Management Buck

[Andy S.]

..... I finally killed him as a 5 1/2 year-old? He grossed just 129. But he's still my widest-racked buck at 23".

Mature and wide, with a pretty frame is a recipe for being shot at 110% of the time. Nice buck, congrats!

 

[BSK]

As a 3.5 year old 10 point, with all up tines? If so, he had it ALL to really be something at 5.5 ASSUMING he would have lived and flourished, not got sick, not been hit by car, no pedicle injury, not shot by a hunter, etc, etc. Not throwing shade at you, just making the case that MOST of our statistical outliers "on the high side" that we all dream about seeing in the wild, are killed by a hunter as a top end 3.5 year old as they roam the woods in daylight during the rut.

No shade taken! I couldn't agree more. That buck would probably have been a monster at 5 1/2. Maybe in the mid 150s.

But considering how rarely we get the opportunity to actually kill one of the top-end bucks we photograph on the property, not a chance I was passing him up. We draw some really great bucks out of the adjoining big agricultural bottomlands every year. But getting the chance to see/kill them is rare (at least for us). In fact, after 35 years, all it takes to get a buck into the "all-time Top 10" for the property is a score of 125. Not a chance I'm passing up the opportunity to take a Top 10 buck, no matter his age.

 

[Ski]

I was chasing the below buck for two years. I really though he was going to seriously score. But what was he when I finally killed him as a 5 1/2 year-old? He grossed just 129. Had to remeasure and add up the score 4 times before I was convinced that's all he scored. But he's still my widest-racked buck at 23". I just thought he would score so much higher than that.

With only 7 tines to score, that is a very, very impressive score! That buck would look at home next to any booner I've ever seen. He's actually more impressive than a lot of high scoring bucks in terms of frame. That dude was a tank!

On a side note, aside from judging age via trail cam, what makes you believe he was only 3.5? Could he have been older than you think? That was kind of my point about noting the discrepancy between MSU's study and situations like the bucks you just showed. In a controlled environment with virtually no stress, nothing to wear the buck down, and all the nutrition it could possibly need, their bucks never got that big at that age. Your buck was wild surviving the harsh conditions of winters, ruts, seasonal shifts, stretches of time with lack of quality food, etc. Does it not seem odd that a 3yr old roughing it can get that big but one in captivity cannot?

Don't take me wrong. I'm not saying your deer isn't 3.5yrs old. I really don't know. I judge deer age same way everybody else does, same way the science tells us to. But then I see these MSU studies & notice what seems to be a disconnect, but I'm not sure at what end. It's as if 2 + 2 doesn't = 4.

 

[deerhunter10]

I've always suspected a lot of folks either grossly underestimate buck ages or grossly overestimate rack scores, or both. These MSU studies are reinforcing that suspicion.

They do like crazy. I can't tell you how many people talk to me in August and think they have a 140 to 150 inch deer and most are 125 inch deer. Also many people struggle aging like crazy they look at the rack and go strictly after that. We killed one this year that was not a huge body but he was 6.5. Had him aged also had picture of him since 2.5. He got shot at 4.5 and survived. But the few people I showed pictures of him to said he was 3.5 and 145 inch deer. He scored 134 and some change.
We have been fortunate to kill some big deer. A pile of high 130s Several lower 140 inch deer. Our best deer is 145 and some change. We have been managing for years and our philosophies for us have changed the past 2 years. We have been really focusing on management bucks. We are trying to get our deer which we think have the best chance to top out inches wise a chance to reach that potential. We have the acres and lack of pressure around us to try it. May work my not in the 2 years that we have been doing it haven't noticed anything concrete I would suspect that this year or the next if there is something to it we should be able to see it. I am tempted to throw this year off to the side with just how dry we got and the stress of that. Ms state is putting out great stuff.

The biggest misnomer of a management buck or cull buck is that they are easy to kill and hunt. When the majority of these deer they are talking about in the video are mature "trophy" deer. A 5.5 and up deer in tennessee is a tough animal to kill and should be considered a trophy I know we consider them a trophy.

Mossy oak did a podcast with these guys that explain it very well and made some excellent points while doing it.

 

[Ski]

The biggest misnomer of a management buck or cull buck is that they are easy to kill and hunt. When the majority of these deer they are talking about in the video are mature "trophy" deer. A 5.5 and up deer in tennessee is a tough animal to kill and should be considered a trophy I know we consider them a trophy.

One could argue a 5.5yr old deer anywhere is tough to kill. There aren't many deer getting that old and the ones who do are able to do so because they are good at evading humans.

Good luck with your experiment. Other than one bully buck I have never had what I'd consider a "management" buck. Pretty much all the bucks that I know for sure are 5yrs+ also tend to have the largest racks in the area I'm hunting, so I'm hunting the biggest bucks available. Doesn't mean they're huge but they're the biggest I can reasonably hunt, and that's good enough for me. Not very often I actually see a small racked old buck, let alone have one hanging around enough to be a concern. Here in this part of TN it seems 110"-120" on 150lb body is pretty normal for a mature buck. I'm sure somewhere in parts of the county there are a few bigger but they're rare as hens teeth. I've not seen one in person or on camera.

 

[megalomaniac]

Any idea how commonly one of the "big" 3yr olds occurred? I don't have the extent of data that you have, and certainly not the King Ranch. But with what limited info I have been able to keep, I don't think I've ever once personally seen or killed a 3yr old buck that would meet the 125" P&Y standard. That's with trail cam monitoring and hunting several OH, WI, and TN properties over roughly 10yrs. I've hunted Ohio my entire life and heard of such bucks but am not convinced I've actually seen any. Here in my area of TN I have been fortunate enough to kill most of the oldest, largest bucks I've been able to monitor. Four of them were for certain 5yrs minimum and only two of them busted 120" but just barely. To be quite honest I find it difficult to judge age age without having some history with the buck to know for sure, especially with these southern deer.

Around 10- 15% of my 3.5yos will be 120in or better. Enough where we don't even bat an eye at them being 'special'.

Now a 2.5yo that breaks 110"... we're pumped. But a 3.5yo has to break 130 for us to think he is really something special.

And sure, it's possible I'm overestimating scores from trail cam pictures, but when we do kill one of the top end 3.5yos either on accident (I killed 1 6 or 7yrs ago i misjudged and scored 133 as a 3.5yo) or on purpose (my cousins daughter killed a 3.5yo this year that was 120 on the dot), actual measured gross scores are usually pretty close to what we estimated from trail cam pictures.

It's also possible we are undergoing our deer, but I don't think so. This pic is the 120in 3.5yo killed this year. Jawbone said 3.5, live wt was 165lbs at start of 1st rut, just a tad below average wt for our 3.5yos.

 

[megalomaniac]

And here's another example... my daughter killed this buck during 2nd rut just before Christmas a couple years ago. 195lbs live wt AFTER losing probably 30 or 40lbs from 1st rut...

Jawbone said 2.5 (some chipping of cups on right side throws accurate age off a bit).

Scored 148 thanks to some crazy long tines. Def wouldn't count him in my 2.5yo cohort, and really I don't think he is 3.5 either... or if he was, he would have blown away our record body weight for the 3.5yo age class by a mile)

I guess what I'm saying is that 3.5yos bucks breaking 120in in TN are not that uncommon if you have a large enough sample size and the right genetics and nutrition.

 

[megalomaniac]

And as far as those fully mature bucks on the bottom end of the gene pool antler wise, imma still going to call them 'culls' because that's exactly what I'm doing to them... culling them out of the herd and turning them into sausage.

The terms 'cull' vs 'management' in my mind is the same as 'kill' vs 'harvest'

 

[BSK]

The biggest misnomer of a management buck or cull buck is that they are easy to kill and hunt. When the majority of these deer they are talking about in the video are mature "trophy" deer. A 5.5 and up deer in tennessee is a tough animal to kill and should be considered a trophy I know we consider them a trophy.

Mossy oak did a podcast with these guys that explain it very well and made some excellent points while doing it.

Unless a property has a very high antler score requirement for harvest, I would never have a mature buck as a "management buck." Most properties I work with have all mature bucks on the "OK to kill" list. For me, a management buck is a very low end 3 1/2 that shows no sign of increasing in size with age (didn't make much of a jump from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2). Only in a serious Trophy Program would I have a mature buck as a management buck, and I have few clients in that severe of a program.

 

[deerhunter10]

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Unless a property has a very high antler score requirement for harvest, I would never have a mature buck as a "management buck." Most properties I work with have all mature bucks on the "OK to kill" list. For me, a management buck is a very low end 3 1/2 that shows no sign of increasing in size with age (didn't make much of a jump from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2). Only in a serious Trophy Program would I have a mature buck as a management buck, and I have few clients in that severe of a program.

We have passed mature deer because of their racks in the past. It's just me and my father in law now. My wife sometimes. Only 4 tags 6 at the most. While any mature deer are ok to kill in the past we have wanted bigger deer. Only thing we are trying now is we have notice those deer seem to be bully plus with all the food and everything else. We are just trying to see if we can gain more inches probably not but worth a try.

 

[megalomaniac]

Unless a property has a very high antler score requirement for harvest, I would never have a mature buck as a "management buck." Most properties I work with have all mature bucks on the "OK to kill" list. For me, a management buck is a very low end 3 1/2 that shows no sign of increasing in size with age (didn't make much of a jump from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2).

Interesting! So the best managed properties have already killed off the bottom end of the gene pool at 3.5, thereby allowing none of them to reach maturity?

Is there a benefit to that approach (other than someone mistaking an average 2.5yo as a bottom end of the gene pool 3.5yo---- to me it's easier to misjudge a 2.5 as a 3.5yo than it is to misjudge a 3.5yo as a 4.5yo) rather than my approach (allow ALL bucks to reach 4.5 and express 95% of antler potential, and only then pick the bottom 20% or so and designate as culls to not count as their 1 buck of choice)

Should I be selecting the worst 3.5yos and put them on the kill list even though they give 25lbs less sausage than the worst 4.5yos?

I cannot tell you how many 3.5yos I've identified over the years that I've said, 'he's gonna be a cull NEXT year'... they are easy to identify. Yet I tell my hunters that if they kill them before 4.5, it counts as their 'buck of choice' and they are done hunting for the season.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

My thoughts on that term is it shouldnt be used outside of a high fence farm. Ymv

I respectfully disagree. I have killed mature bucks that have undersized racks to cull them out of the herd because they were bullies and eating food that other deer with more potential could be utilizing. Here is a perfect example of a 6.5 yr old bully 6 pt. that was culled. After he was killed, two other mature bucks moved in, one being a 140’s 10 pt. that I killed. Had I not culled the 6 pt. the 10 pt would have never been there.

 

[megalomaniac]

https://www.tndeer.com/threads/cull-buck.412365/page-3

Here's a good thread from.last year about cull bucks

 

[Ski]

Here is a perfect example of a 6.5 yr old bully 6 pt. that was culled. After he was killed, two other mature bucks moved in, one being a 140’s 10 pt. that I killed. Had I not culled the 6 pt. the 10 pt would have never been there.

That is exactly what I'd consider a cull or management buck. He was taking up space, using resources, and literally working against your goals. He had to go.

It would be hard for me to consider any buck a cull but that one fits the bill. Not to mention killing a giant 6pt is pretty cool.

 

[Ski]

I guess what I'm saying is that 3.5yos bucks breaking 120in in TN are not that uncommon if you have a large enough sample size and the right genetics and nutrition.

I think that right there might be the key, and the MSU study made fairly clear. A specific plant can vary pretty drastically in nutritional value depending on the soil it grows in, and the soil varies by region. It seemed to parallel deer body size and antler score. The river delta deer were notably larger than the coastal plains deer, yet after two generations of captivity both varieties of deer equalized, suggesting it was nutrition rather than genetics that dictated buck quality.

 

[Ridgeline300]

Let's say you own some acreage that you manage for enhanced habitat with the purpose of increasing your odds at killing a big buck. That's a pretty common scenario. No fences. You manage timber, fields, browse areas, water sources, and run a food plot schedule. That's time, effort, and money you're pouring into the place for one purpose, to hopefully kill big bucks.

When does begin to crowd out the bucks to the point that you begin seeing fewer & fewer, and the ones you see are younger & younger, then how do you get the property back on track? You kill does. By killing does you are freeing up space & food, and relieving social pressure. Kill enough does and big mature bucks feel attracted to your property again. Is that not a means of managing?

Now just like the does let's say you have one 5yr old 250lb slob with 115" rack hanging around all the time devouring everything in sight and chasing away any competition. He's not likely to get a bigger rack by letting him stay to 6yrs or 7yrs old. But for that entire time he'll be preventing you from having a big rack buck to hunt. Would you not want to get rid of him? And if you do, are you killing him because he gets you excited or are you doing it because he's wasting your time & money and you want to see other, better bucks on your property again?

If he’s 5 years old I’m killing him for two reasons. 1) he is mature and is a trophy regardless of inches 2) he ain’t getting any bigger anyways

I’m just not gonna kill a goofy looking 75” to 100” 2.5 or 3.5 year old and call it a cull. If all he ever makes is a 115 then at least that’s better than what he was.

 

[fairchaser]

I’ve killed one management buck in my hunting career because management wanted bucks for testing. I told myself I woukd only kill one if it was mature and late in the season. I shot this buck on Jan 1 three years ago. I believe he was at least 4.5 years old. My point is how do you tell paying members with 2 buck tags that they should kill management bucks? And, what if they kill a 100 inch 3.5 year old and say it was a management buck in their mind?

 

[BSK]

Interesting! So the best managed properties have already killed off the bottom end of the gene pool at 3.5, thereby allowing none of them to reach maturity?

Is there a benefit to that approach (other than someone mistaking an average 2.5yo as a bottom end of the gene pool 3.5yo---- to me it's easier to misjudge a 2.5 as a 3.5yo than it is to misjudge a 3.5yo as a 4.5yo) rather than my approach (allow ALL bucks to reach 4.5 and express 95% of antler potential, and only then pick the bottom 20% or so and designate as culls to not count as their 1 buck of choice)

Should I be selecting the worst 3.5yos and put them on the kill list even though they give 25lbs less sausage than the worst 4.5yos?

I cannot tell you how many 3.5yos I've identified over the years that I've said, 'he's gonna be a cull NEXT year'... they are easy to identify. Yet I tell my hunters that if they kill them before 4.5, it counts as their 'buck of choice' and they are done hunting for the season.

My "management buck" strategy has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with fighting the constant battle with hunters high-grading out the best antlers. This is especially true on properties where any buck 3 1/2 or older is open to harvest. Hunters rapidly kill the top-end 3 1/2s that would have been true trophies at maturity. By offering "management bucks" as "free" bucks that don't go towards the property's/club's limit, I'm trying to encourage hunters to take out a buck that will never meet the owner's/club's standards no matter how old he gets. High-grading even occurs on properties with mature-buck-only limits. The year a buck turns 4 1/2, he gets killed if he is higher-end. The low-end mature bucks do not get killed at 4 1/2. This leaves just the low-end 4 1/2s to live on to 5 1/2 and 6 1/2.

In the past, just setting the buck limit at any buck 3 1/2 or older was good enough to get a high number of bucks to maturity. The reason being, the vast majority of hunters weren't good enough to kill a large number of 3 1/2 year-old bucks. That just isn't the case anymore. Hunters are getting really good at killing even mature bucks. What I'm seeing is a trend towards lower antler-point-count bucks at maturity. I strongly suspected this trend was occurring due to high-grading out the best antlers at 3 1/2 and 4 1/2. I was seeing properties with well-managed habitat producing a shockingly low percentage of mature bucks with 10 points and an equally shocking percentage that were only 6 points. Looking at census and harvest data, I would find that perhaps only 20% of 3 1/2 year-old bucks were 10-pointers but 90% of the 3 1/2 year-old bucks killed were 10-pointers. Hunters were wiping out the 10-pointers at 3 1/2 and few were living to maturity. The bucks living to maturity were the low-end 8s and 6s when they were 3 1/2.

By placing low-end 3 1/2s (and low-end mature bucks in a mature-buck-only harvest environment) on a bonus buck hit list, I was trying to give hunters more harvest opportunities that would hopefully take pressure off the top-end of each age-class. So far, the results have been beyond my wildest dreams. At the most extreme, I've seen a property that went from 25% of all mature bucks being 6 or fewer points up to where a 6-point mature buck is quite rare, and from only 20% of mature bucks having 9 or more points up to almost half of all mature bucks having 9 or more points (where it should be in that region without high-grading).

 

[Ski]

If he’s 5 years old I’m killing him for two reasons. 1) he is mature and is a trophy regardless of inches 2) he ain’t getting any bigger anyways

I’m just not gonna kill a goofy looking 75” to 100” 2.5 or 3.5 year old and call it a cull. If all he ever makes is a 115 then at least that’s better than what he was.

I agree. I don't kill small rack young bucks just because I don't think they'll ever become anything special. There are several criteria that qualify a cull on my place, but a young buck having a smaller than normal rack isn't one of them.

The whole notion of a "cull" gets an unfair stigma, IMO. Every deer I cull gets eaten and I'm thankful for the bounty. They're not wasted or discarded as less worthy. Of course my main objective is killing trophies, the biggest buck in the area. But for that to be possible I have to prune & groom the bushes so to speak in order to create an environment an old buck wants to be, and that includes killing certain other deer. They're not trophies. They're a means to an end. And since I'm going to kill & eat several deer per year anyway, why not choose them for a dual purpose? Killing them can simultaneously feed my family AND enhance the hunting potential of my property. And since one of the very definitions of "cull" is selective slaughter of wild animals, the term is grammatically correct.

 

[Ski]

My "management buck" strategy has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with fighting the constant battle with hunters high-grading out the best antlers. This is especially true on properties where any buck 3 1/2 or older is open to harvest. Hunters rapidly kill the top-end 3 1/2s that would have been true trophies at maturity. By offering "management bucks" as "free" bucks that don't go towards the property's/club's limit, I'm trying to encourage hunters to take out a buck that will never meet the owner's/club's standards no matter how old he gets. High-grading even occurs on properties with mature-buck-only limits. The year a buck turns 4 1/2, he gets killed if he is higher-end. The low-end mature bucks do not get killed at 4 1/2. This leaves just the low-end 4 1/2s to live on to 5 1/2 and 6 1/2.

In the past, just setting the buck limit at any buck 3 1/2 or older was good enough to get a high number of bucks to maturity. The reason being, the vast majority of hunters were good enough to kill a large number of 3 1/2 year-old bucks. That just isn't the case anymore. Hunters are getting really good at killing even mature bucks. What I'm seeing is a trend towards lower antler-point-count bucks at maturity. I strongly suspected this trend was occurring due to high-grading out the best antlers at 3 1/2 and 4 1/2. I was seeing properties with well-managed habitat producing a shockingly low percentage of mature bucks with 10 points and an equally shocking percentage that were only 6 points. Looking at census and harvest data, I would find that perhaps only 20% of 3 1/2 year-old bucks were 10-pointers but 90% of the 3 1/2 year-old bucks killed were 10-pointers. Hunters were wiping out the 10-pointers at 3 1/2 and few were living to maturity. The bucks living to maturity were the low-end 8s and 6s when they were 3 1/2.

By placing low-end 3 1/2s (and low-end mature bucks in a mature-buck-only harvest environment) on a bonus buck hit list, I was trying to give hunters more harvest opportunities that would hopefully take pressure off the top-end of each age-class. So far, the results have been beyond my wildest dreams. At the most extreme, I've seen a property that went from 25% of all mature bucks being 6 or fewer points up to where a 6-point mature buck is quite rare, and from only 20% of mature bucks having 9 or more points up to almost half of all mature bucks having 9 or more points (where it should be in that region without high-grading).

That is incredibly interesting, and an angle I've not really considered before. Seems plenty logical. Hmmm. I'm gonna have to stew on this post for awhile. Thank you for explaining!