Looks like W Tn timber company land to me, maybe RiverOaks Timber Co. They are in the process of severing their leases with most of their current clubs in Tn and KY. Their new business model will open their places up for bids, with the winning bidder getting a 3 year lease. One half or so of the places will be control leases where no improvements are made, and the other half will have improvements made by RiverOak.

Wes,

I agree high-grading of the best 2 1/2s is taking place, but what percent of all deer hunters in TN are good enough to seriously affect the 3 1/2 year-old age-class? I'll bet a very, very small percentage.

Secondly, if you consider in Bottom Hunter's 2,000-acre scenario that the hunters/managers can fully manage the habitat, they can produce the kind of sanctuary needed to draw most of the surrounding 3 1/2+ year-old bucks to the property during the hunting season hence protect them from high-grading or over-harvest. In that scenario, they WILL have harvestable numbers of mature bucks.

. . . . . I passed up two different 120 class deer last year looking for something bigger.

I need to stop watching so much television.

I must be surrounded by much better than average deer hunters.
Seriously, I know I'm not the only one who typically gets multiple opportunities at any particular 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 each season.

But this is not just an issue of hunter skill.
Very long gun seasons and the 3-buck limit may be as much a factor in this antler high-grading as collective hunter skills.

Much of my point was that MOST of the better 2 1/2's simply don't make it to 3 1/2. It's mainly the smaller-than-average-antlered 2 1/2's that are moving up to 3 1/2 and older.

And regarding those few better 2 1/2's that do make it to 3 1/2, they are the ones least likely to make it to 4 1/2.

True, they WILL have harvestable numbers of mature bucks.
But they also WILL still have the antler-high-grading problem, i.e. they'll have lot's of 3 1/2 & older bucks with relatively small antlers.

I'm having no problem growing mature bucks, but getting those 2 1/2's with above average antlers to 3 1/2 or older is a totally different issue.

I don't profess to have the answer to how to make this high-grading problem significantly less. On a personal level, I'm trying to focus more on age than antlers.