for age/quality???

Killemall before the neighbors kill them.

Good question... we shoot based on age currently so that standard would not change. So if we had more 2x as many bucks in each age class then we would have at least a couple more 5 year old bucks alive and in theory have more 5+ year old deer to shoot.

If you doubled the 2-3 year olds it wouldn't change anything for us. I've already done that. Neighbors love it. BOOM!

Would make me even more selective.

After about 5 I back off on my hunting, mainly because I am out of freezer space by that time. If I had more to choose from I would be a bit pickier.

First year on my property, but have been seeing more way bucks than does. I killed a 1.5 year old that had spikes as large as many of the yearlings, and he is delicious. Biggest buck I've seen is a 3.5 year old basket 8, figured I'd let him live this year.

I'm a meat hunter, trophies are just an added bonus. I just can't get that excited about an object that hangs on a wall and serves no function. That being said, I'm not going to shoot every deer I can on my property. I want to maintain a healthy heard. If I keep on seeing buck numbers like I have, I will probably kill a retard buck or two every year.

For my personal property, which is only 34 acres, it wouldn’t make much difference. I only want to shoot 3.5 yr old or older. In four years I’ve seen one, once, during daylight. When we had the larger lease across the road which is now public land we had up and down years with numbers of bucks seen and age structure. There were a few 4.5-5.5yr olds killed but generally it was the 3.5yr olds that got dropped younger deer were allowed to grow. After a couple years of public hunting the age structure there is probably 95% less than 2 years old.

This is my thinking as well……If we increase the amount of bucks on the landscape by say 10%, 20%, 30% or more.......the amount being shot will not increase by the same percentage. I think many people have set standards now.

We shoot based on age. So nothing would change.

If I had history on the bucks and had more bucks I'd let some get older. From what I've seen on cams here they do improve from 5 to 6

We usually have alot more. Goal is the same

I like killing one ever know and then out of pure self gratification. Plus makes a lot of burger

Several years ago, by Jan 1 we had 14 different bucks on camera. 215 acres. Some were mature, big and pretty, some were up and comers, some were young dinks and some were dinks that, body wise, were old enough to be better than dinks. We shot a couple of the old enough to be better than dinks to save our does and figured we still had enough better bucks to tend to the females in mid-Jan. Had we not had a ton of those type bucks roaming, we might not have shot them. And they were delicious.

Population has no bearing on what i shoot, no change.

My personal rule for the last 8 or so years has been I only shoot a buck if it is bigger (horns) than the last one. May be why I only shoot a buck every couple of years. Age has no bearing on what I shoot.the more mature bucks in my area are very elusive so Most of the time I only get a glimpse of him and have to make a quick decision. If I think a new buck is borderline then I let it walk. I watch enough smaller bucks though that when one makes an appearance that is a shooter I know it pretty quick. Binoculars have really helped me achieve this over the years. They always look bigger thru a scope.

Wouldn’t change a thing. I prefer to shoot the older ones to make sausage with but if I came down to it, it don’t matter what size it is. We gonna get a deer to make sausage.

So y’all are saying, if your club shoots 4+ year old bucks, and you normally kill 1-2 of those a year, that you wouldn’t shoot a 3rd if the club rules allowed it? If the number of 4+ year old bucks doubled you wouldn’t do it?

If i see 1 or 3 that meet my criteria, thats how many i shoot. Wouldn’t change if population goes up or down.