Thread: Should I have shot this Deer?

As others have said. Your first deer or two, if for meat just shoot. Worry about the ethics of leaving stags when/if you start hunting purely for heads. Even then, if you see an unbalanced or runty head shoot the feckin thing. A bad head is always a bad head and there’s plenty of stags out there. As for hinds/does this time of year if they look preggers shoot if you want, but if you see one with full udder but slim there’s a chance she’s given birth and there’s a young one about. If you can get both go ahead but otherwise probably best to leave. There’s folk on here who will bang on about leaving stags to grow and improve the gene pool etc, stroke on, there’s too many animals around and poor quality animals don’t contribute anything useful to future trophies. Just my 2c.