Racksrus, first of all, if you hunt in a club where the attitude of: "I've got to kill a buck to get my money's worth!", is acceptable to the rest of your group or your board or president, I'd pack my stuff and find somewhere else to hunt. My club kills bucks based on bucks' age and not so much antler score. But like anything else, hunting is like this... the more disciplined, educated (abt your hobby), unselfish, work done, restrained on the trigger finger, etc... you and your hunting partners are, the better off you'll all be. I will NOT hunt in a club where 2 yr olds are shot!.
My club lets, for the most part, 3 yr old bucks and younger walk. Yes, there are some 3 yr olds that do get shot because they have an exceptional rack on their head and we're trying to address not shooting these potential monsters at 3 yrs old. Yes, we allow fist time hunters to shoot the buck of his/her choice. We have almost zero turn-over in members but if a new member joins, and he has a first time hunter, we tell the new member to not let his first time hunter shoot a two year old buck. I mean if he wants to, that's fine HOWVER, with only a few hours put in, that young hunter is guaranteed to see a 3 yr old with a decent rack within 100 yds.
I had a great year! Wanna know how many bucks I killed? ZERO, but I saw tons of immature bucks( this includes a lot of 3 yr old bucks I elected not to shoot) and I just couldn't make it happen on the mature bucks I did see. Granted, I hunt woods more then food plots and I bow hunt more than gun hunt.
Each year, my club's property (3000+ ac) has an age class that carries over to the next year. Because we shoot zero 2 yr old bucks or younger and very few 3 yr old bucks, we have a good crop of bucks entering the 3, 4, 5+ age class each year. It stands to reason that we kill some decent bucks. Our tops bucks are mid 130's but if he's a 4 yr old, hey, that's a trophy no matter what's on his head!
If someone makes a mistake and shoots an immature buck, it's not hell, fire and damnation if it's truly a mistake. Shooting an immature buck because you haven't killed a buck all year, will get your ass thrown out of the club as that's blatant disregard for our rules.
So, I hunt with like-minded hunters. None of us is greedy. We ALL want to shoot 4 yr old bucks. And, it's not that hard ageing a buck on the hoof. Esp in a food plot! In the woods, it's harder, certainly. Shooting 2 and 3 yr old bucks is not that hard to do... IF YOU HAVE THEM. They're like 16 or 17 yr old boys in heat... they don't think! When they turn 4, they're a different animal.
Anyway, if killing a 2 yr old buck is not against your rules or there are no consequence$ of shooting such, that's not good. But NTL, you have to hunt with hunters that understand the basic biology of whitetail deer and they better be willing to understand that you don't HAVE to kill a buck to have a successful season.
I enjoyed my year. Saw lots of bucks and had fun. The hardest thing is finding a club that manages based off whitetail deer biology and not coffee shop talk. If your club thinks that it can manage its buck pop based off genetics and killing undesirable "cull" bucks (IN A FREE RANGE), your club or club management isn't doing its homework and doesn't know deer biology.
If you ever hunt in a club where 80% of bucks shot are 4 yrs old, you'll NEVER go back to the level where your current club is now. The difference is night and day in hunter satisfaction.
