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Like I said, my comments are not meant as a criticism of anybody's methods. They are just personal limits that I have put on my own hunting. I just hit 81 a few days back, so I understand what you are saying. But I have not revised those limits, although maybe I should have......lol.

One for me that comes to mind is I could never be roaming around the house, spot a deer in the back yard grab the rifle and shoot it. To me personally that's not hunting that's grocery shopping at best and not "fair chase". I need to be in the woods actively hunting.

I have always wondered just how smart bucks are. Are they hard to get because they are so smart, or are they simply a lot rarer because they are the prime target of hunters and there simply are fewer. I have to admit that I have seen some rather big bucks do some absolutely dumb things. Usually that is related to the rut when they are controlled by their sexual needs. Yes, I have seen some things over the decades that show that some bigger bucks do that appear to be intelligent, but I have seen old does do smart things too. So the question is, just because a deer has made it through several seasons and has a lot of bone on its head, does that mean that these big old goats are super smart? From an elevated spot, I have watched a big buck lay on it's belly with it's head pressed against the ground in a swamp when a hunter walked within a few feet of him. That shows some real smarts. He didn't jump up and risk the flying lead. But I also saw a doe holding tight in a tangle of grape vines next to our driveway just a few feet away from me waiting for me to keep on walking. I'm sure that she had done that many times in her lifetime rather than jumping up and running and risking getting shot at. So she was pretty smart too. probably as smart as that buck in the swamp. What have you all seen that impressed you with the intelligence of bucks or does.

This old Adirondack doe was the smartest deer that I’ve ever hunted. Certainly way ahead of most of the mature bucks that I’ve taken. I pursued her for several years. Im guessing that she was 4-1/2 years old, when I finally managed to bring her down. Our first encounter was during the late ML season, when she was probably 2-1/2 years old and had a single fawn. I should have had her that time, when she offered me a 40 yard broadside shot. A hidden branch deflected my ML bullet, and saved her. She had (2) fawns the next year, when she managed to thwart me on every attempt during the early ML week. She usually fed in the shooting range meadow, near my in-laws lake house, every evening. She seemed to recognize the danger and patterned me, getting the best of me 2 or 3 times that week. She did the same on our first encounter the following year. I had learned that she always went up to a ridge to feed on nuts, after she left the meadow. I got up there before her, about a full hour before sunrise, the last time. I had a favorable wind and I was able to get into position up there completely undetected. She usually always monitored the lake house door, just before sunrise. My extra early rise tricked her. As the sun started to light up the woods up on the ridge, I caught some flash of her white tail. She held her tail out, then moved about 50 yards, then repeated the process, getting closer and closer. I was downwind of the best mast trees up there. She eventually offered an easy, broadside 30 yard shot and I was able to connect with her shoulder blade. It was only after she was down, that I saw the two fawns which she had been signalling with her tail and masterfully leading up the ridge to the food. I may have started the whole process over again last year, on what was probably one of those fawns. I missed her with the same ML, in almost the same place where I missed her mother, due to the same cause -probable branch strike. This time, it was during the early ML week, and again the doe had just one fawn with her. It’s pretty cool how history repeats itself. Only one, of the dozen or so mature bucks that I’ve killed, has particularly impressed me with his smarts. Most of the rest were easily outwitted during the peak two weeks of the rut. That one smartie was hanging with a flock of turkeys, likely taking advantage of their superior vision, to help evade hunters. God Himself assisted me on that one causing me to drop the Bible I had been reading up on my stand. I climbed down from my tree stand (leaving my 16 ga slug gun loaded) to pick it up, with 5 minutes of legal light remaining. I was wearing my orange camo jacket which that flock of turkeys could have seen from a mile away had I still been exposed up in that stand. They didn’t do this cagey old 8-pointer any good, when they and he stepped into the little patch of brush under my tree.

Exactly. And when it comes to personal limits and taking hunting to the max I find and only kill mature bucks. Tough to try and Train a mature buck.

My 3.5 yr buck from big blinds ticked up by one on December 17, 2024 with this one, which was also the first one that I killed from a big blind, outside of the peak two weeks of the rut: (23) That was also my first kill from this poplar tree blind, from which I had missed a doe a couple weeks prior and a 2.5 year old buck the year before, due to what I believe was a shotgun/sabot slug/cold weather malfunction. A dead ash tree had fallen against it and I dropped and processed it into firewood the day before I missed the doe. She was the only deer that I seen, thru all of shotgun season last year. I think the chainsaw noise and tractor ruckus the day before coaxed her out of the heavy cover. That didn’t do me any good though, because I missed her clean. The buck wasn’t so fortunate though, when he stepped out in the exact same place a couple weeks later. Fortunately, I had my ML that time.

Doc I get what all you said but don't you think we change as hunters as we get older? I know I have. We lay down give back and ease off the trigger. Time flys by us and new ways to hunt or attract deer come about and we as the elders not frown upon it but just don't get it. It's the young generation that will never get what we had. I would take that any day of the week. Cold tent warm fire some grub and do it all over again to harvest a whitetail!

I like to keep my hunting as natural as possible. What I mean by that is that I do not get involved in things that tend to program or condition deer to change their natural habits and movements in order to assist my ability to hunt them. I am referring to baiting, feeding, and constructing food plots. Yes I admit that in farm country deer movements are influenced by farmers, but that is a natural influence that I have not participated in creating. To me crop land is no different than a nice acorn bearing oak tree or a wild apple tree. It all is food sources that I had no part in placing there. Part of hunting is scouting and finding the existing food sources that the deer are using, but not creating them. I am not into conditioning deer to train them to come to me. They have natural acts of feeding and bedding that I feel I should be able to observe and use as part of my hunting skills. If I can't do that and have to resort to influencing their movements then I feel that I am doing things that really have no business being a part of my hunting methods. I am into hunting deer, not training deer. I know I am in the minority on these subjects, but they are just the limits that I personally put on my hunting to kind of even up the score a bit. This is not a criticism of those that have other opinions. It is just personal limits that I choose to put on my hunting.

Shooting deer from your vehicle is also a big no-no IMHO. I dont mind speed scouting in the truck, now , but that is the limit. Also, shooting deer in the yard.

For me one thing is hunting deer with dogs. I never even really thought it was much of a thing until my Son's moved to NC. I guess it's kinda common down there and legal. I tell him that's cheating and I personally have no desire to take place in that. I don't know maybe it's just because I was born and raised hunting here in the north. Sent from my moto g power (2022) using Tapatalk