Is Counting Inches Killing Deer Hunting? Dec 17, 2018 by Brodie Swisher

All ages do this, but in different ways. Guys Eastman started filming hunts with trophy animals a long time ago while guys like several on this page started posting pics of themselves on the web with big animals, which got all this started about a decade ago when forums were getting going. The next generations simply took it to another level of getting attention with social media.

Older people use forums on websites, typical age in the 50's and 60's +.
middle aged people use facebook typical age in the 40's
Young people use instagram. typical age in the 20's and 30's

A really funny thing I read the other day on facebook is a professional photographer who posts regularly on a page I moderate was discussing the different programs and software he has to enhance the horns on deer and elk. So even pics that look real can be doctored to look bigger due to technology being used. The same way the media makes it nearly impossible for regular women to look close to the women on TV is happening with animals where even a good 8 point whitey or 6x6 bull is not much to look at due to the trophy effect of so many huge looking animals being posted or on TV.

Greenhorn said:

A fact about "Inches" is that they can be used as an indicator of health and quality.

Also, they can often result in tears, envy, humor, ridicule, and countless thought provoking threads on hunttalk and similar forums.

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Yes they do.

The inches (or lack there of) aren’t the issue. The idiots worrying about them and how they define themselves is

This site at times seems more like a facebook/instagram than a public land hunter's forum.
Speaking as a voice of inexperience, as I have neither of the above named accounts - fitting in the older listed demographic.......

Hobbs said:

measuring something is only a problem if you use that measurement to try and show how much better you are, or if you get jealous of the measurement of others.

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and both happen quite frequently, sometimes the former just to provoke the latter.

As a full time taxidermist I see and hear a lot of things. Let me say first off, I personally am a trophy and I'm not ashamed to admit it. However what may be a trophy to me may or may not be a trophy to others. I have been asked by clients if I thought they should have their deer mounted or not. I feel social media (I don't have btw) and Hollywood deer hunting shows have greatly hindered the joy of hunting. I try to tell people don't measure your success or trophy size off of what you see on TV hunting shows. (I don't own a television either). I explain that the TV Hollywood hunters have access to large tracts of private land. They hunt to produce videos. They hunt every day on private land in prime deer country. The average working guy doesn't have land acess, the time or money to keep up with hunting shows. I had a guy bring in a basket 8 point he wanted mounted. I personally quit killing deer that size almost 20 years ago but of course I didn't shame him for it not because I was getting his business but because first of all it's wrong second this man was about 50 years old and just started hunting, it was his first deer. He was super excited. I was glad for him. The next year i mounted one for him that was a little bigger but he was still just as happy with his first deer. It was on his wall in front of his desk. If a person doesn't feel happy about their kill (not harvest, harvest is for veggies, killing is for game.) because it didn't score what to deer score or what fb deer score they are missing the point. To many are getting cheated out of the outdoor experience and seeing wildlife with an occasional kill because of judging their success but the success of others. Different subject but I feel sorry for the young girls today feeling like they are ugly because they don't look like the women on magazine covers which are mostly fake and vain with no inner beauty of a good character and morals. Most of Hollywood women have the morals of an alley cat but somehow they are promoted to what society says is acceptable. Who cares what mold society is trying to force our youth into. Godliness is far better. Anyway, I don't feel inches itself is the main problem it's judging your trophy based on what other people think of you.
My personal standards have changed from when I first started hunting 25 years ago. My first deer was a button buck, I was a senior in high school. I was so happy, I kept the head in back of my 1985 GMC short wide bed for days showing people. I didn't know better than to be thrilled in 1993. I'm glad nobody shamed me. My first rack came a few years later when I was 21 and killed a dink 5 point wt with my bow. I was beyond happy. As I hunted more and had more success and experience my personal standards and challenges changed. I have come to the place for several years that age class in wt is a trophy. I prefer a deer 4.5 years old minimum, preferably a 5.5 which at that point I'm not extremely concerned with inches in a 5.5 year old wt. I personally like the Pope and Young club as a hunter. There is something about big animals that gets me excited. No one will convince me that if two bucks were standing side by side and one was a spike and the other was a ten point that it really didn't matter which one they shot. Enough for now.

When I agree that it’s not good for hunting, I’m not saying that I don’t measure my bucks, because I do. I’m also not saying that counting inches is bad in and of itself. I am however saying that I think a vast number of people put so much emphasis on it that it ruins their hunting, AND that the idea of how many inches makes a trophy is really inflated by TV, magazines and social media. I try to shoot the biggest buck I see during the season, and if I do that, then I consider myself to have done really really well! How he compares to someone else’s buck is meaningless to me. I took the best buck that I could and that’s a huge success. I don’t take really young bucks unless they are spike whitetails in areas that are trying to reduce spikes(we have areas in TX that really encourage spike shooting) My preference is 3.5+ on whitetails, and 4.5+ on mule deer, but I shot a 3.5 yr old in TX this year because A) he was the best I’d seen, and B) I really liked his looks. After last season three really big mature bucks showed up, and one was pushing B&C really hard. Well by early summer they disappeared, and never showed back up. I found four carcasses over the summer while she’d hunting, but couldn’t tell for sure how they died or what their heads had looked like. I don’t know if we have a poaching problem or a predator problem, and I don’t know if they three mature bucks died or left. The way I look at it, either they’ll be back next season or they won’t be, and there’s no guarantee the one I shot would have lived till next season either way. Yes, I say “he’s young”, or “he’s not the biggest” if I show someone a picture. It’s not because I’m not proud of him, because I am, it’s a mixture of humility and showing that I’m aware that lots of bigger deer get killed each year and that I’m not showing off a baby deer that I think is a monster. Perhaps I should stop doing it though. Back on topic though, counting inches is fine if you can shoot a deer that you like and the number isn’t going to bring you down. If the number steals your joy, then counting inches is a problem. I’ve had a lot of thoughts on it over the last few days though.

A) A trophy is a trophy in its environment. I didn’t come up with this, but it’s appropriate. On an unlimited entry, long season tag, hunting public land that receives a lot of pressure, then a trophy of a lifetime might be have a measurement that most people would consider pretty pitiful, and that measurement should not take anything at all away from his trophy status. The same goes for different states and different parts of states. Some parts of Texas just don’t produce the same size racks as other parts of Texas. In fact, south Texas whitetails are known as some of the smallest bodied, largest racked deer in the state. The biggest deer killed in the piney woods of east Texas this year might be just as big as the biggest killed in the south Texas desert, but on average it’s not a remotely fair comparison. You can even break it down from one property to the next.

B) Adversity makes a trophy. Bad weather, bad luck, long hunts, last minute pay-offs, and grueling pack-outs have nothing to do with the inches on his head, but they have everything to do how hard you worked to earn it, and that makes a buck a trophy.

C) The experience makes a trophy. Being somewhere you’ve never been but always wanted to go. Being somewhere you always love going back to. Spending time with family or friends. The success of others, or loved ones sharing your success with you. Those memories are why we mount game heads in the first place. To have a visible reminder of those experiences so that we can go back and revisit those memories is why we mount our trophies.

D) Wall appeal can make a trophy. If you think it looks good, mount it! Maybe it’s weird, maybe it’s wide, maybe it has good mass etc. There are tons of great looking, big looking, cool looking, and weird look deer out there that don’t measure all that well. They’re still trophies.

E) Age is a trophy. I’ve seen some really old bucks with puney racks. I’ve seen a wide, tall, pencil thin 3x3 that had to be 7.5+. Those are trophies. Often times they only made it to 2.5 or 3.5 because they had terrible racks, but by the time a buck is mature, he is wise and craftey regardless of his antlers and that makes him a trophy.

F) What do asymmetry and non-typical points have to do with herd health? Do inches REALLY indicate health? Why would a typical 10pt mule deer with 10” of non-typical kickers resulting in a typical score of 160” indicate lower health than an almost identical typical mule deer who put all 170” of antler growth into a typical frame and therefore scored 170”? Why would a mule deer with 80” on his left and 80” on his right that loses 10” to symmetry variations from point to point indicate lower health than a “perfectly” symmetrical deer the same size? Some areas of the country have minerals and food types that grow more antler, but don’t have any impact on body size or health. Is the smaller rack in certain areas really indicative of malnutrition, disease or parasite load? What about genetics? I have a friend whose family has a high fenced game ranch and has dabbled in selective breeding. They even bought a semen straw from the previous non-typical breeder buck record(Goliath) and artificially inseminated a doe. The son she bore(one of many Goliath juniors) and his sons to follow, have the biggest antlers on the ranch by a wide margin, and that even includes the progeny of other breeder bucks they have purchased. All those deer eat the same food. The difference is genetics. The question is, are those genetics for antlers really indicative of improved health. Their Goliath junior died of old age at before he grew his eighth set of antlers, and his peak was at 5.5. There have been white tails live longer than that.

Below is the grandson of “Junior”, or great grandson of the doe and the semen straw, at 5.5. Also his peak.

No offense to my friend and his family. They are wonderfully kind and generous people. To me, their deer are not trophies to the hunter. Trophies for the breeder and ranch manager perhaps. They know I want a nice whitetail, and have offered to let me shoot a cull. Their culls would double or triple the size of my biggest whitetail, but to me, it is not hunting. It is the killing of livestock. The counting of inches has lead many of our busier and wealthier people to seek an opportunity to insure “success” and put a “trophy” on their wall. The result is that my friend’s family and many people like them, can sell “hunts” for MANY thousands of dollars so that a client can sit in an elevated blind over a feeder and a food plot and pick their “trophy” shortly after the dinner bell goes off. They also buy neglected and overgrown land, bulldoze trails for trucks and quads, thin the trees and eliminate everything bud hardwoods, install stock tanks and food plots, put up high fences and sell the property for a nice profit. I don’t begrudge them their business. They are simply meeting a demand. I do however wish that there was not so much demand for such a thing. You can not compare the inches of your public land deer, or low fence private land deer to a selectively bred deer that eats high protein feed year round, and cannot leave, or be killed by a predator, or be poached. I still do not take away the right to enjoy hunting the high fenced buck. I love to fish the tank in the picture. It’s easy to catch monster bass. I’ve caught many over 5lbs there. I’ve never caught a 5lb bass in a public water. It does not take away from the enjoyment of catching the monsters in that little tank. I might feel different about mounting one though.

okie archer said:

As a full time taxidermist I see and hear a lot of things. I have been asked by clients if I thought they should have their deer mounted or not.

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That's funny. Maybe I should ask a car salesman if I need a new car...

madtom said:

That's funny. Maybe I should ask a car salesman if I need a new car...

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Lol. That’s good stuff.

I just picked up my first shoulder mounted deer. I was stupendously proud when I shot it. I shot another that many would say was better two weeks later in another state. On the inch front, the second was smaller. For wall appeal, most would have preferred the second. I chose to mount the first because it was the first deer I ever killed that said “you have to mount me”, and because it was a hard fought battle on public land. The second one was shot on opening morning a few hundred yards from the pickup. It was a great deer, but it just didn’t feel the same. When I dropped it off at taxi there were only a few mule deer and one was a good bit bigger...at least he looked bigger on the wall than my head in a box. Lots of monster whitetails too. I wondered if the taxi was wondering why I was bothering to mount my deer, but I was thrilled with it and eager to finally mount something. Yesterday when I picked it up, it was the biggest mule deer on the shop wall. Proving what I always knew...they look bigger standing up than they do on the ground...I’m gonna have to get more shoulder mounts! Back to the point of my post. There were only a handful of mule deer, and although I’d be happy with any of them, the whitetails on the wall were insane! Drop tines galore, super wide, millions of points, non-typicals, typicals, they were almost all pushing the record books. Every one of them could have been on a magazine cover. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that they were mostly of high fenced origin. The ugliest part of counting inches is the selectively bred, high protein fed, pen deer.

Interesting discussion for sure. Is it killing deer hunting? No. Hunting is a male dominated activity and men are competitive, period. I don't necessarily like it but I have been guilty of getting caught up in the competition myself. Thankfully I've matured and don't give much time to impressing others. For Christ sake guys have turned bass fishing into a multimillion dollar sport and guys race lawn mowers.

Scoring inches isn't the problem. The problem is when the need to shoot the biggest, most, or best causes the hunter to become a poacher or thief. I see guys lie, cheat, and break the law just for a picture to post. A close second to the poacher is the guy with enough money to buy a trophy. Don't misunderstand, I'm all for the guy who can afford to hire an outfitter, guide, or hunt premium land. The guy I disparage is the one who pays for absolutely everything just to fly in and pull a trigger on a waiting animal, take a pic and leave.

For a few years I let antler size ruin my hunting seasons, then I matured a bit. This year I committed myself to strictly bow hunting. I hunted hard and had a blast. I shot two deer with my bow. A 2.5 year old 8 pt and a nice sized doe. I shot both deer hunting from the ground and made two great shots that resulted in quick kills. I couldn’t be happier with my hunting season. Plus we gladly eat venison and elk over beef.

As far as antlers go I would like one big set of elk antlers. They don’t have to be record book by any means. My wife wasn’t too impressed with my failed attempt at bow hunting for a bull elk this fall. She had gotten used to the fruitful cow rifle hunts.