Y’all complaining about deer being tough, have you considered targeting button bucks? (Where legal of course)

They sure are tender

Yes the button bucks , or spikes , are my choice as well . I hunt mostly on my farm. Haven;t shot a doe in a lot of years. There just seems to be one doe , that lives here, If I leave her alone , the boys , will come visiting.. old243

The smaller they are the easier to drag or put into the truck. I've let big ones walk before, lol

I hunt archery because you can shoot a tasty doe in WA,,
Eating a buck is like eating a bore pig…..

40 years of Deer Hunting probably average 3 a year. During years when bonus tags were high, I shot as many as 8 and donated to Hunters for the Hungry Programs. For those that don't care for tough deer, cut in 1-inch cubes, pack in canning jars and put in 2 beef bouillon cubes per quart and can it. I use this meat for deer Manhattans, barbeque for sandwiches, add to vegetable soup and many other recipes.

Does are better, but i dont complain bout eating a buck. Still good vittles.

I believe I told the ground beef story on here before, but will repeat myself......was grocery shopping a few years back (8-10?) and saw some ground beef on sale. I was planning to make myself a big pot of chili that afternoon so convinced myself to buy the burger instead of using venison as usual. I did just that, and it was disgusting. I couldn't stand it. It was like eating Crisco soup. My Bride asked if I had drained the burger when I browned it and I had not. I gave the greasy crap to my son-in-law and he loved it! I was talking to my Bride about it later and asked her if she could remember any time when she brought ground beef into the house that didn't already have a bun around it. She could not think of a single time in the years we'd been married when she bought ground beef. We always had ground venison. To this day I still grind 90% of my deer meat. As to lifetime tally, I lost track decades ago, but have been at it since the late sixties. When I started deer hunting you were allowed ONE deer per year. Period. You can pile them up now days. I very rarely shoot more than 2 a season now, but when the kids were young I would feel I needed at least 4 to sneak by. After my All Purpose Boy started hunting we would shoot 6-8 between us. We often had bear, caribou, elk, etc. as well, so didn't buy much in the way of red meat. I also can venison every year or two and have it on hand most always.

At least two weeks in a walk in cooler makes all the difference in the world when it comes to eating a buck.

I'm turning 53 in June. First deer season was 1986. In 39 seasons I have killed 43 deer.

I don't have any idea how many deer I've killed over the years. We party hunt so some years you might kill a pile of them and some years only one or even none. Depends on how many times you are in the right place at the right time.

Now, instead of including does and yearlings, let's hear how many branch antlered bucks.

Thread killer

Antlered bucks - I've kilt some, but don't know how many. I do know I've never shot one big enough to put the head on the wall. But I've never just hunted for big bucks either.

I keep the antlered deer for my nieces and nephews, I shoot the does.

I'm happy to hear that. So many "hunters" hog the bucks, and only let the kids shoot does. That always seemes backwards to me....selfish is another word for it.

Bruce, you have to admit, saying you have averaged 10 deer a year is hard for alot of us to believe. How much time does it take to get 10 or more? How did you get time off from work, or whatever you do? How much did all those non res. tags cost? What did you spend on travel? WV is a long way from Maine. You're old enough to have been hunting 50 years ago. Did all those eastern states you hunted allow multiple deer harvest in the 70s? 80s?
I haven't lived in a whitetail state since 1975. Only hunted one season. I'm not overly knowledgeable on eastern state deer history. Your numbers seem high .

No idea.Would be roughly maybe a little less then half.I have shot 19 bucks that dressed out over 200 pounds and 1 doe that was over 200 pounds live weight.

Dang that's an impressive pile of deer, how many more from Maine you got to add to that list?