Success in my mind is any time you are in the field or on the stream. I just return the other night with a spike buck that is now hanging in my garage it is not the biggest dear I have ever shot but it will join the half a moose in my freezer and on Sunday evening coming home from ice fishing and having some venision stew and bannock I will feel very successful.

In my opinion I think deer in the freezer is how successful you are. At least you got something.

To me its more of self-satisfaction. If you are happy with putting meat on the table, then any deer is a success. Or if you want your name in B&C or P&Y record books, a wall hanger is a success. Its all a matter of personal opinion. I love going early season and filling my freezer with doe meat. I also get a thrill by hunting old small racked bucks. These deer are smart and provide a huge challenge. But a trophy book deer really makes my heart pump as well and if anybody tells you a wall hanger isn't what they want,,, well they're lying. As humans we all like to show off and brag and are way too competitive to not want to harvest the "king of the woods."

Both !
Horns are nice but ya can't eat em !

As they say, happiness is in the journey not in the arrival.

Success is being out alone in the bush or at the edge of the field with my dogs. I have never hunted for trophies although I have knocked down some very impressive racks over the years. If I come home with an animal or birds, great. If not, well that's great too. And I don't have to clean or butcher anything! Let's face it, hunting is almost always a losing proposition economically. If filling the freezer is so important, you'd usually be many dollars ahead driving to the grocery store or butcher shop. I have two outstanding elk racks, three pretty good moose racks, and I don't know how many deer racks. Where can you put all those things? Frankly, the only wall mount that has ever appealed to me much is antelope and I really don't care to have one of those in my freezer anyway.

sharing meat in the ice fishing shanty or deer camp is it for me. nobody appreciates it more than other sportmen. Wall hangers are a bonus to the bounty in the freezer.

I think you are all right,as a meat hunter I don't worry about antlers.
For me,it's the whole experence,most
importantly hunting and fishing is how I deal with stress,it keeps me grounded I come out of the woods{with or without a deer}a much more relaxed person.
Think about all the beautiful sunrises you have seen,hearing the woods wake up around you, it renews your spirit!

In my opinion it is whatever walks by your stand. If it is good meat that is what i'm happy about, if it is a huge rack, i'm also happy. I think though that I lean more towards meat. I say this because my neighbors won't shoot does or any buck under 8 points. I shoot at almost anything.

Good hunt--good hunting partners--enjoying the great outdoors--all the great things in my book. Will shoot mature bucks when possible, but, a good old dry doe, goes through my freezer and smoke house just as well. Vension is our red meat of choice. Our steers go to the marketplace not in our freezer.

In my mind, you can eat what's in the freezer, you can't eat the mount on the wall.

I'm out of room on the wall but it seems like there is always room in my freezer. Sometimes the deer that I shoot for my freezer have a pretty nice rack on them and that is a bonus. I measure my time left by the quality experience I have in the woods, tha animals that I see and wonderful scenery that I am allowed to enjoy. Every minute that I enjoy in the woods I cherish because I know there will not be as many as there have been in the past.

I find that some of my most successful days hunting are the days when I walk back to the pickup empty handed. Especially the days when you just know that you have the deer figured out and they do the exact opposite of what you were sure they were going to do, but at the very least you get to enjoy a sunrise or sunset, some wonderful sights and sounds and every now and again witness something truly remarkable. Antlers are always nice but a nice fat doe is as much a trophy especially after a hard hunt.

I did say that you can eat what's in the freezer but not on the wall.
That said, if you can combine the two, as in get a good deer that will fill the freezer and he happens to be worthy of the wall, then put him on the wall, but hunt for the freezer not the wall.

A "trophy" is whatever you make one to be. As a young hunter, a "trophy" may be considered a doe. Or even as an experienced hunter, a doe or average buck is a trophy.

I don't understand why deer hunting has become so competitive and strict for so many hunters. I have never understood the whole "passing" idea for deer. When I am in my stand, the first opportunity I get, regardless of size or rack, I shoot, and take my deer home. There's no such thing as "passin up" for me.

It's just as sportsy to take home a young buck or doe as it is to take home a "180+ class buck." It's not like it takes any more skill to shoot a big deer than it does to shoot a smaller one.

I think deer hunters need to quit being so competitive about our sport. It's stupid. If hunters back in the 1800's would know we are so competitive like so many of us are, they would think we were abusing the sport. We need to remember that we as hunters have a priviledge to do what we do, and there are plenty of anti-gun/anti-hunting whack jobs out there who would like nothing more than to destroy our hunting priviledges.

It is all about the hunt for me. Good friends, beautiful country and good food make the hunt! Sucess as in filling a tag is secondary.

probably going against the grain here when i say i measure by the size of the rack. where i hunt if i wanted to i could shoot a doe every time out and put meat in the freezer. ive shot one doe, because a buddy wanted the meat, so i bought a tag. got to my hunting spot, parked the car, walked about 2 minutes up towards the road and within 10 minutes i shot a doe. piece of cake. i have way more fun when im buck hunting. i dont see to many where im at, i have to work my ass off to get one, its way more challenging for me to buck hunt. i hunt because i like the challenge of it. i dont get much a challenge out of the meat hunting for doe. i know there patterns, and there are so many on the properties i hunt in know exactly where they are at every point during the day, its just not challenging. bucks are different. most are nocturnal and in all honesty they tend to be smarter in my opinion.

sargeo i didnt get a buck this year, only saw one, and he was a spike...he was well within bow range, and in past years i probably would have shot him, but this season i let him walk.