I am hoping my late season shift happens soon. We are running out of time!
Growing Mature Bucks
- Thread starter tanasirivertea
- Start date
BSK
Well-Known Member
No 2nd rut chasing yet, but definitely new bucks.
BSK
Well-Known Member
BSK
Well-Known Member
What say yea on the buck above? 110-115?
BSK
Well-Known Member
A little better view of his spread. Maybe I underestimated him in the first pics.
I'd guess 110".
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
I'd guess 5 1/2 or older.
My rough numbers gave him 48.5 on left, 51.5 on right, and 16" spread to hit 116". He's a beauty! Hope you get a chance at him.
I think you are spot on, around 110", but I can't see the brows so there is a variable there. Beautiful buck!
BSK
Well-Known Member
Considering in that part of the county, no one's deer hunting and everybody's duck hunting, I think he will make it another year.
I was expecting to hear your crazy neighbor in the background!
BSK
Well-Known Member
I should go back through some of my videos and see if I've got him on audio. These new video cameras catch every sound. I can clearly hear the train in Waverly 8 miles away.I was expecting to hear your crazy neighbor in the background!
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
I'd go 115 on him
BSK
Well-Known Member
Not a monster by any means, but about the best we got this year.
Here's the best video of him:
Here's the best video of him:
If those G2's were a little longer I think he'd be all up in the 120's. That's a very big frame for that deer.
BSK
Well-Known Member
And that buck came out of nowhere. The above video - December 15 - was the first time we got him on camera. Have 3 more videos of him since then.
Hopefully he hangs around through the winter and comes back in fall.
I can't prove it but I've always been of the belief that those 3.5-4.5 type bucks who just pop in out of nowhere aren't actually new. I think they are the 1.5yr olds who get chased away.
I can't prove it but I've always been of the belief that those 3.5-4.5 type bucks who just pop in out of nowhere aren't actually new. I think they are the 1.5yr olds who get chased away.
JCDEERMAN
Well-Known Member
I'm sure a good majority of them are, even though nature has them driven off by their mothers for a reason
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
While I suspect this is sometimes the case, it often isn't.
Unfortunately, most young bucks cannot be identified should they ever re-visit as older bucks.
Back in 2016, I had what appeared to be an albino male fawn born on my hunting land. Later we realized he was only @ 95% white, and did not have pink eyes, so he was basically a white deer. He could be seen regularly until mid-October 2017, usually within a few hundred yards of his birth.
One day in mid-October 2017, I was driving down a nearby county road, and just happened to see him farther from his birth area than ever before. He appears to have just crossed the road, and was walking across a large field (getting farther away). I saw him cross the field, putting him another 300 yds or so farther, then he disappeared. He was 1 1/2 yrs old at the time with a very common looking 4-point "yearling" set of antlers.
I never saw him again.
Every year I've hoped his rut range might bring him back to visit his birth area. If he's still alive, he's now 6 1/2 yrs old. Interestingly, I and friends have been running trail cams in the surrounding area going as far as @ 7 miles in the direction he was last seen traveling. None of us have seen or gotten a picture of him since October 2017 when he presumably dispersed. He may have soon thereafter simply died, but if a hunter had killed him, fair chance once of us would have heard about someone killing a white buck.
A couple years later, I identified another male fawn that appeared to be wearing white knee socks. His legs were completely white from the knees down. Same kind of thing happened. Saw him for a few months, then he was never seen again.
I do suspect some young dispersed bucks to come back to visit their birth areas. Just don't think it happens very much in most areas. Maybe in some urban areas where natural dispersal is more challenging or impossible, perhaps those localized urban deer herds are somewhat like non-migratory geese, all hanging around wherever they were born for their entire lives?
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
But once bucks are seen as 2 1/2's, those which survive usually will be seen in subsequent years, albeit sometimes with a skip, everyone assumes Buck "x" died, then he shows up next year.
For those hunting/monitoring smaller acreages, periodic range shifting because of localized shifting food sources, heavy cover areas, can cause "your" buck to simply "shift" beyond your boundaries, yet may be spending much of their time only a few hundred yards beyond. If you want to see more of them, developing great habitat diversity may be your ticket, and great sanctuary bedding cover often trumps cultivated food plots.
For those hunting/monitoring smaller acreages, periodic range shifting because of localized shifting food sources, heavy cover areas, can cause "your" buck to simply "shift" beyond your boundaries, yet may be spending much of their time only a few hundred yards beyond. If you want to see more of them, developing great habitat diversity may be your ticket, and great sanctuary bedding cover often trumps cultivated food plots.
