jgbrown

I have pictures of two 8 pointers from before bow season. I am finally getting the chance to hunt the area I took the pictures. Would both of these deer be shooters? I am guessing the age of the smaller 8 to be around 2.5 yrs and the larger 8 has me stumped. IMO i would shoot the larger one but let the smaller one walk. Opinions?

Larger 8


Smaller 8

retrieverman

Opinions will vary greatly on this board as to whether to shoot either deer or not. There are a bunch of "if it's brown it's down" guys that shoot the first deer they see. I find it very hard to judge deer in velvet, but personally, I wouldn't shoot the smaller buck especially if you think he is only 2.5. I would have to see the larger buck again before I could make a definite call on him. He is a nice buck though.

Good luck on your hunt, and I hope you get to see these two again.

wis_rifle_hunter

i would have to agree with retrieverman. the top deer is very tall but i would have to see another pic of him out of velvet.

jgbrown

The only thing about this land is that I have pictures of some monster 8s but no 10s. So it is hard for me to decide if i want to let them walk to see if they become 10s. Below are two eights that i got pictures of during the same time frame i got the two smaller deer. These make me believe that the gene pool in the area has very few if any 10 point bucks. The two below are definite shooters, but the two posted earlier are really questionable.

retrieverman

If you have deer like the second two on camera, why are wasting your time even considering the first two. I would like to see pictures of the second two out of velvet, but they both look like shooters to me.

retrieverman

Here is a buck that my brother, son and I have been watching for a couple of years. He is 4.5, and we have all agreed to leave him for one more year. There are subdivisions of three sides of our 700 acres, and my luck is that he will stumble into someone's back yard and get shot.[:@]

MichiganWhitetails74

Retrieverman...Thats not a shooter? I think I may be sick and log off my computer.. I'm in Michigan...and thats a 150 - 165 buck

retrieverman

I have seen him twice and have a couple hundred pictures of him over the last couple of years, and my best estimate is that he will score just over 150 (maybe). I have been fooled by Camtrakker pictures this year, and I am a little more conservative in my estimation now.

Here the buck that I killed, and I missed his score by nearly 10 inches. He actually weighed about 20 pounds more than I thought though. I have pictures of this buck for the last 3 years.

lookingforthebigone

They are all shoters to me!!!

The Outdoorsman

Well the last pic shows a 10pt. The 3rd and 4th pics are shooters in my book, but thats because where I hunt, we are practicing QDM really hard. All 4 bucks are really shooters, just depends on what YOU want in a buck and your land. The second to last pic looks like his right main beam got injured while in velvet and was pushed back towards the other tines.