Is age the ticket?

[Tree Spud]

Spud, it was my 308. I just posted the story in this thread.

Native ... I have a Ruger M77 Hawkeye .308. It is a short barrel and I am amazed at it's accuracy over all my other rifles. I shoot 165 g and have had great success with this rifle.

Congrats to you and your son on great rifle kills. We are still 5 days away from gun powder season ... have been stuck with primitive gear for last 9 weeks ... congrats on a beautiful buck!

 

[Native Hunter]

Native ... I have a Ruger M77 Hawkeye .308. It is a short barrel and I am amazed at it's accuracy over all my other rifles. I shoot 165 g and have had great success with this rifle.

Congrats to you and your son on great rifle kills. We are still 5 days away from gun powder season ... have been stuck with primitive gear for last 9 weeks ... congrats on a beautiful buck!

Thanks so much and congrats to you on that fine bow deer!!

 

[Baker]

Thanks so much everyone. It feels good to get the one I was after. I will post some more pics and put the story in my habitat thread, but here is a quick synopsis of the hunt.

Up until today I had been hunting with my new muzzleloader, but the forecast was for rain all day long, so I felt it might be safer to take the 308 Tikka. Also, because of the heavy rain forecast, I thought the box blind would be a good dry choice.

The morning was kind of uneventful. I saw two young bucks chasing does though the NWSGs, and a decent 8 point came out in one of my plots at around 10:15 AM. I saw other does moving around some, and the rain just kept coming. I generally come out midday and take a break, but with the rain pouring down, I decided to just put in the day. I would have soaked everything walking back and forth to the truck. I caught a nap from about 11:30 to 1:30 and started watching again.

Sometime around 3:00 I got a text from my son, who told me that he was on the way to join me for the evening and help me watch. By that time the rain had become a light mist. We were both glassing the fields, and sometime about an hour before dark, I glanced down toward the low food plot and saw a deer walking the edge broadside to me about 110 yards away. The tops of the tall NWSGs were partially hiding the deer, but I could see it was the one I was after. I could get the scope on him easy, but was afraid to pull the trigger, because I would be shooting through quite a bit of grass. You never know what that could do to a bullet or trajectory path, so I let him keep walking.

I just kept the crosshairs on his chest the best I could as he walked along, and finally he walked past a spot where a patch of big bluestem had partially fallen down and I had about a 2 foot clear opening to get the shot off as he moved through. When the bullet hit, he spun just a little and ran forward and stopped for a few seconds. Once again, the grass was blocking a follow up shot. Then he turned and just disappeared into the field. We were both watching him and could see the tops of the antlers bounce above the grass occasionally. Then we just couldn't see anything.

I told my son to keep watching from the blind while I walked the grass. I went through 2 passes and found nothing. Finally my son joined me, and on the next pass he found the deer right at the point that we thought he may have fallen. On the first two passes I had probably walked within 10 feet of him each time, but they are so hard to see in a grass jungle like we have.

The 150 grain Hornady SST did an incredible job. The lungs were blown completely out, and the exit hole was massive. I don't know how he did it, but even with a hit like that the deer probably ran 65 yards.

Needless to say, I am so very happy. Tomorrow I will get some better pics. Thanks everyone for the support, and its great to share my story with such a bunch of awesome deer hunters.

Fantastic , body looks giant. Will look forward to more pics.

 

[Baker]

Baker ... you are telling us that is a "free range" deer ?


So you have a controlled operation?

How can you measure results and have that great of a quantitative set of data based on supplemental feeding if the deer are free range?

Yes free range.Handsome isn't he...I sure hope he is still alive. As I have said many times I have both free range and high fenced pastures.I have no idea what a controlled operation is. Someone will have to define that for me. What we have is a well managed large ranch. AS I said above much of our observation is anecdotal . We are able to measure results because our scale is large enough to manage a fairly large herd and we know what we had when we started in 1996 and know where we are now. Is that a 'great set of quantitative data'? Perhaps not scientific but certainly real world.

 

[Booner21]

I own 58 acres and have had a fair amount of success passing deer at younger ages and seeing them later on. In 8 years of owning the property I have had at least 5 deer that I have passed at 3.5 and am pretty sure that I have had killed had an opportunity at or seen again a year older. On a small property I am satisfied with those results and will continue to pass younger deer.

My neighbors tend to kill a fair number of little bucks but that doesn't really weigh in on my decision 3.5 don't really get my heart pumping.

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[S.T.Fanatic]

Late to the game here and don't feel like reading all of the posts. Im 37 years old and you are going to think I'm the dumbest person on earth (or the worst hunter) I have not shot a buck since I was 16 years old and I have never missed a season. I will admit that I am a trophy hunter. With that said I shoot at least one doe every year to feed my family of six. I just don't place that much importance on shooting an antlered deer unless it is a "wall hanger". My personal experience with passing up bucks has been not worth it (for me) I have never had an opportunity to shoot a buck that I passed up at a younger age (1.5-3.5) and I pass up many every year. I do get trail camera pictures of those deer as they put on age but I haven't had the opportunity to harvest on of them. Family and neighbors have shot enough of the bucks over the years that I have passed up and I can say that when they harvested them there is only one that I would have shot. (6.5 y/o)

Our deer numbers are up from the past several years but I still don't have that many deer to try to harvest. (trophy animals) I am after two different bucks. Both of which I have past history with. I haven't seen either of them in three years but they are still around. (trail cam pics) I understand that the odds of me shooting either one of these bucks is low and as much as I would like to I am perfectly ok with not filling my tag with a buck.

I don't look down on others for there legal harvest. For me I'm not shooting a buck unless it is going on the wall. I will continue to love hunting, plotting, habitat work, and shooting does until the time comes that I connect on that "wall hanger"

 

[Nova]

Age is by far the number one goal at our camp. Sure we all want to shoot a nice buck, but over the last 8-10 years I have been consumed with age and older bucks. It's actually become an epidemic at our camp. The 8.5 year old buck that my son shot last year, that I had chased for 4 years only made all of us stronger in our feeling that age is the #1 goal. I shot a decent buck this year, he won't score much, but he was old. I also passed on a couple 3 year olds that would have score much higher. I have zero regret in passing on them.

 

[Baker]

Not all old bucks are booners but that doesn't mean they won't make someone happy. At least an 8 yr old as we have been after him for 3- 4 yrs. Check out the smile on this cutie. I thought her cajun dad was going to come unwound

 

[Catscratch]

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's views and philosophies on this.
I'm going to throw this question out to you guys; This buck walks under you. It's the first time you've seen him and you have no data or trailcam pics of him (even though you do run cameras, he appears to be a random rut buck on the roam). You don't know his age.... do you draw your bow or let him walk? (I guess the way I presented this it's mainly for the guys who hunt old bucks, but anyone can give imput.)

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[Catscratch]

Not all old bucks are booners but that doesn't mean they won't make someone happy. At least an 8 yr old as we have been after him for 3- 4 yrs. Check out the smile on this cutie. I thought her cajun dad was going to come unwound

View attachment 21545

What a great pic! Nothing better than a happy kid, good job!

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[Mortenson]

Cat, if that deer showed up and he wowed me enough to think I'd mount him, I'd shoot him. For me, he looks borderline. Where I'm at in my deer hunting maturity, I'm looking to shoot wall hangers only. Here's my caveat - if I knew he was only 3, I'd pass. But you said not knowing the age. So then it comes down to a quick decision, mounter or no?!

In the several years I've been reading these habitat forums, I'm graduating into a territory where I see the awesomeness in shooting bruiser old mature bucks even if they may not make the wall hanger status. I guess this is where I'm conflicted. I have a lower scoring 5x4 this year that is our dominant, home-body buck. I want him out of the herd (I guess that's improper thinking based on who you talk to). But, he still has a rack that looks pleasing to me. I'd probably use a tag on him. If he had an ugly little 95" rack, I'd pass. Does that mean I'm not quite there yet?

I need to edit. I made it sound like I only head hunt. I actually mostly meat hunt. I just love eating does more than old bucks. I've only tagged 1 buck in the past 8 years (wounded 1 also in that time). This year I fully expect to shoot 2 does and no bucks. Just wanted to clarify.

 

[WTNUT]

I am not sure as to Cat’s questions. I read the first page of responses and still am not sure what they are so I will just offer the following.

Age and Nutrition go hand in hand in my opinion. It is extraordinarily rare, if not impossible, to reach a wild buck’s full genetic potential by having one and not the other. If you have enough ground personally or via a group of adjoining landowners you can control age perhaps better than nutrition. I am at my main farm now. I am sitting in the center of about 2,100 acres. 80 percent give or take is woods and cover. We have tons of 5.5 year old bucks running around this year. More than ever. My best friend saw one this morning that I know is 9.5 years old. I honestly thought he was dead. Due to good cover, a lot of acreage and very conservative harvest goals we have lots of old bucks. That is the good, the bad to follow.

As for nutrition, what you did last year is more important than what you did this year in the Midwest. How healthy was that buck when he came out of winter this year? That is the key here. If you follow my posts you may recall that in 2016 and 2017 I really cut back on the amount of corn and beans we planted. Last year we planted none.

I have more 5.5 year old bucks this year than ever, no doubt. I have been and corn this year, more than ever. BUT, I don’t have as many really high scoring racks this year as normal. It has to be due to nutrition the last couple years. The genetics sure didn’t change and the age structure is better than ever.

The bad is I have a lot of crappy 5.5, 6.5, 7.5 year old bucks. Crappy not because of nutrition in my opinion. They are bucks that had weird shaped racks their entire life. The real bad is no one told them they have crappy racks and I would like them shot by guests. They are still very mature bucks and very smart and no hunter will lay eyes on probably 70% of them. So they are breeding and spreading this genetics.

In my opinion age and nutrition will never change poor genetics. I am one of the few that does believe you can “help” genetics and I believe we have at our farm. I also believe that the smallest percentage of hunters managers know what to look for to cull bucks. For us, it was generally easy. We had two flaws both were easy to recognize. We use to have a lot of 9 points. We shot a lot of 9’s early on and shot them as 3.5 year olds. It helped. The other was short tine length. We had some early on that had short tines. We shot them or as many as we could legally shoot at 3.5 year olds and it did help.

As for 200 inch 3.5 year olds we will NEVER have that we don’t have those genetics and I don’t know of any place that does, but I am sure there are some. For me, we manage to shoot only 5.5 year old and older bucks and that is what works for us. But, I agree you need to manage for what ever it is that floats your boat or your groups. For me it is old bucks. I saw a 170 inch buck and had a 180 class buck at 26 yards from the stand yesterday. I would have shot the 180 class if he had taken two more steps and given me a clean shot. HOWEVER, I have 5 or 6 monster bucks that probably approach 300 pounds on the hoof (large for us) and none of them have over a 145 inch rack. For me I would prefer to shoot them than the 180 class from last night because they are a year or two older and are bigger bodied bucks. That is what floats my boat “this year”. Next year it could change. I normally pick a single buck and only hunt him, but this year I have not done that.

Yes, I have a very good friend that has a captive herd for his shooting preserve and he raises a 200 inch two year old nearly every year. Not all 2 year olds get that large. But, when you remove the stress, feed them the highest nutrition like cattle in a feed lot, you can grow some big ones. That does not float my boat but it does for some. There is not comparison to those deer and wild deer.

I will end with this. If you have enough acreage and a group of hunters that agree to not kill young deer (for us anything less than 5.5 year olds). You can certainly create a deer factory that consistently puts out bucks that were once thought uncommon for your area. For some that might be 170 to 200 inch bucks, and for others it may be 140 to 170 inch bucks. But, as I tell everyone that comes to one of my farms, “growing them is the easy part, killing them is a whole different ball game”. My farms are literally like parks. You are just as likely to see a 170 inch buck at noon as you are an hour after daylight. They move and eat when they want due to minimal hunting pressure. NEVERTHELESS, If you go in to hunt a stand on a good buck that has been caught on camera in that area with some consistency you better kill him the first time you go into his core area which is about 80 acres on my farm. After that first hunt, you are probably not going to kill him no matter how much the farm is like a park.


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[Baker]

Age with inadequate nutrition is a compromise
nutrition without age is a compromise
Genetic potential will fluctuate to the quality of the environment over time.
Hunters/managers goals and definition of success are evolutionary with time and experience

 

[TreeDaddy]

Not all old bucks are booners but that doesn't mean they won't make someone happy. At least an 8 yr old as we have been after him for 3- 4 yrs. Check out the smile on this cutie. I thought her cajun dad was going to come unwound

View attachment 21545

Attaboy,Rusty

Nothing better than creating a treasured memory with a child

bill

 

[Catscratch]

I am not sure as to Cat’s questions. I read the first page of responses and still am not sure what they are so I will just offer the following.

Age and Nutrition go hand in hand in my opinion. It is extraordinarily rare, if not impossible, to reach a wild buck’s full genetic potential by having one and not the other. If you have enough ground personally or via a group of adjoining landowners you can control age perhaps better than nutrition. I am at my main farm now. I am sitting in the center of about 2,100 acres. 80 percent give or take is woods and cover. We have tons of 5.5 year old bucks running around this year. More than ever. My best friend saw one this morning that I know is 9.5 years old. I honestly thought he was dead. Due to good cover, a lot of acreage and very conservative harvest goals we have lots of old bucks. That is the good, the bad to follow.

As for nutrition, what you did last year is more important than what you did this year in the Midwest. How healthy was that buck when he came out of winter this year? That is the key here. If you follow my posts you may recall that in 2016 and 2017 I really cut back on the amount of corn and beans we planted. Last year we planted none.

I have more 5.5 year old bucks this year than ever, no doubt. I have been and corn this year, more than ever. BUT, I don’t have as many really high scoring racks this year as normal. It has to be due to nutrition the last couple years. The genetics sure didn’t change and the age structure is better than ever.

The bad is I have a lot of crappy 5.5, 6.5, 7.5 year old bucks. Crappy not because of nutrition in my opinion. They are bucks that had weird shaped racks their entire life. The real bad is no one told them they have crappy racks and I would like them shot by guests. They are still very mature bucks and very smart and no hunter will lay eyes on probably 70% of them. So they are breeding and spreading this genetics.

In my opinion age and nutrition will never change poor genetics. I am one of the few that does believe you can “help” genetics and I believe we have at our farm. I also believe that the smallest percentage of hunters managers know what to look for to cull bucks. For us, it was generally easy. We had two flaws both were easy to recognize. We use to have a lot of 9 points. We shot a lot of 9’s early on and shot them as 3.5 year olds. It helped. The other was short tine length. We had some early on that had short tines. We shot them or as many as we could legally shoot at 3.5 year olds and it did help.

As for 200 inch 3.5 year olds we will NEVER have that we don’t have those genetics and I don’t know of any place that does, but I am sure there are some. For me, we manage to shoot only 5.5 year old and older bucks and that is what works for us. But, I agree you need to manage for what ever it is that floats your boat or your groups. For me it is old bucks. I saw a 170 inch buck and had a 180 class buck at 26 yards from the stand yesterday. I would have shot the 180 class if he had taken two more steps and given me a clean shot. HOWEVER, I have 5 or 6 monster bucks that probably approach 300 pounds on the hoof (large for us) and none of them have over a 145 inch rack. For me I would prefer to shoot them than the 180 class from last night because they are a year or two older and are bigger bodied bucks. That is what floats my boat “this year”. Next year it could change. I normally pick a single buck and only hunt him, but this year I have not done that.

Yes, I have a very good friend that has a captive herd for his shooting preserve and he raises a 200 inch two year old nearly every year. Not all 2 year olds get that large. But, when you remove the stress, feed them the highest nutrition like cattle in a feed lot, you can grow some big ones. That does not float my boat but it does for some. There is not comparison to those deer and wild deer.

I will end with this. If you have enough acreage and a group of hunters that agree to not kill young deer (for us anything less than 5.5 year olds). You can certainly create a deer factory that consistently puts out bucks that were once thought uncommon for your area. For some that might be 170 to 200 inch bucks, and for others it may be 140 to 170 inch bucks. But, as I tell everyone that comes to one of my farms, “growing them is the easy part, killing them is a whole different ball game”. My farms are literally like parks. You are just as likely to see a 170 inch buck at noon as you are an hour after daylight. They move and eat when they want due to minimal hunting pressure. NEVERTHELESS, If you go in to hunt a stand on a good buck that has been caught on camera in that area with some consistency you better kill him the first time you go into his core area which is about 80 acres on my farm. After that first hunt, you are probably not going to kill him no matter how much the farm is like a park.


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My original question; for the guys who are in the situation that they will most likely never see a buck reach 4.5+, is it possible for them to grow young deer with big antlers to achieve other trophy goals? Could they shift their parameters away from something that is highly unlikely for them (old deer) towards something that is more doable (large antlers)? I know young deer "can" grow massive antlers due to what has been done with pen raised deer, can it be done on wild deer?

My take on the situation is that there are two parameters to measure for trophy status; Antler measurements and Age.

Age - Everyone wants to shoot an old deer, and everyone wants to shoot a big deer. Not all old deer are big. I'm a little different than a lot of posters in that age does not constitute a reason to kill a deer for me. When I see a deer that I know is old but does not have large antlers I'm perfectly content to let him walk and live the rest of his life in peace. I feel he has survive this long and has earned the pass. I'm proud to have had "a shot" at a smart old buck but see no need to kill him if I'm not going to be proud of his antlers. To have the hunting skills to outsmart an old monarch is certainly trophy status though.

Large antlers - Self explanatory, but if it looks big to you it's a trophy to you. There are minimum requirements placed on us though; Pope and Young says it has to score at least 125, and B&C says it has to measure 160. These are external sources but they are standards none the less. Nowhere in these clubs's definition of a trophy is age mentioned.

As Baker said there are always going to be compromises in our deer herds. Some of us can QDH towards letting deer get old, while some of us can't realistically make that happen due to external situations. Some of us can provide decent nutrition, but without a fence and a well thought out program nutrition IS going to be less than optimal. The point is that none of our deer are going to reach maximum potential. It can't be done on a wild herd. None of the deer harvested by anyone here has reached it's absolute potential. They may have reached their potential for what's available, but not absolute potential. I believe these to be facts. There will always be limiting factors in nature. For a person who is highly unlikely to control age is it advantageous or possible to shift focus highly to nutrition so that age doesn't matter that much (for large antlers)?

Once again, I don't feel that I've expressed myself well and it doesn't really matter. I've enjoyed reading the responses and value everyone's input. I think it's cool that we have such a variety of philosophies on here. WTNUT - your place sounds awesome and congrats on the work you've done. The level of structure and work towards reaching your goals is impressive. S.T.Fanatic - what an impressive amount of discipline! I shoot a deer every couple of yrs just to get it out of my system as I wait for the 200+ goal I have. I don't have the discipline to go on a 20 year streak while waiting on him. Kudos to you for that.

 

[MN Slick]

Does anyone know what percentage of bucks in the midwest have the genetics to be over 150"? For most of the midwest nutrition is a given so if they get to 5 years old how many actually are over 150? My guess is less than 50%. And in areas with even moderate hunting pressure those that have the potential to be over 150 sure look big at 3.5 so they often get thumped before they get to 4 or 5 years old. I started with four 5 year olds on one farm this year and only one would have gone over 150 which my brother shot and grossed 151. Genetics are solid on this farm but this year the older guys just aren't sporting big cages. From a managerial standpoint we probably should have taken them out last year to make room, and could have on 3 of the 4, but we were holding out for a bigger 6 year old last year.

A not so funny story. Last week my neighbor texted me a pic of what looked like a gifted 2 year old eight pointer and told me not to shoot it, "let's let this one grow". Knowing his itchy trigger finger I told him it's not my brother and I you need to worry about. The very next day he texts me a pic with his buddy sitting behind the same buck he told me not to shoot. What the hell! Last year his step dad killed a 2 year old with 11 points and he killed a 2 year old on opening day of gun. Don't get me wrong, it's fine if that's what they want to shoot, just don't talk to me about managing for older age class unless you're going to walk the walk.

 

[WTNUT]

Catscratch,

I understand better now, all on me not you. I do not think you can consistently overcome the lack of age with better nutrition. I just don’t think “large antlers” when compared to what is considered “large” in a given area can be achieved with better nutrition - consistently. Sure, every once in a while you may have a buck that is genetically inclined to grow quicker and more nutrition. It happens. We had one about 4 years ago that was a freak as a 3.5 year old by our standards. The bad news is someone did exactly what you described. They shot him as a 3.5 year old and the genetics were never spread as I would have hoped.

There have been some articles written by biologist far more in tune than I about “high grading”. When you are only harvesting the best and biggest bucks, the sooner you do that the longer your inferior bucks have to run around and breed. I do think over an extended period you “hurt” the genetics by doing that.

But, back to your point, if anyone is hunting an area where a co-op can not be achieved and your acreage is too small to do it on your own, then I really don’t think shooting that extraordinary 3.5 year old is going to have any impact on those properties. Too many bucks and does are probably going to get shot at a young age. In that situation what you have there is going to likely stay there in terms of genetics. So adding nutrition is about all you can do and hope you get “him” before the neighbor. But, again in my opinion nutrition alone no matter how great it is will not on it’s own replace age in a wild herd.

In my situation, I know my bucks don’t stay on me all the time. I don’t want them to and I don’t care if they do. I have often said the Power Ball and Mega Lottery or whatever they are called are for the mathematically challenged. Yes, someone has to win, but when you buy that ticket believing you will win the odds are against you more so than many appreciate. When you have a lot of acreage in a co-op or otherwise, those bucks are going to wander off you from time to time, BUT the chances of them wandering off and getting shot are reduced significantly and in direct correlation to the total acreage under management. I tell my guests “if we are having a hard time killing them with unlimited access to our property, the chances of that 4.5 year old wandering off of us and getting shot are slim”. And, the chances of a large percentage of them wandering off and getting shot are slim to none.


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[S.T.Fanatic]

Catscratch:

I tried my best two years ago and blew it. I mis judged the distance and hit slightly low. I think the reason he wasn’t mortally wounded was the fact that he took a step as my arrow reached its destination hitting him right in the leg joint and most likely deflecting the arrow.

this picture is days before I hit him

this is him last year

and this is him this year (harvested by my cousin the day before our gun opener)

I estimate him at 176” when I hit him and as you can see after the injury he has gone down a lot. I am going to boil the leg bone and dissect it to see if the blade that broke off my broad head is in there. The leg bone was twice the thickness as the other side and the joint was fused together leaving the leg as nothing more than a kick stand.


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[S.T.Fanatic]

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[WTNUT]

Man he was a stud the year you hit him. Wow. That is a beautiful buck. And, congrats to your cousin. I am sure he was not easy to hunt!


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