re nubbin bucks, you have to only look to make sure it doesn't have nubs... thats awful easy IMHO. At least on our deer it is.
Haven't come close to that mistake in probably 35 years since I was a young teen.
Day over after you shoot a deer? Don't get that at all?
We've shot as many as 10 deer in a morning on a cull, gutted and skinned and hung all 10 and went again after lunch. Just the wife and I.
Neither of those tasks are so easily accomplished by those of us who hunt public land and/or heavily forested property. When a deer comes trotting through or slips through thick cover, it is pretty hard to determine whether is is a buck fawn or not. When that might be your only chance at a deer that day, you'd best slap leather or lose your opportunity. When said deer is put down a mile or two back in where you either do not have the ability or the legal right to use a quad or UTV, your day is pretty well done unless the temp is cold enough to gut and leave it lay. Lots of different hunting scenarios in different parts of the country. Just a different perspective.
I don't know WHY everyone has to assume a poster hasn't or doesn't hunt public land.
I did a lot of it for years here in TX and yes, you might only get one chance a day or even less at times. I still never killed a nub, simply because I"m not shooting until I know the target. Some years I never shot a doe even with tags just becuase I never got a clear shot.
I also don't know why folks feel that they HAVE to shoot something.
I"m lucky that I have deer at home, and on a lease but if I ever felt that I just HAD to kill something, even if that might be detrimental to the herd, I'd stop hunting.
I do hear you about the no ATV stuff and a mile or more in... BTDT. Its the way I prefer to hunt public, no access on antying but foot. Unfortunately there are not that many areas like that in TX public lands at times.
Last time I did it, I shot a spike that needed to go, before dark, did the gutless into my pack in pieces, and walked the almost 2 miles back to the truck in the dark. Drove back to camp area, had supper, had the deer on ice in the cooler and was up the next morning hunting again...
Sure couldn't do 10 that way but pretty sure the 10 in a morning took more time than gutless quartering and packing out.
