We may be kind of splitting hairs a bit Paul. Where I was at a few threads ago was I don't buy it is an absolute and human intrusion on all deer. I believe each circumstance is different. And, hunting a specific deer, and only that deer, also makes the equation extended. It is a two edged sword. On the one hand, if bucks were so smart and so reactive to limited human pressure, which is what I think simply checking a trail cam and getting back out of the woods is, then there would be old mature bucks everywhere and they'd probably be nocturnal entirely. Heck, in the state parks where there are people walking in manner areas of the park throughout much of the year, the deer don't leave those areas, including a lot of the bucks. If it was an absolute, the state parks wouldn't have does and bucks hanging out with people.

The definition of mature probably comes into play also. I would agree that a 5 year is probably harder to kill then a 2 year and is more influence by a lot of factors, including varying degrees of human intrusion. And your point about Iowa is a good one and it makes me wonder how many bucks are passed each year that might make a state record book program but not B&C, which I sometimes fear is the standard that is supposed a trophy buck. Again, for guys like Dew and others who target a specific buck, they have certainly up't the ante on difficulty and needed expertise to be successful, which I admire. But, how one views their wall as trophy or not trophy is still a differing of opinion and probably circumstance.

Now, all of this said, this is one thing I do know, for a fact. If the goal was to harvest the most mature buck on a property, regardless of that bucks age, I'd probably have everyone who visits this website hunt that buck before having me hunt it. I don't have the patience or the commitment that most on here have and probably am not as careful about human intrusion as I should be. The discussion, I really don't like to call it a debate, could go on at length into such things as how far a buck moves if disrupted, how southern Indiana bucks act differently (that don't see humans very often) vs. farm country bucks who may have daily exposure or contact with human intrusion and even how much intrusion (such as frequency of human intrusion such as checking trail cameras) bucks will tolerate and the difference of tolerance between age groups of bucks. Now, what would be nice though is for folks to acknowledge that there probably aren't absolutes and discuss all of this in a non personalized, non confrontational manner.