Well, I start this post by saying I was wrong. When you hunt, you have to set your expectations as to what you want to shoot ahead of time. In the previous post, Trail Camera Buck Size Distortion Phenomenon, I talked about letting a great shooter buck go that we named No Brow Jr. When I saw and videoed him, he just did not impress me. My thinking was also influenced by a recent event that happened the day before. A good buddy of mine shot a 3 1/2 year old 196 pound 7 pointer that only scored about 90 inches; which apparently had more of an effect on me than I knew. All this was going through my head and I talked myself out of shooting him. Then I came up with my trail camera distortion concept and wrote a blog
post to make me feel better about this decision.
Now, to the current story. In the video below you see me shoot a 10 point buck following a doe. I saw the buck coming through the woods and it did not take more than 3 seconds to determine he was a shooter buck. So when he stepped into shooting lane, I shot him. He ran about 50 yards and died. I was very excited to have killed him. A friend of mine pointed out it was No Brow Jr. I said no way, but it turned out to be him. I am even confused in the post shot interview as you can see below in the video. I was still making excuses for not shooting the week before.
After thinking about all of this, I came to the conclusion that my expectations were high due to all the outside stimulus. When I did not over analyze the deer, I made the right decision. A 3 1/2 year old, 200 pound deer is a shooter in GA and I am proud to have taken him.