I"m more laid back these days at almost 50. But we like to eat deer meat and I shoot em for that.
But I don't shoot a buck unless its a trash one, or one that would go on the wall so that has slowed that down on its own just due to the fact I'm looking for old and bigger than I already have. There are plenty of does to shoot for meat and trash bucks.
Those, I pick days when all is good and I feel like cleaning one basically. Years ago I might have shot all my tags in one weekend if it all worked out. Having shot more than 1 deer a few times on each hunt on a weekend, with a bow... I'm not that mad at em anymore.
I think if you read, what I used to teach, hunter ed, about how a hunter matures it makes sense.
I see a LOT of joy watching a young or new hunter get game or helping them is even better yet.
There was this thing in teaching, said you were happy to go out, then happy to go out and shoot, then happy to go out and harvest some game, then happy to go shoot a limit, then happy to shoot a big one, then got back to the point of just happy to go out again..... seems most of us kind of follow that routine.
That being said... we've probably killed close to 300 cowbirds out the kitchen window this year. And I started trapping again to thin out the predators a bit....
