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Antler growth this year

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BSK

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So what is everyone seeing for antler growth per age-class this year?

I have data from a couple of large, managed properties across the state for this year, but I'm wondering what others are seeing.
 
All I have is anecdotal evidence but in my little part of southeastern West Tn it's not very good. A couple of the deer I've gotten pictures of that I can positively identify barely made any jump at all from last year.
 
We've seen that they got a great start and continued that on through the start of August. Makes sense due to the super bumper crop of acorns last year and the extremely wet spring. All in all, growth has been an 8 out of 10 in our area, imo. Even the 1.5's I'm seeing are basket racked 8 points, as opposed to spikes, 4's and 6's. To me, that may be most telling.

Then the drought came. All but one of a bachelor group of 7 disappeared mid August. Don't know if they transitioned somewhere else due to the extremely dry conditions, or ehd? All I know is they're gone
 
BSK said:
So what is everyone seeing for antler growth per age-class this year?

I have data from a couple of large, managed properties across the state for this year, but I'm wondering what others are seeing.
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Well, I still haven't seen any, I'm still bald 👍
 
Same here. I've got 4 smaller areas between west tn through arkansas that I hunt, but there are never any antlers in my woods this early. I'm excited to find out when they start showing up. I should start seeing bucks here in Tn around oct 5-10th, next spot normally picks up around the 20th, then another place that is all does and then thanksgiving weekend I might see 10 bucks, and then my final place I'll have a few smaller bucks, but it won't be until Dec that I see the big older bucks return that are identifiable between dec 12-25th.

If it's worth anything to you. Last year my biggest oldest bucks were all but gone. The ones I could identify didn't put on much growth at all. This year I've seen quite a few nice deer in the fields near my house though so I'm hopeful.
 
Good year for bucks on my places so far. While I've not seen anything raise the bar, I do see the scale tilted in favor of higher end racks than lower. They aren't bigger than other years but there are more of the top end in each age group than I normally see. That said it's only young ones for me so far as I've only got one 5yr old and no 4yr olds yet. Plenty 3yr and under though. The fall shift will tell the rest of the story whether the trend holds true for older classes too. I'm hoping it does.
 
Interesting. Very different than what I'm seeing. I'm monitoring 5 properties from the KY Lake region to the Cumberland Plateau. All are seeing fairly significant declines in antler development per age-class this year. Most notable is the decline in antler growth on 2 1/2s (lots of 2 1/2s with 6 or fewer points), and 3 1/2s (very few 3 1/2s with 9 or more points). I'm also see very few top-end bucks.

This has me totally perplexed. In hardwood areas, usually the previous year's acorn crop is very indicative of antler growth the following summer. As the theory goes, poor food resources in fall and winter produce below average antler growth the next summer. Great food sources fall and winter produce above average antler growth the following summer.

Yet on all the monitored properties, following the terrible drought and total acorn failure of 2022, experienced above average antler growth the summer of 2023, but after the bumper acorn crop of 2023, antler development is down the summer of 2024.
 
BSK said:
Interesting. Very different than what I'm seeing. I'm monitoring 5 properties from the KY Lake region to the Cumberland Plateau. All are seeing fairly significant declines in antler development per age-class this year. Most notable is the decline in antler growth on 2 1/2s (lots of 2 1/2s with 6 or fewer points), and 3 1/2s (very few 3 1/2s with 9 or more points). I'm also see very few top-end bucks.

This has me totally perplexed. In hardwood areas, usually the previous year's acorn crop is very indicative of antler growth the following summer. As the theory goes, poor food resources in fall and winter produce below average antler growth the next summer. Great food sources fall and winter produce above average antler growth the following summer.

Yet on all the monitored properties, following the terrible drought and total acorn failure of 2022, experienced above average antler growth the summer of 2023, but after the bumper acorn crop of 2023, antler development is down the summer of 2024.
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Well if that trend holds true next year should have lots of big bucks!

The best age classes I'm seeing is the yearlings and 2yr olds. Very few spikes this year. Most yearlings are 5pts - 8pts. Almost all 2yr olds are 8pt+ with several looking more like 3 or 4yr olds. The deer below is a 2yr old. I almost never see 2yr olds like that. Most years 2yr olds have 50" basket 6 or 8pt frames.

3yr olds this year seem to have good mass and I'm seeing stickers and splits that I normally associate with older bucks. My 3yr olds are usually pretty clean.

All that said, my places are relatively new in the habitat management game. I've only been doing this stuff for around 10yrs and most intensely in the last 5yrs, so what I'm seeing may not necessarily be indicative of last year's acorn crop as much as cumulative results from habitat enhancement.
 

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Ski said:
Well if that trend holds true next year should have lots of big bucks!

The best age classes I'm seeing is the yearlings and 2yr olds. Very few spikes this year. Most yearlings are 5pts - 8pts. Almost all 2yr olds are 8pt+ with several looking more like 3 or 4yr olds. The deer below is a 2yr old. I almost never see 2yr olds like that. Most years 2yr olds have 50" basket 6 or 8pt frames.

3yr olds this year seem to have good mass and I'm seeing stickers and splits that I normally associate with older bucks. My 3yr olds are usually pretty clean.

All that said, my places are relatively new in the habitat management game. I've only been doing this stuff for around 10yrs and most intensely in the last 5yrs, so what I'm seeing may not necessarily be indicative of last year's acorn crop as much as cumulative results from habitat enhancement.
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Amazing. Exact opposite of what I'm seeing. Very high percentage of spike yearlings, and an extraordinary percent of 2 1/2s with 6 or fewer points.
 
Many, many, many spikes the last 2 years for us. Also the world's smallest 6pt that walked under my stand 4 times (different stands) in 2022. Nothing to really go after the last 2 years at all. Basically that's all you saw - even more so than does. This year, only seeing 2 spikes and all the other yearlings are 7-8 points. I will take it!
 
We had a great acorn crop last year, then a fairly wet spring with plenty of vegetation early for good recovery from winter. Should be some good antlered deer this year, right?
 
JCDEERMAN said:
Many, many, many spikes the last 2 years for us. Also the world's smallest 6pt that walked under my stand 4 times (different stands) in 2022. Nothing to really go after the last 2 years at all. Basically that's all you saw - even more so than does. This year, only seeing 2 spikes and all the other yearlings are 7-8 points. I will take it!
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That's exactly what I saw last year. It was a spike parade. This year only a couple spikes as most yearlings have racks.
 
BSK said:
Amazing. Exact opposite of what I'm seeing. Very high percentage of spike yearlings, and an extraordinary percent of 2 1/2s with 6 or fewer points.
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That's really bizarre. How many properties are you seeing this on? And what kind of distribution, as in how far apart are the properties?
 
BSK said:
All of them, scattered across the state from KY Lake to the Nashville Basin to the Plateau.
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That's odd. Completely opposite of what I'm seeing. To be fair the antler growth I'm seeing isn't significantly different than any other year. It's not like all bucks are an age class larger or anything. It's just the majority are at least average or above average, and very few are below average.

The biggest change I've seen this year so far is the number of bucks is down. I usually see noticeably more summer bucks than I'm seeing this year. Not sure why. Hopefully fall shift floods them in. Last year was an incredible season for the number of big, older bucks. I'm hoping to see similar this year.
 
Ski said:
That's odd. Completely opposite of what I'm seeing. To be fair the antler growth I'm seeing isn't significantly different than any other year. It's not like all bucks are an age class larger or anything. It's just the majority are at least average or above average, and very few are below average.

The biggest change I've seen this year so far is the number of bucks is down. I usually see noticeably more summer bucks than I'm seeing this year. Not sure why. Hopefully fall shift floods them in. Last year was an incredible season for the number of big, older bucks. I'm hoping to see similar this year.
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Numbers of bucks this year is very good. In most locations normal to even above normal, especially mature bucks.
 
Lots of acorns where I hunt last year (middle TN) but the deer werent feeding on them. They were in the fields until the first hard freeze. I think the high tannin from the drought made the acorns less desirable than other food sources.
The exception was where there were oaks near water. Those got hammered early season. My guess is that the acorns were tasty as normal due to the water supply.
 
BSK said:
Numbers of bucks this year is very good. In most locations normal to even above normal, especially mature bucks.
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I sure hope that's the case. I'm seeing few summer bucks but they're pretty good.

Here's what most of my yearlings look like this year. I can't find a single spike in the pics yet. Closest I have is a 3pt.

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