Wow! factor. If I first see a buck and think "wow" to myself, I will shoot him. If I'm like, well "nice" I don't.

LULZ!!! Y'all will forgive my strong eye roll at how many of you authoritarians suddenly become libertarians when it comes to this subject.

In the end, I have to remember this is Alabama though.... where the normal deer hunter walks around with blue jeans tucked inside his untied boots, wearing a shirt that reads "If it's brown it's down, you can't eat them horns!" And then gets offended that I don't respect his deer management philosophy.

How in the h--- do you eat those horns

I personally haven't shot a buck under three in a long time, but I was guilty of it for the majority of my life to be honest. If it was club legal i shot it. Now we as a club are trying to manage for older deer, but usually one or two gets killed that probably shouldn't have. We don't get bent out of shape about it unless it is a repeat offender. On a property like ours that doesn't have does to shoot to get some meat I understand that some people get a little anxious as the year goes on with nothing to show for their efforts. That being said as long as rules are not broken I am happy for anyone that kills a legal buck in my club. You can't really consider a club in Mobile County a trophy club anyway when the average mature buck will score between 100" and 110' . If we were in the Blackbelt we would probably be a little more anal about the whole process lol.

Ive been trying to figure out how to age bucks by pictures or real quick on the hoof this year. Most of the bucks killed around here are 2 or 3yr olds. Im growing weary of this. I know there are some older bucks around but they are tricky devils to hunt. My son(hes 11) has killed enough that hes not really satisfied with the young buck anymore. Our two biggest obsticles are people hunting around us and our own impatience. When youve sat there 75or 80hrs and a "descent" buck comes out, its mighty hard to leave the gun propped in the corner. And I know this is what our neighbors are going through too. Around here opportunities are so few, it is easy to get very excited when a 3yr old buck comes out, maybe too excited. But thats a catch 22, if we could let him pass, we would surely get to witness bucks more often. I guess if you hunt an area like I hunt, if you set your mind to killing mature bucks, you also have to accept you may not get one at all this year. Although, even if you come up short, next year should be a little better because the bucks you passed on will get a year older and didnt get shot the one time they ever stepped out in a field in the daylight, so maybe theyll do it again. I understand the concept and agree with it, but it is a hard way to roll for an impatient deer hunter like me.

Realistically you either need good neighbors or a large tract of land for this to pay off. Where I hunt we have 500 acres and good neighbors that are on the same page and it works. Without all our neighbors being on the same page it would be an exercise in futility since I prob have no bucks that stay on my 500 all the time. I pretty much know this from the bucks we all kill and trail cam pics we share. I also believe most other states including the Midwest kill just as many bucks 3 and under as AL does and there is research done by QDMA to back that up.

bullchitt, 2 year olds don't look like 5 year olds I don't care where you are. Weight and antler size have nothing to do with age conformation.

Unless what we been “learned” about aging by the jawbone is insanely flawed, then what I’m saying is true. We killed a bunch of bucks that looked like skinny 2 year olds and had dang near flat, mangled teeth. Or maybe they ate rocks. One way or the other, it happened. My son killed a skinny 5 point two seasons ago - and every dang expert on here woukd see a game cam pic of it and age it at 2 years old. The jawbone says otherwise, plain and simple. Got no reason to make crap up like that. We got Whild Bill to spend that much energy to tell lies around here.

I don’t know....... but I think 257 is doing some pot stirring and trolling 😀

ya'll need to pay more attention to live aging deer then because NO 5-6 YEAR OLD BUCK ANYWHERE IN ALABAMA LOOKS LIKE A SKINNY 2 YEAR OLD. PERIOD. Ain't happened.

This deer’s jawbone says 5, he weighed about 135. I thought maybe a 3 year old on the hoof, but not really. Was shocked looking at his teeth. None of that matters anyway, my boy was happy and the skull mount is sitting on his homework desk.

Let em grow..want meat shoot a doe.

Its awesome aint it?

I've let over 20 bucks go this year, 4 eights, a bunch of six points etc..., and I highly doubt 1/2 of them make it. My kids are the only reason I let deer go, beciase NOBODY around me does. It's almost comical when I tell a neighbor about letting a 13-14" eight point go, they say "man I woulda shot that one". I'm kinda raising deer for other people and sometimes it gets old.
I'd LOVE to know how many deer were killed county by county and the make-up of those harvests.

He never said anything about his neighbors.

I'd rather a small buck be killed before a doe. We are still trying to get our numbers up. 3 does were taken on our place this year and that's going to be it for the year.

I'm lucky if I see a single deer every other sit. Ive maybe seen only one buck over 3, with a gun-in-hand, in my twelve years of hunting. If I passed on every 3 y.o. then I would probably just lose interest in hunting. I usually pass on anything under 3.

I can get behind some of this. But some of y’all have prime hunting land and can hunt any day of the season you please...

I use to hunt a very nice place and could grow some giants with the right group of people.. but a lot of folks are weekend warriors, and have to work a 5-6 day a week job and aren’t gonna pay 2000$ a year to not pull the trigger for years... Sure everyone wants to kill a giant but when your time is limited and you don’t have exceptional hunting property like others, it’s hard to get behind only killing 5yo bucks...

I now hunt 3200 acres close to home, you may sit 5-6 sits before you even see a deer, that’s not because people kill a lot of deer either. It’s because there’s just not many deer in this area, and it’s hard hunting. We Decided to only take 10 does for the entire lease, first come first serve basis, and a 6pt min restriction... If you only hunt the green fields, you more than likely ain’t gonna see any deer for many and many sits. A 150+” deer is killed on the land probably once every 5 years and that’s great but with high members and low deer density, the younger bucks are just getting killed, because people want meat and aren’t gonna wait on something that just ain’t gonna happen on this land

But I think it all has to do with the potential of the property. Some hold great potential and others not so much

Not everyone has land where you can see does on a regular basis... I’ve been in those clubs where every sit you can see does, and young bucks... I’m now in a club where your lucky to see a single deer every couple of sits. All properties are not the same, and don’t hold equal amounts of deer or quality of deer.

Must be a lot of hungry people on here or they can't find their way to the grocery store