10/12/2026
LET THEM GO, LET THEM GROW… BUT DON’T FORGET WHY WE HUNT.
I’m a big believer in letting deer grow. I enjoy chasing older, mature bucks, and if I’ve got a tag in my pocket, that’s generally what I’m after. When I want meat in the freezer, I’ll fill a doe tag. There’s nothing wrong with managing our deer herd, passing on young bucks, and dreaming about the day an old warrior finally steps out in front of us.
But there’s something I think we lose sight of in all the talk about inches, age classes, and letting young bucks walk.
Sometimes, the most important deer a hunter will ever shoot isn’t a trophy. It’s the one that makes them fall in love with hunting.
Think back to your first deer. Remember that feeling? The excitement. The pounding heart. The shaking hands. The way your mind replayed every second of that moment a thousand times afterward. Maybe it was a spike. Maybe it was a little fork horn. Maybe it was a small basket rack that wouldn’t turn a single head on social media today.
But to you? That deer meant everything.
Now imagine being a kid sitting in a deer stand, freezing your butt off, trying to be quiet, watching the hours crawl by. Dad tells you to pass on that little buck because he needs another three years to grow. Then another deer walks out, and you hear the same thing.
Eventually, that kid might stop seeing hunting as an adventure and start seeing it as another place where they can never do anything right.
And that’s where we need to be careful.
If a kid gets excited over a spike, let him shoot the spike. If that little basket rack gets his heart racing, let him experience that moment. Let him make memories he’ll carry for the rest of his life.
There will be plenty of time to teach him about age classes, genetics, herd management, and passing on young bucks. Those lessons matter. But so does letting a kid be a kid.
We spend so much time worrying about the buck that might have grown into a big one that we sometimes forget about the young hunter who might never get another chance to fall in love with this sport.
I’d rather see a kid proudly hanging a little buck in the garage, telling the story a hundred times, than watch him lose interest because we convinced him that the deer he was excited about wasn’t good enough.
Because one day, that little kid might be the guy passing up a young buck to chase a mature deer. He might be the one teaching his own kids to respect the resource and manage the herd.
But that only happens if we keep him in the woods long enough to get there.
A young buck might have grown into a trophy. But a young hunter, given the right memories, might become a hunter for life.
And if I have to choose between passing up a little buck and passing down a love for hunting, I know which one matters more to me.
Let them go. Let them grow.
But when it comes to our kids, let them hunt. Let them be excited. Let them make memories. And for the love of everything we claim to stand for, let them fall in love with this tradition before we bury them in the rules of it.
Because someday, the biggest buck in the woods won't matter nearly as much as the kid sitting beside you who still wants to go hunting and talks about how awesome it was to be with dad!
That's the tradition worth protecting.
🦌
