When I started hunting in the late 80's it was about just killing a deer. The 90's were about fumbling around and figuring it all out, some successes and a lot of swing and misses. It was a fun time looking back on it. I remember trying a lot of "gimmicks" back then and I just laugh about it now.
In the early 2000's it seemed like I had it all figured out. I was dropping a solid mature buck every year and kept raising the bar for myself. VHS videos from Realtree, Hunters Specialties, and others fed my addiction and pushed my desires to be some legendary big buck hunter ... LOL.
When my kids started hunting, it totally revitalized my feelings towards deer hunting. Deer hunting was becoming about competing against myself and others to a degree and hitting some minimum score or other subjective achievement. When my kids started I found a fresh perspective by watching them kill whatever deer walked by with more excitement than I could ever get out of me killing some record class buck. I can say that at this point in my life, the past 10 or so years that my daughters have spent time being the hunters, has been the most enjoyable time of my hunting life. They have made me realize that it isn't about inches of antlers.
In the past few years I have shot several bucks that most arguably in today's horn porn era would pass up. Many have asked "why" or made the comment "he would have been good next year". But the reality is that I don't care about inches of antler anymore. Right now I hunt for me. I hunt for enjoyment. I hunt the way I want to. I set goals in how I want to hunt a deer and I don't settle. For example, right now I want to shoot a doe with my recurve out of one particular stand. I refuse to shoot a doe in any other location or with any other piece of equipment the remainder of this year, because I set out with this one objective for the next few weeks. My reasons are personal and to challenge myself. That is what hunting deer is to me these days.
Overall I am enjoying deer hunting more than I ever have. Deer hunting as a whole isn't perfect right now. I have things about regulations, seasons, the general culture, etc that I don't like about it and probably liked better 20 years ago, but they don't matter really because I cannot change it, nor would I likely change it if I could.
At the end of the day I just feel blessed to be able to climb in a tree stand on land that I own and watch what the Good Lord has put out there for me to enjoy. And I am extremely thankful that He gave me two young ladies that enjoy spending time with their Dad in the deer woods as well.
