Bucks - before and after rut

[redblood]

Boy I sure wish they would believe you. I get so tired of this topic where hunters think if everyone passes up everything until it's 5 or 6 years old, we'd have a plethora of 5 and 6 year olds running around.

I had this conversation just the other day with a guy trying to tell me how we should manage an entire area. I could feel my toe nails curling. He wanted to do trophy management but shoot the less desirable bucks at 2 and 3 years old and leave the larger rack bucks to reach 5 to 6 years old. I just simply told him they would be shooting future shooters early and they would not have any mature deer to hunt. I dont think he believed me, I just told him you guys shoot what you want but I'm only shooting 4 year olds and up.

I've hunted a variety of farm locations, I do see what I believe to be a much higher survival rate in ag areas compared to woodland; especially river bottom land

4.5 and up is a great policy. I had tontrain myself thats its the size of the neck not the size of the rack. Now the rack means very little to me. But a huge muscled up neck……its go time

This is so true. When doing photo censuses in ag land, even in areas with little cover and solid harvest pressure, I'll get 7 and 8-year-old bucks on cam. In ridge-and-hollow hardwoods, 7-year-old bucks are almost a figment of the imagination they are so rare. Little hunting pressure, no poaching pressure. They just die. At my place, running photo censuses since 1999, I've gotten a grand total of one 7 1/2 year-old buck. 6 1/2s are pretty darn rare too.

 

[Dumbluck]

Little hunting pressure, no poaching pressure. They just die. At my place, running photo censuses since 1999, I've gotten a grand total of one 7 1/2 year-old buck. 6 1/2s are pretty darn rare too.

Same exact experience in woodland habitat. I've only had one buck since about that time frame until now that was 7 1/2 that I was able to keep track of. He died of old age. In that time frame, I've had and killed quite a few 5 years olds but probably only had 2 or maybe 3, 6 year olds.

I've got buddies that run farms in Texas and they are like "yeah you gotta let them get 6 or older to get real big" I always laugh at them and tell them they have lost their damn mind, our deer mostly die before they get that old.

 

[Dumbluck]

4.5 and up is a great policy. I had tontrain myself thats its the size of the neck not the size of the rack. Now the rack means very little to me. But a huge muscled up neck……its go time

Yeah buddy. It can be hard to pass up a big 3 year old but most of them blow up at 4. It took me a long time to get to that place and then it also took me a while to figure out most of the 4 year olds I kept track of that went into winter surviving the season never made it out to be huntable at 5. I seem to lose a ton of those bucks to EHD.

 

[killingtime 41]

3.5 year old or older is what I will shoot. If it gets my adrenaline pumping then o shoot if it doesn't I don't. I really only hunt public so 3.5 is hard to find sometimes. That's why I don't shoot many bucks. It's what I've come to grips with. Especially those areas same as statewide. Good luck

 

[Ski]

Boy I sure wish they would believe you. I get so tired of this topic where hunters think if everyone passes up everything until it's 5 or 6 years old, we'd have a plethora of 5 and 6 year olds running around.

I had this conversation just the other day with a guy trying to tell me how we should manage an entire area. I could feel my toe nails curling. He wanted to do trophy management but shoot the less desirable bucks at 2 and 3 years old and leave the larger rack bucks to reach 5 to 6 years old. I just simply told him they would be shooting future shooters early and they would not have any mature deer to hunt. I dont think he believed me, I just told him you guys shoot what you want but I'm only shooting 4 year olds and up.

I've tried. Doesn't work. If a property has room for two mature bucks then it doesn't matter how many young bucks you pass up. You'll only ever average 2 mature bucks. In my experience the herd self regulates in terms of buck age structure/dispersion.

Those younger bucks grow up and leave when there no longer is a place for them. More than anything bucks of all ages 2yrs+ come and go but the average age structure throughout the year repeats year after year. Now I have been able to increase carry capacity with habitat work which increases the number of bucks on the property, but it's across all ages so age structure doesn't change.

Point being it's impossible to stack a place with mature bucks. Nature doesn't seem to allow it.

 

[BSK]

I've tried. Doesn't work. If a property has room for two mature bucks then it doesn't matter how many young bucks you pass up. You'll only ever average 2 mature bucks. In my experience the herd self regulates in terms of buck age structure/dispersion.

Those younger bucks grow up and leave when there no longer is a place for them. More than anything bucks of all ages 2yrs+ come and go but the average age structure throughout the year repeats year after year. Now I have been able to increase carry capacity with habitat work which increases the number of bucks on the property, but it's across all ages so age structure doesn't change.

Point being it's impossible to stack a place with mature bucks. Nature doesn't seem to allow it.

Ski, just keep preaching it brother! You're dead on the money, and I have the hardest time explaining this to hunters and getting them to believe it.

I've had the privilege to work with properties large and small. I've had clients with under 100 acres to work with, and then some giant clubs and private properties (14,000 acres being the largest). On the largest properties, have we been able to improve the buck age structure? Yes, dramatically so. But on the size properties most of us have to work with? Not much. I've been able to help average-sized property clients increase the total number of bucks using their place, but like you stated, the age structure pretty much stays the same year after year.

Below are two graphs from my property. The first is the actual buck population, and the second is the buck age structure. In the first graph, it's clear we've been able to produce fairly dramatic changes in buck population over the years through habitat manipulation. Yet the second graph - buck age structure - shows virtually no change over the years. And my place, at just shy of 500-acres, is not a small property.

How big of a property do you need to alter buck age structure? I don't know the answer to that, but it's going to be in the thousands of acres.

 

[BSK]

Yeah buddy. It can be hard to pass up a big 3 year old but most of them blow up at 4. It took me a long time to get to that place and then it also took me a while to figure out most of the 4 year olds I kept track of that went into winter surviving the season never made it out to be huntable at 5. I seem to lose a ton of those bucks to EHD.

Dumluck,

I agree with you. On clients' properties, I see bucks simply explode from 3 to 4 all the time. At 3 they're, "Nice, but..." Then at 4 they're suddenly, "Holy smokes!" However, my place is very different. I suspect it is because my neighbors are all BIG agriculture, but we see the biggest explosion at 3 1/2. We've photo censused and killed some whopper 3 1/2s. Some in the 150s. But these same top-end 3 1/2s don't add anything with age, beyond more mass (but often at the expense of shorter tines).

 

[Ski]

Ski, just keep preaching it brother! You're dead on the money, and I have the hardest time explaining this to hunters and getting them to believe it.

I've had the privilege to work with properties large and small. I've had clients with under 100 acres to work with, and then some giant clubs and private properties (14,000 acres being the largest). On the largest properties, have we been able to improve the buck age structure? Yes, dramatically so. But on the size properties most of us have to work with? Not much. I've been able to help average-sized property clients increase the total number of bucks using their place, but like you stated, the age structure pretty much stays the same year after year.

Below are two graphs from my property. The first is the actual buck population, and the second is the buck age structure. In the first graph, it's clear we've been able to produce fairly dramatic changes in buck population over the years through habitat manipulation. Yet the second graph - buck age structure - shows virtually no change over the years. And my place, at just shy of 500-acres, is not a small property.

How big of a property do you need to alter buck age structure? I don't know the answer to that, but it's going to be in the thousands of acres.

Wow those graphs are telling! Nice work.

 

[BSK]

If smaller-acreage landowners/managers think that fact is distressing - that they cannot have a major impact on buck age structure - just remember how percentages work. If you can hold 10% of the buck population as mature, and you have 10 bucks, that's one mature buck. Now increase the buck population to 20 total bucks with 10% mature. Now you have two mature bucks. So, although buck age structure is very difficult to improve on smaller properties, dramatically increasing the carrying capacity and attractiveness of the property can dramatically increase the number of older age-class bucks you have using the property.

And to be honest, few hunters actually care about the buck age structure. What they care about is how many "target" bucks are using the property. By increasing the population, you can increase the number of target bucks. My family members that hunt our property don't give a rip about buck age structure data. They only care about how many harvestable bucks are out there. And we've been able to change that from 14-17 in the past, to now 20-26. THAT they care about!

 

[megalomaniac]

I've tried. Doesn't work. If a property has room for two mature bucks then it doesn't matter how many young bucks you pass up. You'll only ever average 2 mature bucks. In my experience the herd self regulates in terms of buck age structure/dispersion.

Those younger bucks grow up and leave when there no longer is a place for them. More than anything bucks of all ages 2yrs+ come and go but the average age structure throughout the year repeats year after year. Now I have been able to increase carry capacity with habitat work which increases the number of bucks on the property, but it's across all ages so age structure doesn't change.

Point being it's impossible to stack a place with mature bucks. Nature doesn't seem to allow it.

There is a work around....

Kill the mature buck early. Years we do that, we almost always have another mature buck move in and stay within a couple weeks.

3 years ago we ended up killing the bully 5.5yo early (he took over the area about a month prior to ML and ran off all the older bucks) another 4.5yo cull opening 1st week of rifle that had just shifted on and we had no pics of yet, then another 4.5yo last week of December (again, who had just shifted in and we had no pics of).

All 3 out of the same stand.