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Same deer?

R

readonly

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Last year, the last week of December, I found the bottom set of sheds in one of my fields. This is very early as I usually don't find sheds until March. I had a number of trail cam photos of the buck, and he did look worn down. I did not get any pics of him this year.

Today my son found the top set of sheds in the exact same location. The anters are very similar, same points, same configuration, same-ish shape to pedicles, but this years are noticeably smaller. Very early to shed.

Same buck, or just a coincidence?

Also, the g3s are the same size or larger than the g2s and that is a fairly unusual trait for this area, haven't had that on any other bucks in the last few years.

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Man they sure are extremely similar! But I don't see them going from bottom set to top set. I say same genes but diff deer

I would suspect they would have been more similar size wise with more mass if he was going downhill

Any ideas on age of the one you have history with?

PS: I'm not super confident in my opinion
 
This was a bad year for us on bucks. I had several sheds of bucks at the end of last year that would be 3 or older this year, but virtually no pics or encounters with 3+ bucks. And the antlers were small across the board. We had early spring drought, a small break in June, then drought through the summer. So that may have impacted antler size.
 
I would say it's same deer. For him to shed that early last year something was wrong. Wether it be injury , sickness, or lack of nutrition something caused him to shed early. Smaller antlers this year could be a carryover of the same pour condition and not completely recovering from it by growing season. I would be more curious about him shedding early this year as well. Seems whatever it is it's a chronic condition. Been a tough year with drought removing high nutrition food sources.
Pure guess or gut feeling on my part though.
 
Different deer. While they are very similar, looking at the right brow, it seems to be turned different. Probably just two different very nice deer with the same genetics.
 
After carefully reviewing photos from this year, I realized that I do have this buck on camera earlier this year. Just a couple of pics from early October. I did see him in person tending a doe at night as I drove up my long driveway at night in early November. No pics or sightings since, I figured him for long dead with the heavy pressure around here. In person he appeared to be a huge bodied fully mature buck with antlers too small for his body. You don't see that in the attached pic. Knowing that the sheds found today are from the buck in this year's pic and not some up and coming young buck, I now feel certain it's the same buck from last years shed. Crazy he would lose that much antler in one year even with drought. But I really have no idea how old he is.
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I'm no expert but I'm going to say different deer . Same genetics though . If he lost that much and it's the same deer doubt he'll make it because something is definitely wrong . The only thing that may make me think it could be the same deer is loosing his antlers early two years in a row .
 
Looks like the same deer to me. He must have something going on whether it's illness or injury or maybe even one of the most dominant bucks in the area and is running himself ragged during the rut
 

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