shoot or let him walk

Not very even. real nice twelve point i dont have a good pic of thats hanging around also. the little one would be better eating. decisions decisions.lol

small one cant make enough jerky

If it was me and on my property I'd pass on both and shoot the 1st doe to walk by.

pickew--click,click--pickew.

Blouch

No question on the big one....here in Michigan he'll be poached before bow season...

It all depends what you say to be a trophy. Everybody has different opinion on trophy.

gorditas for everyone

Def let him pass! ..... choot em!!

Unless I'm mistaken most average bow hunters on pressured lands would not let him walk by...
Heck I'd give him an arrow in Iowa...he looks to be a dandy with good character....

both look healthy to me. I would eat either one

Ive been needing a hat rack.

The ones on the wall are getting lonely. think I will add one this year. Been awhile

^^^^^^^^^ no reason to doubt rifle1, nice kills...

I hope the title to this thread is a joke.

I don’t understand why people ask this question or why people dis others for shooting any deer. What may be a trophy for one may not be for another. No one puts out pictures of their spouses and asks others whether they are good enough to keep or not. I personally don’t care what anyone else thinks of the deer I decide to shoot. I shoot a lot of 2 1/2 year old 8 pointers and am proud to do so. Its so much more about the hunt for me than the rack.

Got to move mine around , the bottom one is coming back from taxidermist Saturday. Killed him last season

Since the big one is giving you the shot shoot.
If the smaller is legal shoot.

The ones you have on the wall are all dern big and none of them are gonna make the one in the picture look small. Them northern deer sure do grow good! Most of the land around here is broke up in smaller tracts so more young deer get killed too early to be monsters. There are still a lot of big ones out there but they are sneaky. I know a young lady that a 200 inch buck 2 years ago and last year killed one that went 175+-. So it can still be done.

That would be an easy decision where I hunt. The only thing is if you were to see a deer like that here it would be in a high fence!

You could let your neighbor shoot it , then you could look at it on his wall .......

Or you could look at it in the ditch after it gets hit by a car.......

Supper nice deer. Keep the pic coming

I let a big 10 walk by last year holding out for a bigger one. He got hit on the road a week later.lol.

In NC, he might be a state record. Having said that I promised myself about 20 years ago to just shoot doe deer and leave the bucks for our children. Your buck could test my resolve. I know I would shoot it, then retire.

If I had shot that real nice twelve point, it would have been the best venison I had ever ate!

If the big one was still there after I picked up the gun I dropped, and put my tongue back in my mouth, and changed my drawers, and remembered how a to work the safety, and remembered where I put my shells, I would definitely shoot all around it until my gun was empty.
Then I would just go back home and lie to everybody that I only saw does and spikes and they were out of range.

I know what you mean Charles. Im over having to kill one. Never thought I would say that. Used to hunt 4 states every year. Michigan Wis. Penn. and finish in ohio. Now I just hunt behind the house. If its a good one ok if not its not life or death like it used to be. I'm ok and at peace with that.
Now coon and coyote are a different story I will kill everyone I can till the day I die.lol

Yep. Dont hunt horns anymore. Grandkid gets so excited when he sees a buck. Makes my day. Once the venison is ground, it is about the same anyway. Doe is probably better.

I remember spending hours reloading for the hottest, flatist round. Found out they all kill about the same. Now shoot mild cartridges.

Beautiful buck. I'd definitely attempt to shoot him, if I could calm my nerves. I have 2 on our farm in Illinois that caliber and I'm hopeful I can get a crack at one of them. Good luck to ya

Now there is an honest deer hunter!!

I'da killed him last year.

Id kill um both given the situation scrubs be fine eatin but that big un would hang for about 14 days in the end he'd be fine eatin as well! I've got a rule of thumb I go by I don't let nothing walk day 1 that id kill on the last day, I don't have eny good private land 29 acres I live on and some stuff I share with who ever shows up it's hit and miss, the rest is public I've killed some good deer 2 pope and youngs and some just nice 140s 150s with rifle. In the end me my wife and little girl need about 4 a yr I can't let many walk around here! Wished I could id like a big un every yr!
Colt

That is a great buck! You talking bow hunting him or rifle?

Bang Nuff said

The bigger one... shoot about a fasts possible. Small one, pass

The decision is yours. Who cares what anyone else thinks.

I’d drop him with my British 303.

Either one would keep the game fed for a while.

Same here, only they would have shot him last year.

I like looking at antlers as much as the next guy and I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't like to shoot him, but I've always been a meat hunter at heart and more so the older I get.

Good luck with him.

Bang!

OKforester has it right .If we are hunting to try to impress someone else we are missing the reason for hunting .I hunt to do something that I enjoy .Whatever someone else wants to shoot is totally fine with me .Just don't judge me as an inferior hunter because I do not have those standards. There are some great pictures of nice buck here. Most would be glad to get something like them. But depending on the situation a one horn 3 point just might mean as much to the guy that killed him

We have almost 2 months of bow season before gun season. I like the peace and quiet of bow season to start with

Agreed above^^^
pressured land, Get him soon or someone else will be mounting him!

Without a doubt here. I know a young man locally that has poached plenty.

He's gotten caught this last year with an out of season turkey in the back of his truck.

There is still more to come on his case. He had 2 bobcats(untagged) in his freezer plus a lot of venison meat.

He lost some deer mounts, no tags.

More to come.

Not a whole lot off pressure around early. Latter when the crops are off and he is standing along a road at noon locked up looking at a doe laying on the ground then the word gets out perty quick.lol

Why are you asking us morons? Do you want to shoot him?

If he does not fit your estimation of a good mounting buck let him go. You can only kill them once.

Bryce

What are you asking us for?... If you're legal, shoot the one that you want to.

Mike

4 years ago December my dad passed. He always got excited every time he saw and had a chance to kill a buck didn’t matter if it was a spike or a nice one. We always had very good deer hunting and it just took some time sitting still and waiting and you could kill dandy 140-150 bucks once we really got a good herd here in Ky. He always shot the first buck he could get.
3 weeks before he passed with a terminal brain cancer and suffering with chronic COPD he killed a busted up 7 pointer and at 72 he had killed hundreds of deer he was shaking like a 10 year old on his first hunt. It always always always excited him to kill a buck ; period.
He always said we didn’t have any deer here when he was a kid growing up. I am 53 and have had many successful hunts an some nice bucks as well. Now I like killing a few half grown yearlings for the table and just watching the horns go back in the woods. I am ready for a fresh tenderloin off a 60 pounder.
Kill what you enjoy.