The 4.5 year old buck

BOC

5 year old buck +
Serious question. Am I the only one having trouble getting a buck to live past 3.5? You know the old saying, "well if I don't shoot it my neighbor will." It's true. After about 20+ years hunting my property now, I just can't seem to win this battle. I've tried it all. At the end of the day, just too many neighbors with different goals and not enough cover.

I don't think I can settle for one 4.5+ every 10 years. It has taken the fun out of it. Tell me I'm not alone? Anyone have similar circumstances? How did you come to terms with it?
 
Serious question. Am I the only one having trouble getting a buck to live past 3.5? You know the old saying, "well if I don't shoot it my neighbor will." It's true. After about 20+ years hunting my property now, I just can't seem to win this battle. I've tried it all. At the end of the day, just too many neighbors with different goals and not enough cover.

I don't think I can settle for one 4.5+ every 10 years. It has taken the fun out of it. Tell me I'm not alone? Anyone have similar circumstances? How did you come to terms with it?

Some areas just won't b able to support deer getting beyond 3.5, the scant few that do become very hard to target as they typically will become nocturnal. Learn what is realistically available in your area with game cam scouting, then decide what you want to hunt and enjoy.
 
Yes it’s tough in Minnesota. I’ve shot (3) bucks older than age 4 in 40 years .

Not very difficult in Iowa, we usually have multiple…
 
It's more than hunters killing young bucks. It's disease, predator's, vehicle collisions, and bucks killing other bucks. It's difficult for any deer to get past 3.5. Stop all hunting and the age structure may not change much. Every place is different. But to start the discussion 70% of the deer population is 2.5 years old or less. Pop the 3.5's in there and you're looking at 90% of the herd, bucks and does.

If you think you have 80 deer per square (that's a big number in my book - 20 to 30 is more likely) mile then the law of averages says there might be eight
"4 1/2 +" year old's roaming those 640 acres. Half might be bucks...but probably not. Its just a place to start thinking about the dilemma.
 
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If you’re hunting for the largest deer your neighborhood will grow it’s fun. Hunting ghosts gets old fast.

This go after the oldest 10% not the .1%.


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It's more than hunters killing young bucks. It's disease, predator's, vehicle collisions, and bucks killing other bucks. It's difficult for any deer to get past 3.5. Stop all hunting and the age structure may not change much. Every place is different. But to start the discussion 70% of the deer population is 2.5 years old or less. Pop the 3.5's in there and you're looking at 90% of the herd, bucks and does.

If you think you have 80 deer per square (that's a big number in my book) mile then the law of averages says there might be 8 3 1/2 year olds roaming those 640 acres. Half might be bucks...but probably not. Its just a place to start thinking about the dilemma.
That is a great way to look at it.

What’s wrong with shooting a 2 or 3 year old if they are the biggest buck in your area?

If we were all focused solely on 4.5+ year old bucks we would pay money to hunt in areas that have them. Then, those areas would get burned out.
 
Around here guys can't field judge. Most of my neighbors want a big ol trophy for the wall and they probably think they're getting it when they pull the trigger 4 times but it doesn't turn out being what they wanted it to be. Most years we have a fair amount of really nice 2.5 and 3.5 yr old bucks, but the 4.5+ are few and far between. Probably something like 50% shot by neighbors and showcased, 20% shot and kept secret, 10% poached, 10% stabbed by rivals, 10% road killed, and 25% sniped by big brother or simply moved away to greener pastures.
 
Have you talked to the neighbors about their goals? When I started taking to mine, everyone had the assumption that every other neighbor was brown it's down and passing a deer would be futile. Now they routinely pass bucks. Getting them past 3 is a challenge but I seem to have a few 4.5+ to hunt annually on small acreage, heavy pressure area in southern Michigan.
 
The struggle is real. My methodology is to focus on making my place where bucks want to be during hunting season. I welcome them at other times, but what I care about the most is them being there when I'm hunting them - and that is when we generally have the most. I also focus on everything being 100% ready (including myself) when the opportunity to harvest materializes, because there may only be one chance - and you had better take advantage of it.

PS - In 2020, the Booner I killed was on a guy's trail camera 2.5 miles from my farm just four days before I killed the deer. This is why I say, "the struggle is real."
 
The struggle is real. My methodology is to focus on making my place where bucks want to be during hunting season. I welcome them at other times, but what I care about the most is them being there when I'm hunting them - and that is when we generally have the most. I also focus on everything being 100% ready (including myself) when the opportunity to harvest materializes, because there may only be one chance - and you had better take advantage of it.

PS - In 2020, the Booner I killed was on a guy's trail camera 2.5 miles from my farm just four days before I killed the deer. This is why I say, "the struggle is real."
I bet that guy complains about you under his breath.
 
Serious question. Am I the only one having trouble getting a buck to live past 3.5? You know the old saying, "well if I don't shoot it my neighbor will." It's true. After about 20+ years hunting my property now, I just can't seem to win this battle. I've tried it all. At the end of the day, just too many neighbors with different goals and not enough cover.

I don't think I can settle for one 4.5+ every 10 years. It has taken the fun out of it. Tell me I'm not alone? Anyone have similar circumstances? How did you come to terms with it?
How many acres?
 
I bet that guy complains about you under his breath.
LOL, he actually congratulated me. I was in a local deer contest (which they quit having this year) and they posted my picture with the deer on Facebook. That's how I found out about him getting the pictures, because he commented and posted his pictures.

And, I forgot to mention that I didn't get my shot until the next to last day of season..........
 
LOL, he actually congratulated me. I was in a local deer contest (which they quit having this year) and they posted my picture with the deer on Facebook. That's how I found out about him getting the pictures, because he commented and posted his pictures.

And, I forgot to mention that I didn't get my shot until the next to last day of season..........
You’re a good example of maximizing the opportunity native. From your posts it looks like you have created a native plant utopia with all the things deer need. Cover. Native browse. Variety. Water. And you throw in some food plots as a bonus.

I guess Kevin Costner said it best. If you build it (or grow it, chain saw it, burn it, plant it), they will come!
 
You’re a good example of maximizing the opportunity native. From your posts it looks like you have created a native plant utopia with all the things deer need. Cover. Native browse. Variety. Water. And you throw in some food plots as a bonus.

I guess Kevin Costner said it best. If you build it (or grow it, chain saw it, burn it, plant it), they will come!
That's exactly what I've tried to do, and I'm still working on trying to make it better. It's a never ending job, but an enjoyable one. My surrounding area lacks a lot of components (mostly good cover) that are necessary for getting bucks to an older age class. Most farms are less than 100 acres, and all of them have people hunting them.

On a positive note, our winters are not especially harsh here, and cropping of corn and soybeans surrounding us has increased in the last few years. Increased nutrition from those crops is a real winner for the deer herd.
 
This is a super interesting discussion that my family and I have been having for the last few years. I think survivorship bias makes understanding the cause and what can be done very difficult to understand.

Without delving too much into to that, I'm going to play devil's advocate. Is there a chance that there are actually more 4.5 year olds running around than we think and people are actually under-estimating many buck ages? A 4.5 year old in late November can look like a 3.5 in early November when you account for body mass lost during the rut. How many of us can with any certainty judge a deer's age by their teeth. I've personally been taking photos or videos of every buck taken the last 4 years just because I know I'm still learning how to correctly age a buck with dental records.
I'm not going to put him on the spot, but I've seen several mounts and/photos of bucks of a member of this forum who paid to have his deer professionally aged. My brother and I were blown away by how much older the deer were than what we would have expected.
 
All good replies. A little more details if I may. The farm is 150 acres with half of it being cover. To complicate matters, it is an island of cover in a sea of agriculture. What happens is every year during gun season I get surrounded on all four sides. The first buck to pop out gets shot with a rifle. The one neighbor went as far as leaving rows of standing beans along the whole north border and pulled in a trailer blind in to hunt it. Long way of saying, the neighbors aren't interested in cooperating. Deep down inside I know the answer to my question. Misery loves company I guess.
 
All good replies. A little more details if I may. The farm is 150 acres with half of it being cover. To complicate matters, it is an island of cover in a sea of agriculture. What happens is every year during gun season I get surrounded on all four sides. The first buck to pop out gets shot with a rifle. The one neighbor went as far as leaving rows of standing beans along the whole north border and pulled in a trailer blind in to hunt it. Long way of saying, the neighbors aren't interested in cooperating. Deep down inside I know the answer to my question. Misery loves company I guess.

Is there cover immediately on the other side of your property line? Have you discussed goals with neighbors?
 
Yes, it's all cover. My cover. The only cover in the area. And as I said, they aren't interested. I have a hard enough time keeping them from trespassing.
 
I used to live under the belief that no buck made it past the 3.5 year old mark. Then a buck that alluded me all fall returned the following year. Then it happened again and again. The past 2 seasons in PA I've managed to arrow 4.5 year old bucks. It's just a numbers game and it took me nearly 20 years to get past the drive to fill my buck tag every year. Once the realization is made that most guys don't know how to hunt, allowing P&Y 3.5 year old bucks to walk in high pressure states becomes much easier.
 
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