This is definitely a nice sized 8 pointer and while he does look fairly stocky up front I would guess he's a 3.5 year old buck. He's definitely got some potential and I honestly don't know if I would shoot him or not. I've set a goal for myself this season to not shoot anything under 100" and I have high hopes of tagging my first ever P&Y buck.

It's one thing to say you won't shoot a deer under 100 inches, but doing it is a different story. If this guy was just meandering by my stand, it would definitely be hard to pass him up. However, one thing that will be different for me this year is that I'll have a video camera with me! This might actually make it easier to pass up a buck like this since I can always go back and watch the footage afterwards.

Last night I was out for a drive and unfortunately saw two dead fawns not more than 20 yards apart on opposite sides of the road. These two are growing up nicely and it already looks like their spots are starting to go away as they grow. In a few years they'll both be big mature whitetails and hopefully one is sporting a nice 12 point rack!

I am more excited about hunting this year than I have ever been. I've got a new hunting partner, 6 new spots that have big bucks and some pretty nice video equipment to bring the action right here to NYBowhunter.com - so look for a video up sometime in September as I'll be bowhunting Connecticut on the 15th of this month!