How long did it take you to shoot your first mature (4.5 years +) deer? When you did, was it just by chance or was it due outsmarting the deer? Public, private, or leased land?

I could just lie but I won't. Why does it matter????

I prefer the young and tender ones.

Most of us when we started deer hunting was just that, "DEER" hunting. We didn't know if the deer was a year old or 8 yo. And didn't care. If it had antlers, we were proud.

22 or so years. Out smarted him. Private land

Good point.

It was a different time. Hunters were different. No ATV/UTVs. No food plots. Vietnam was resent therefore the clothes were mostly military. For the younger people who didn't get to live it, it was miserable by today's standards....and we loved it. A kid might not sleep the night before Christmas but they didn't sleep 2 nights before going hunting.

Growing up in Arkansas in the 70s, we didn't have a very good deer population. So just killing a "legal" deer was a feat. The biggest deer I had ever seen killed was a "monster" 8-point that my dad killed with a lever action 44-mag (no scope, iron sights) in probably 1974. In hindsight, it was a 3-1/2 year old deer that probably weighed 175-180lbs, but it was the hands down the biggest deer that either of us killed until I moved to Alabama in 1992 (via military). Our basement closet was filled with the skull plates of spikes to 6-points that we killed over the years.

However, we didn't really hunt for the antlers back then - we were straight-up meat hunters on dog drives. While I have no interest in being in a dog club, I wish I could go back in time and take my son on some of our hunts. I can't remember a better time hunting, than to hear the dogs fire up and anticipate/hope a deer would come hauling ass by. Or actually watch how a deer reacted to the dogs, that's when I learned that we are just a visitor in their house.

My first deer in 1963 was mature. It was an ancient doe who weighed 156 pounds gutted, so she was pushing 200 on the hoof. I shot her hunting with my Dad in Errol , NH, which is up by the Canadian border. We had to drag her almost 2 miles through 18" of snow. She outweighed me by 15 pounds, but my Dad was 43 at the time, and strong as an ox. He retold the story of that drag until the year he died, at the age of 91.

3rd or 4th year. Private land. It was 200 lbs and that's as big as they get on our place.

3rd year on 70 acres i was leasing. He (5 1/2 plus big 9) came in chasing some young does, told the wife to shoot, but she froze, so i told her to give me the rifle, and she did, and she never took her eyes off the buck lol..

Missouri, opening weekend of gun season at a relatives farm. Had sat in a spot all morning and only saw 2 does. That same spot a year before I saw 25+ in a morning. Was considering getting down around 10:30 but made myslef hang in there for 30 more minutes. Right at 11 I was starting to get things set to descend in my climber, when a neighbor fired up his 4 wheeler and started to drive back o their camp. I couldn't see him but as soon as he started to get out of earshot two does hopped the fence onto the property I was hunting. They were roughly 50 yards away and trotted past me at about half speed. The rear doe stopped about 50 yards past my stand and looked back. I too looked back and could tell it was a legal (for the property) buck following them. He hopped the fence and started trotting after the does. I found him in the scope and turned him a flip when he trotted into an opening. Definitely not the biggest deer on the farm and he had a slightly deformed side but he was 3.5+ and the biggest I had killed to that date. That wacky rack 8 point taught me a good lesson in patience....

1992, TNF. I was a 25 yr. old huntin fool. Deer was probably 4 years old or so, 10 pt. dressed 180. This deer was making scrapes in Oct., killed him Thanksgiving morning. He looked to be trailing a doe that I never saw.

Still haven't killed a "mature" buck and im 35...

same here but ive killed several old does

Killed the first one on my wall in '92. Couple since