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Tennessee Hunting Forums
Quality Deer Management
Looking for buck high-grading
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<blockquote data-quote="Ski" data-source="post: 5657342" data-attributes="member: 20583"><p>I'd guess a LOT! A decent buck gets shot at for 1/3 of his life. In comparison, Ohio has a one week long gun season and ML is 3 days. Gun season doesn't open until rut is largely over at beginning of December, and ML doesn't open until January. Basically if you want a big buck you have to bow hunt or hope you get lucky in the very short firearms seasons. Even with a season like that there are lots of giants taken every year state wide.</p><p></p><p>One could argue they grow bigger deer up there so naturally more big deer get shot. But I've hunted there for 40yrs and could probably count on my fingers how many 120"+ 2yr old bucks I've seen. According to this thread deer like that seem relatively common in TN. So I can only conclude that one of two things is happening. Either TN bucks grow fast then plateau before maturity, or else they're all getting killed before they can realize their potential. The 120" 2yr old deer in Ohio become booners at maturity. There's no logical reason TN bucks can't do the same. </p><p></p><p>The one hitch in that theory is that I rarely see booners being taken here in TN, although I do see lots of mature bucks being killed. There's a disconnect somewhere, something I'm not seeing or understanding. If 120" 2yr olds or even 3yr olds are happening as often enough to have this conversation, then why are we not seeing many more 160s and 180+ mature bucks? Surely it's not a biological issue. So it has to be hunter related, and the very, very long season seems it could very well be a huge contributing factor.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ski, post: 5657342, member: 20583"] I'd guess a LOT! A decent buck gets shot at for 1/3 of his life. In comparison, Ohio has a one week long gun season and ML is 3 days. Gun season doesn't open until rut is largely over at beginning of December, and ML doesn't open until January. Basically if you want a big buck you have to bow hunt or hope you get lucky in the very short firearms seasons. Even with a season like that there are lots of giants taken every year state wide. One could argue they grow bigger deer up there so naturally more big deer get shot. But I've hunted there for 40yrs and could probably count on my fingers how many 120"+ 2yr old bucks I've seen. According to this thread deer like that seem relatively common in TN. So I can only conclude that one of two things is happening. Either TN bucks grow fast then plateau before maturity, or else they're all getting killed before they can realize their potential. The 120" 2yr old deer in Ohio become booners at maturity. There's no logical reason TN bucks can't do the same. The one hitch in that theory is that I rarely see booners being taken here in TN, although I do see lots of mature bucks being killed. There's a disconnect somewhere, something I'm not seeing or understanding. If 120" 2yr olds or even 3yr olds are happening as often enough to have this conversation, then why are we not seeing many more 160s and 180+ mature bucks? Surely it's not a biological issue. So it has to be hunter related, and the very, very long season seems it could very well be a huge contributing factor. [/QUOTE]
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Looking for buck high-grading
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