First off, he has to be mature in my estimation, and then secondly, it depends on whether most of our guests have already come to hunt with us. There might be an average size 8 point that I think is 4 years old early in the season. Shooting that deer would mean nothing to me but many of our guests would love it and put it on the wall. I'll save him for them. It would have to be an exceptional deer for me to shoot him early in the season now that I no longer bow hunt. I do video these deer when they cooperate and send the videos to our guests to get them fired up about their trip.

Now towards the end of the season, any old buck becomes fair game for me. That is exactly what I have done the past two years. I've killed three bucks total in the past two years that had messed up or just decent racks but all were 4.5+ in age.

So to answer the original question, two variables come into play for me, age and time of the season. Early in the season, size matters but late in the season, I'd shoot a spike if I was pretty certain he is old.