What's a shooter??
Whitetail Deer
How do you decide what is a "shooter" for you?
Do you study trail cam pics and decide which deer you'd want to shoot?
Do you decide as each deer walks past?
More importantly, how do you balance the desire to have one "now" versus the desire to hold out for a monster?
You'll get a lot of different answers on this one Mad. Personally a deer is now a shooter for me if it just feels right. It might be big horns, or a cool encounter on a smaller buck, or I might just want to eat some backstraps! I'm just out there to have fun, and I have way more now that I went to this philosophy. To each their own though and what makes me happy might not be what makes the other 9 out of ten happy!
If it meets the criteria for a legal bag limit, that buck, doe, bull, or cow is in trouble.
If its legal and broadside its a shooter
Legal and in range with a high % shot offered... I'm likely taking it.
Exceptions (only my personal preference).. early season I won't orphan fawns, and I let smaller bucks walk.
Late season, if I need meat or have too many unfilled tags- game on.
Might be ironic that I'd rather have a larger deer than smaller (more tender, but I prefer taking out a big old wise lead doe) - but I've honestly not had a bad whitetail yet.
I'll shoot nearly any doe, those with young fawns may get a pass. I won't shoot little bucks as I'm holding out for a 3 year old or better.
On my property it is usually decided when I see the deer coming, I decide at that time. If hunting in the mid-west on my DIY hunts it is the same way but I set a goal that the buck has to be a 4.5 year old unless it is 160" 3.5 year old(LOL)!! Shawn
On my land I target as many as three bucks a year based on trail cam pictures. I also share my trail cam pics so that other know what's on the "hit list". I think this prevents a lot of mistakes.
Basically everything on the hit list is either above 145 or thought to be really old.
On the properties that I hunt, I run a ton of trail cameras and basically know all the deer that are living there. I will typically be able to find 2-3 bucks that meet the size and more importantly the age requirement that I am after. I will hunt those specific bucks all season. As far as does, they are all fair game early or late in the season but I don't shoot them during the rut.
Any deer with the exception of a small yearly is a shooter for me. If their within my 30 yard self imposed range they get the wood. The freezer and my stomach doesn't discriminate.
What ever I feel like shooting. I am proud of all.
Anything over 170 is a shooter. Now hat I think of it so is about anything under 170 but citing just the high end is so much more impressive
My best buck at home still wouldn't touch P&Y and thats ok. Big bodied, dominate buck is what I look for. I inventory trail cams every year, but its always some buck I've never seen before that usually gets taken.
I can't shoot a doe with fawns. I've drawn on them several times. Can't do it.
These are my deciding factors in order. 1. AGE 2. SIZE 3. HISTORY. So, I tend to hunt the oldest deer no matter what. But say that there are two deer that are 5 1/2, I will hunt the biggest. If they were close to the same size, I would hunt the one that i have the most history with. I tend to identify the deer that i am hunting and hunt that deer until I kill him. This has taken me as many as 4 years to do in some cases... Not afraid to eat a buck tag, doe are better for the table anyway!
If it feels right, go time :^)
My preferred way to hunt WT is blind.No cameras or surveillance in any fashion.I don't bother "inventorying" deer as I think the rut is just too dynamic.
Every hunt is Christmas morning and not knowing is just another element of a great hunt for me.
I high scoring 4yo or a massive 5yo neither can be busted up or they get a pass.
If it gets me excited...I get in kill mode.
The hunt dictates the "trophy" for me. If it floats my boat I'm shooting it. That doesn't mean I'll shoot a 1.5 year old buck. But I will shoot a 3.5 year old 120" if it's a fun/exciting hunt even though I've shot bigger and older. When I was in that "It has to be 4.5 or over 140" stage. It started to take the fun out of it. Now I still target specific bucks. But if I rattle in a stocky 3.5 on a crisp Oct/Nov morning, I will probably shoot him. Especially on my public land spots.
My definition of a "shooter" from 1981 to 2016 has evolved almost every year. Shot My first forky in 1982. I was on the ground, leaning up against a tree and it was a four yard shot. Now that was a shooter!
Bottom line: Where ever you are now will likely go up or down in the future. One thing that has never changed is the satisfaction that runs through my body and mind from a well placed shot no matter what the deer:)
10 point over 160" 8 point over 140 or a deer I know is older without much hope of growing bigger.
Got a wife and an oldest daughter getting into hunting now, my definition of a shooter has changed a bunch. My trips to the Midwest and MT I'll still keep my standards high. If he makes my knees shake, I'm gonna shoot him/shoot at him
The comments just go to show you that geographics has a lot to do with what folks will shoot. If I lived in Kansas or Iowa and several other mid-west states. I think I would become a lot more picky! Shawn
I try to shoot 4+ year old bucks and does to keep balance. Shooting older bucks adds to the fun for me. It is exciting to let a good young buck walk. The problem is the rut.... Bucks start showing up that I have not had a chance to age.
I have shot and tagged three animals, one bear, one small eight point buck, and a small seven point buck simply because they had already been wounded by other unknown hunters. To me, the animals were wounded and unlikely to survive so became shooters worthy of my tag. Two had broken legs, the third an arrow in its eye socket.
Rooster nailed it for me. Buck over 3.5, almost any grown doe with no little fawn. Bigger fawns.......their mama may die.
Lots of variables on this, but roughly I try not to shoot a buck that is under 4.5 if I know for sure. (trail cam pics, past history, etc.) Also 160'' is a rough benchmark for me. Sometimes it might be an older lower scoring buck that I might target as well. Having 2 buck tags gives me a little more flexibility on my choices, but I've shot enough decent bucks that I don't have a problem eating tag soup either.
...and we assume you're talking archery-only, right?
I have far different taste when it comes to shooting a buck with a rifle...as in I don't wanna...
With 10 deer per square mile here all deer are trophies to me.
With the bow, any deer I can get close enough to while stillhunting that offers me the kind of shot I want.
The rub here is that I've become VERY particular about when I take a shot.
In the past 6 years my hunting time has become very limited due to the economy so any hunting time I get is precious.
Depends on where I am. Basically if there are trail cam pics, then the top couple bucks. One week I'll be in Kansas letting a 150" walk and the next week I'll be back hunting my coastal Texas bucks and getting buck fever on a 120".
I look for 2.5 years old or better...this year I'm going to try to hold out for 3.5 or better
I tend to make that decision in the moment. I once passed on 2 eight point bucks in the span of about a half hour. Later in the sit a spike buck came out and I shot him at 22 yards.
Something in my brain just clicked and I decided I wanted to kill that deer.
I will kill any legal deer and may be more selective during the rut, as one never knows if Mr. Big might appear, but generally it is a "heat of the moment" decision for me.
It's been rare for a true shooter buck to exist on the farm I hunt. I've been aware of only two in 30 years of history there. It seems about once every 10-15 years is the frequency for a genuine shooter to exist here. And we're smack dab in the middle of prime mid-western farm country. Fortunately there are usually a few 3 to 5 year-old run-of-the-mill type bucks in the 120-140 class living on the farm. Sometimes lucky genetics will push one of these youngsters into the 150-ish range. Even in the absence of a true shooter buck, I still want to hunt every year. So I'll target the oldest or most interesting-looking buck & sometimes take one of these "non-shooters", but don't feel any pressure to kill a buck every year. Due to hunting other species elsewhere in the country each fall, I don't need to kill a whitetail just for the meat. Or just to be able to boast prowess in "getting my buck" for that year. I also don't judge anyone else on the kind of buck they choose to shoot, or the amount of time & effort they choose to put into their hunting. I'm tickled as heck for anyone who succeeds in taking any deer that they would choose to shoot.
Shoot what makes YOU happy......that's a shooter.
When my pulse sky rockets and my legs do the involuntary chicken dance....thats when I'm looking at a shooter. And its not always a big buck. Same thing has happened with does.
A "shooter" is the deer you are about to shoot.
The biggest shooter buck that is 4.5 yrs. old or older that I have on seen on game cameras. I consider it a great year if I can do that. And it's an even better year if I shoot the biggest deer on my lease, that is full of sandwich eating, beer drinking, cigarette smoking, 100 yards away from a feeder, tree house sitting rifle toting "hunters".
What ever trips my trigger at the moment!
Full bodied, Horsehead does also trip my trigger!
Especially those annoying, old, sentry type does, prone to 30-minute snorting fits!
Might as well ask what makes for a better looking woman, red hair, blonde or brunette?
Weather or not a buck is a shooter is IMHO a personal choice made by the hunter, often under considerable stress.
In my experience mature white tail tend to show up like ghosts and are gone just as quickly. I most often hunt in very thick cover, consequently I barely have enough time to accurately field judge a buck as a shooter or not before I must shoot or let him walk.
I look for long tine length, and antlers that go noticeably beyond the bucks ears. However, the monster I screwed up on last year, Steve Wonder would have been able to judge him a shooter. It's usually border line bucks that give me fits.
if you shoot said deer will it make you smile , if so that's a shooter .
They all get prettier at closing time......
If it scores 114 TThhhWWAck
For me a "shooter" is more than just antler size.
A nice mt buck, one that never knew what it's like to feed in a field at night, is always a shooter to me.
The kind of season that starts out warm, The sweat and insects of summer scouting, watching for rattlers as you walk back in.
It's rising up way before daylight, the hike in, the sore shoulders from the weight of a stand and pack. Long un-eventful hrs on stand. The temptation to just sleep in when the alarm goes off at 3:30 AM.
Watching The mts transform from fall foliage to bare winter, then one morning you sit shivering from the cold. And just like that there he is neck swollen from the rut.
He'll never make the book, but he's decent.
When you kneel over him, all the effort, the sore muscles,the early mornings, the long hikes in, the changing of seasons, The heat then the cold, the sights, the smells, All flood your senses with an overwhelming satisfaction.
That's a shooter.
If it is free and it is Jack Daniels!
If I'm reaching for my bow instead of my binocs when I first spot it, its a shooter!
Lee
I'd shoot a deer egg, if one rolled by.
In my journey I have evolved from filling my tag (several times my ONE tag, a either sex with a Doe). 60 years bowhunting beginning this year & my "personal" goal I set a few years ago is what I think will net 170. I have let many pass in several years now & ALL Does get a pass. I do this because I have been blessed with so many assorted animals over these past years. Whitetail is the "only" animal I have set a personal goal on as I am not normally just a horn hunter. The smaller buck got a pass at under 20 yds. twice last year.. The big boy never got within 70 yds of me.
I like to eat them, so if it is legal, it is a shooter. I do not inventory, name deer, then make a "list".
better pic of the larger buck
PECO. Like you I don't have the "privilege" of inventory, name them & make a hit list.. IF you can do this, you have property that is NOT the norm for us regular bowhunters.. HALF my bowhunting is on a small parcel of public & the other is a couple hundred private that gets gunned hard with brown & down shot gunners.
