Good idea. Although I don't have enough data to show the trend clearly enough (yet), the number of different bucks that use my property each deer season appears to be closely tied to the percent of the property in sanctuary cover. As that percentage has risen and fallen over the years, the number of individual bucks using the property during hunting season has risen and fallen in parallel.

I think your tracking and documentation of this particular buck is a testament to what we COULD have a LOT MORE OF if we simply were NOT killing off most of our above average 2 1/2-yr-old bucks.

Everyone go back and take another look at this buck when he was presumed to be 3 1/2. Would you say he was very much beyond an "average" 3 1/2 in the antler department? No doubt he was above average (as a 2 1/2 & 3 1/2), but my point is he wasn't all that much above "average".

Yet just look at what he became! HUGELY ANTLERED at 4 1/2 and older!

We hunters who claim we want to see and kill more very large antlered mature bucks have become our own cause of it not happening more. Every time we kill an above average 2 1/2 or 3 1/2, we're eliminating a lot of potential opportunity for something we claim we want more (huge antlers).

Again, I think it's amazing that this buck grew such large antlers when he became 4 1/2 and older. Also think we would see a lot like this if we weren't killing them as 2 1/2's & 3 1/2's.
This one tells the story in pictures.