Let him go so he can grow…

Howboutthemdawgs

5 year old buck +
I thought that was super cool and maybe the exception to the rule but maybe not…
Got this deer when I first bought my place 2 years ago. Only noticed him because his main beams were “flattened” at the end. Pretty distinct. I assumed him to be 2.5 when we I first got him, then last year he showed back and put on some inches but nothing that warranted hunting, maybe 120-125. Well my neighbor text me last week and said I just got this deer…I instantly recognized him and wow. What a jump. Love seeing deer blow up like this and validate decisions to let them put on age


2.5 on right
CA3D3904-4FA3-47E3-AF74-86398D36D729.jpeg

915E46E7-5263-42B9-8E8B-3FB8C1D53514.jpeg
A883A3A7-BF16-4D75-9AA7-C8D3E660C27B.jpeg
 
No denying he's the same deer and he did become really impressive! He was sure nothing to write home about as a 3.5 yr old.
 
No denying he's the same deer and he did become really impressive! He was sure nothing to write home about as a 3.5 yr old.
Exactly! But stresses Dawg's point about letting them go. Seems like most deer around here don't make quite these jumps, but that 3.5 to 4.5 is when they do jump if they do.
 
Here's the best example, having lots of history, I can share. Some of you may remember me showing him in the past years. Oddly (since our farm lacks good bedding) I think our place was the center of his core area for his entire life. He also made his most impressive jump from 3.5 to 4.5

Here he is as a likely 2.5 year old, but I could never bring myself to rule out him as a yearling this year:

Crab.JPGCrab (1).jpg

Here he is the following year as a likely 3.5. Passed him up multiple times. We found and scored his sheds at 143" if I recall correctly:

20181117_211350.jpg20181009_122722.jpg

Here was his big jump year as a 4.5 yr old. I passed him up because I underestimated his score in the 160s. We found his sheds and I grossed them at 185" IIRC:

20191004_103148.jpg20191129_163346.jpg

As a 5 year old he probably put on enough inches to flirt with 200". I had him at 30-35 yards as he was locked with a doe for several hours in some brush. Sat from dark til dark but they just disappeared. Neighbor across the fence got him a week later. I think a lot of big bucks top out at 130-150", but this guy was my best example. I don't think we see 7 or 8 year old bucks, so not really sure how to comment on that age class.

20201031_072720.jpg20201018_141704.jpg
 
Here's the best example, having lots of history, I can share. Some of you may remember me showing him in the past years. Oddly (since our farm lacks good bedding) I think our place was the center of his core area for his entire life. He also made his most impressive jump from 3.5 to 4.5

Here he is as a likely 2.5 year old, but I could never bring myself to rule out him as a yearling this year:

View attachment 37967View attachment 37968

Here he is the following year as a likely 3.5. Passed him up multiple times. We found and scored his sheds at 143" if I recall correctly:

View attachment 37969View attachment 37970

Here was his big jump year as a 4.5 yr old. I passed him up because I underestimated his score in the 160s. We found his sheds and I grossed them at 185" IIRC:

View attachment 37971View attachment 37972

As a 5 year old he probably put on enough inches to flirt with 200". I had him at 30-35 yards as he was locked with a doe for several hours in some brush. Sat from dark til dark but they just disappeared. Neighbor across the fence got him a week later. I think a lot of big bucks top out at 130-150", but this guy was my best example. I don't think we see 7 or 8 year old bucks, so not really sure how to comment on that age class.

View attachment 37973View attachment 37974
Good lord!! That is so cool to have history with these deer for a lot of reasons but the biggest to me is seeing the results of management.
 
When antler size is the objective, nutrition and genetics do play a role, but for most folks the biggest limiting factor is age. The problem for most guys is scale. Unless you have a very large property or are in a lightly hunted area, guys struggle not shooting a decent buck because if they don't they know the next guy will. When you have lots of scale and there is little chance of the decent buck being shot, it is a lot easier to resist temptation and let 'em walk. :emoji_relaxed:
 
When antler size is the objective, nutrition and genetics do play a role, but for most folks the biggest limiting factor is age. The problem for most guys is scale. Unless you have a very large property or are in a lightly hunted area, guys struggle not shooting a decent buck because if they don't they know the next guy will. When you have lots of scale and there is little chance of the decent buck being shot, it is a lot easier to resist temptation and let 'em walk. :emoji_relaxed:


This my problem, in my area we have 1 large land owner (750+acres), he is also the only one that has farm land in a couple square miles, the rest of the land is big woods. The rest of the land owners are between 5-80 acres. As you would guess the large land owner usually has his hunting pole filled with the largest bucks in the area. Bucks I may only get 1 picture a year on my land, and it is usually at night, during the end of October. I have several forks, spikes, and some years a basket rack that will come through during the day time. Rarely during gun hunting. I have told my son he can shoot what ever he would like, so in the years, he has shot a couple of them basket racks. I tell you, that is one way to piss off the large land owner. I had gotten into it with him more then once. He thinks let them go so they can grow, and his hunting party can shoot bigger deer. I have owned my land for close to 20 years, and during the rifle hunt, I have only seen 1 good buck that he would be ok with me shooting, and it walked through a small opening and I never got a shot. Over that span of almost 20 years, I have only shot 2 bucks, 1 basket 6, and a fork I thought was a doe. My son has shot 3 bucks in 10 years, 2 were basket racks, and 1 spike. This large land owner just talks shit about me to the other land owners, because "we shoot all the small buck" well the few we have taken were the bigger bucks that come onto my land.

Now my land is decent land, and is between this land owner, and a large track of state land, and I do get a lot of deer traveling through my land, and I have many regulars, but once they get big, they hang out near the bean, and corn fields and get shot by the large land owner. This large land owner also has a fairly large hunting party, with lots of kids, so during the youth season, his kids take out several of these basket racks, and also during the rifle season they end up getting a few as well.

Luckily I am not a rack hunter, I would love for my son to get a big one, but me personally, I have been fortunate to have really good hunting land until about 20 years ago, and I have taken my fair share of big deer, so it isnt that important to me anymore. I am content with some tasty meat in my freezer from does. For me, having meat in my freezer is the reason I hunt, so I personally pass on these basket racks, knowing all I am doing is letting the large land owner shoot another big buck in a year or 2.
 
This my problem, in my area we have 1 large land owner (750+acres), he is also the only one that has farm land in a couple square miles, the rest of the land is big woods. The rest of the land owners are between 5-80 acres. As you would guess the large land owner usually has his hunting pole filled with the largest bucks in the area. Bucks I may only get 1 picture a year on my land, and it is usually at night, during the end of October. I have several forks, spikes, and some years a basket rack that will come through during the day time. Rarely during gun hunting. I have told my son he can shoot what ever he would like, so in the years, he has shot a couple of them basket racks. I tell you, that is one way to piss off the large land owner. I had gotten into it with him more then once. He thinks let them go so they can grow, and his hunting party can shoot bigger deer. I have owned my land for close to 20 years, and during the rifle hunt, I have only seen 1 good buck that he would be ok with me shooting, and it walked through a small opening and I never got a shot. Over that span of almost 20 years, I have only shot 2 bucks, 1 basket 6, and a fork I thought was a doe. My son has shot 3 bucks in 10 years, 2 were basket racks, and 1 spike. This large land owner just talks shit about me to the other land owners, because "we shoot all the small buck" well the few we have taken were the bigger bucks that come onto my land.

Now my land is decent land, and is between this land owner, and a large track of state land, and I do get a lot of deer traveling through my land, and I have many regulars, but once they get big, they hang out near the bean, and corn fields and get shot by the large land owner. This large land owner also has a fairly large hunting party, with lots of kids, so during the youth season, his kids take out several of these basket racks, and also during the rifle season they end up getting a few as well.

Luckily I am not a rack hunter, I would love for my son to get a big one, but me personally, I have been fortunate to have really good hunting land until about 20 years ago, and I have taken my fair share of big deer, so it isnt that important to me anymore. I am content with some tasty meat in my freezer from does. For me, having meat in my freezer is the reason I hunt, so I personally pass on these basket racks, knowing all I am doing is letting the large land owner shoot another big buck in a year or 2.
One of my neighbors has 1600 acres with a couple hundred acres of crops. Sure they get way more mature deer than me and that’s totally fine and understandable. I would much rather have a large landowner than 40/40 acre tracts with 40 guys hunting those tracts all looking to fill that buck tag. Large landholdings are a huge cog in growing mature deer. Unfortunately they are getting rarer every single day with greed ruling the market by subdividing everything. Be thankful you have that neighbor and what he is providing your herd. It could be a lot worse.
 
As Jack says, age, genetics and nutrition - and at least in my area - you need them all -to make a really quality buck. Right now, I have six mature deer (4.5 or older) on my place. One would score right around 155 - which is a rare deer for our area, one at 140, a couple at 135, one at 100, and one at 75 - maybe. Yes, our deer have to have age - but to be really quality deer, just having age isnt enough. Most of our bucks probably top out at 5.5 and about 125 to 135. To make 150 plus - they are a true freak - they have to have age and genetics - I am assuming it is genetics, because all the bucks have the same food availability, but it is a rare mature buck that ever hits 150 in my area - and not because some arent living that long. I live in pine country - which typically means the dirt wont grow ag crops.

We hunt the 100” mature bucks as hard as we hunt the 150” mature bucks. There arent enough 150” deer to go around, so we like to utilize those 100” mature bucks to help fill the freezer. Our fawn recruitment is so poor that we shoot very few does.
 
One of my neighbors has 1600 acres with a couple hundred acres of crops. Sure they get way more mature deer than me and that’s totally fine and understandable. I would much rather have a large landowner than 40/40 acre tracts with 40 guys hunting those tracts all looking to fill that buck tag. Large landholdings are a huge cog in growing mature deer. Unfortunately they are getting rarer every single day with greed ruling the market by subdividing everything. Be thankful you have that neighbor and what he is providing your herd. It could be a lot worse.


I am in a mix of what you are talking about. There is a bunch of 5-40 acre parcels along the road I am on. I have no problem with him shooting the deer he shoots, he is the one that has the problem with me shooting the deer I shoot. Like I said, if I was to hold myself and my son to the standards he expects of me, I would never have shot a buck off my land in 19 years, and would have only seen 1 that was a shooter in his eyes. And yet I would guarantee if I would have shot that one, he would have complained I shot that buck.
 
I have large track (+700 acres) two farms over from me. I'm pretty sure when I see an older buck on camera (usually at night) that, that is where they are coming from. I believe they must put on drives the last day of our rifle season because over the years we've seen some pretty nice buck come running through on the last day. Unfortunately now my nonhunting neighbor timbered the property in between us so I'm worried that they might just hole up in there and never make it over.

Edit: I try to be as picky as I can be. In my area a 3 yr old (100-140") is a good buck. We've seen some I believe to be older than that but they're typically at night. I have brown is down hunters on the farm to my north but as far as I know they're only rifle hunters and not big on effort. Most of the time they drive a car down to the field edge and sit in it. They've been there forever and have yet to figure out that the best spot on their property is right across from me and in five years I've seen one guy sit there for no more than an hour. The best part of that was while he was sitting there I was watching a 130" buck lay on their property just out of his sight. He got up and left and a few hours later the buck got up and walked up on my property where I properly missed it.
 
Last edited:
Where i'm at everyone around me has the brown and down mentality. Once in a great while you might get a glimpse of a big buck.
 
I've graduated from inches of antlers to trying to kill for age. a 5 year old is a trophy. 2 years ago we killed a 119" 5 year old. Last year it was a 139" 6 year old and a 149" 5 year old off our piece. This year we have a 6 and a 5 year old to chase. That's about all we can ask for. Some day that 5 yaer old will be 170+, but until then, enjoy the ride and kill a bunch of does.
 
As Jack says, age, genetics and nutrition - and at least in my area - you need them all -to make a really quality buck. Right now, I have six mature deer (4.5 or older) on my place. One would score right around 155 - which is a rare deer for our area, one at 140, a couple at 135, one at 100, and one at 75 - maybe. Yes, our deer have to have age - but to be really quality deer, just having age isnt enough. Most of our bucks probably top out at 5.5 and about 125 to 135. To make 150 plus - they are a true freak - they have to have age and genetics - I am assuming it is genetics, because all the bucks have the same food availability, but it is a rare mature buck that ever hits 150 in my area - and not because some arent living that long. I live in pine country - which typically means the dirt wont grow ag crops.

We hunt the 100” mature bucks as hard as we hunt the 150” mature bucks. There arent enough 150” deer to go around, so we like to utilize those 100” mature bucks to help fill the freezer. Our fawn recruitment is so poor that we shoot very few does.
Bingo! This demonstrates how the dirt becomes the limiting factor. Deer range quite far and further in poor habitat. So, regardless of our food plots, most of their diet will be native foods which are limited by the soil fertility. We can improve fertility over a few acres of food plots but not over thousands of acres. We will always have deer with larger racks in areas of high fertility than in areas like mine with marginal soils.
 
I've graduated from inches of antlers to trying to kill for age. a 5 year old is a trophy. 2 years ago we killed a 119" 5 year old. Last year it was a 139" 6 year old and a 149" 5 year old off our piece. This year we have a 6 and a 5 year old to chase. That's about all we can ask for. Some day that 5 yaer old will be 170+, but until then, enjoy the ride and kill a bunch of does.
Me too! Age is really the trophy. Especially with archery hunting, fooling the senses of a mature buck demonstrates great skill. I'll still do a shoulder mount of a nice buck for my area, but I now include the jawbone. I have the taxidermist pull it for me and I dry it and put some shellac on it and then build a little tray on the mounting board for it. I have an older buck I shot with a bow and a much larger antlered deer I shot with a muzzleloader. I feel a much greater sense of accomplishment for harvesting the deer with the smaller rack!

Thanks,

Jack
 
I am in a mix of what you are talking about. There is a bunch of 5-40 acre parcels along the road I am on. I have no problem with him shooting the deer he shoots, he is the one that has the problem with me shooting the deer I shoot. Like I said, if I was to hold myself and my son to the standards he expects of me, I would never have shot a buck off my land in 19 years, and would have only seen 1 that was a shooter in his eyes. And yet I would guarantee if I would have shot that one, he would have complained I shot that buck.
At the end of the day it’s going to be hard to ever expect consistent mature bucks on smaller properties so your story isn’t necessarily surprising. With that said he is definitely doing the neighborhood a service but growing bigger deer on what he controls. I can understand his frustration BUT I can also understand where you are coming from. Realistic expectations go a long way in this game. The good news if mature deer were ever a desire he has created a good foundation in the neighborhood to work with and with some habitat manipulation you may be able to attract some of those deer to spend more time on you. As that series of pics illustrates, they are never going to amount to much without some age.
 
Bingo! This demonstrates how the dirt becomes the limiting factor. Deer range quite far and further in poor habitat. So, regardless of our food plots, most of their diet will be native foods which are limited by the soil fertility. We can improve fertility over a few acres of food plots but not over thousands of acres. We will always have deer with larger racks in areas of high fertility than in areas like mine with marginal soils.
Craig Harper disagrees…but what does he know!
 
I heard a MeatEater podcast on deer and how there seems to be a genetic switch that does can flip when they go from well nourished to "survival" mode. This gene tells the fawns to either put all their energy into body mass and health or tells the fawns "there is enough food to sustain your body, go ahead and put on antlers".

They took deer from different areas of the country known for differing body sizes and within 2-3 generations there was no difference between say a small bodied virginian or Georgian deer and a Midwest corn fed deer. It was interesting.

I think our farm is starting to turn that corner and run the snowball downhill. Better forage, better food, lower stress, etc

Its not accident that the tv hunters with tons of acreage always have a bunch of deer 160+ to hunt. It's their job to up the quality of life for those deer.
 
IMG_7065.PNG
 

Attachments

  • IMG_7066.PNG
    IMG_7066.PNG
    1.5 MB · Views: 27
  • IMG_7068.PNG
    IMG_7068.PNG
    1.2 MB · Views: 25
  • IMG_7069.PNG
    IMG_7069.PNG
    3.7 MB · Views: 24
  • IMG_7070.PNG
    IMG_7070.PNG
    1 MB · Views: 24
  • IMG_7074.PNG
    IMG_7074.PNG
    1.3 MB · Views: 23
  • IMG_7076.PNG
    IMG_7076.PNG
    1.2 MB · Views: 23
  • IMG_7077.PNG
    IMG_7077.PNG
    1.2 MB · Views: 32
  • IMG_7062.jpg
    IMG_7062.jpg
    429.8 KB · Views: 33
  • IMG_7061.jpg
    IMG_7061.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 33
This my problem, in my area we have 1 large land owner (750+acres), he is also the only one that has farm land in a couple square miles, the rest of the land is big woods. The rest of the land owners are between 5-80 acres. As you would guess the large land owner usually has his hunting pole filled with the largest bucks in the area. Bucks I may only get 1 picture a year on my land, and it is usually at night, during the end of October. I have several forks, spikes, and some years a basket rack that will come through during the day time. Rarely during gun hunting. I have told my son he can shoot what ever he would like, so in the years, he has shot a couple of them basket racks. I tell you, that is one way to piss off the large land owner. I had gotten into it with him more then once. He thinks let them go so they can grow, and his hunting party can shoot bigger deer. I have owned my land for close to 20 years, and during the rifle hunt, I have only seen 1 good buck that he would be ok with me shooting, and it walked through a small opening and I never got a shot. Over that span of almost 20 years, I have only shot 2 bucks, 1 basket 6, and a fork I thought was a doe. My son has shot 3 bucks in 10 years, 2 were basket racks, and 1 spike. This large land owner just talks shit about me to the other land owners, because "we shoot all the small buck" well the few we have taken were the bigger bucks that come onto my land.

Now my land is decent land, and is between this land owner, and a large track of state land, and I do get a lot of deer traveling through my land, and I have many regulars, but once they get big, they hang out near the bean, and corn fields and get shot by the large land owner. This large land owner also has a fairly large hunting party, with lots of kids, so during the youth season, his kids take out several of these basket racks, and also during the rifle season they end up getting a few as well.

Luckily I am not a rack hunter, I would love for my son to get a big one, but me personally, I have been fortunate to have really good hunting land until about 20 years ago, and I have taken my fair share of big deer, so it isnt that important to me anymore. I am content with some tasty meat in my freezer from does. For me, having meat in my freezer is the reason I hunt, so I personally pass on these basket racks, knowing all I am doing is letting the large land owner shoot another big buck in a year or 2.
I would stop sharing information with any of the neighbors of the deer we're harvesting. It seems to me this would be a way of ending the aggravation for everyone.
 
Top