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BSK

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Nashville, TN
Just got this buck on cam. He just showed up and I got him on 7 different cameras in two days. Very huntable buck.
 

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BSK said:
Ha! I'll let everyone else fight over the little 11-pointer!

The above buck and these other two are my primary targets so far:
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I'd say with that target rich environment you have very good odds!
 
How do you not have a bazillion mature culls?

I'm being serious... 3/4 of my mature bucks are culls. And the top quartile of mature bucks won't break 135.

Never seen such high grading of young bucks as what's been going on past 3 years.

Here's a newcomer. I'll kill his ass if he shows up.
 

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megalomaniac said:
How do you not have a bazillion mature culls?

I'm being serious... 3/4 of my mature bucks are culls. And the top quartile of mature bucks won't break 135.

Never seen such high grading of young bucks as what's been going on past 3 years.

Here's a newcomer. I'll kill his ass if he shows up.
Click to expand...

That deer should be pulling a sled!

I've hunted TN now for 10yrs and not once have i seen a 135" deer in person or on camera. Got a couple on camera that might bust 125" but so far biggest I've killed was 123". A 30 minute drive north and deer are "normal" size. It's so bizarre how much variation exists in such close proximity.
 
Ski said:
That deer should be pulling a sled!

I've hunted TN now for 10yrs and not once have i seen a 135" deer in person or on camera. Got a couple on camera that might bust 125" but so far biggest I've killed was 123". A 30 minute drive north and deer are "normal" size. It's so bizarre how much variation exists in such close proximity.
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It would blow your mind how many 110in 2.5yos and 125in 3.5yos we have. The larger antler deer just can't survive till 4.5. Only the 85on 2.5s and 105in 3.5s make it.
 
megalomaniac said:
It would blow your mind how many 110in 2.5yos and 125in 3.5yos we have. The larger antler deer just can't survive till 4.5. Only the 85on 2.5s and 105in 3.5s make it.
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Your place sounds more like the midwest than the south! Would be disheartening not getting to see some of the good bucks grow to their potential though.
 
megalomaniac said:
It would blow your mind how many 110in 2.5yos and 125in 3.5yos we have. The larger antler deer just can't survive till 4.5. Only the 85on 2.5s and 105in 3.5s make it.
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Yep. Same for me. I cannot count the number of 110" 8 pointers I have on camera this year. And across every age class. It's a bit depressing.

Don't get me wrong, I have killed a truck load of bucks that size over my hunting career. However, at this point I am targeting larger, older, and higher scoring bucks (when they exist).

I have somewhat resigned myself to targeting a couple "cull" mature bucks this year since there are no higher scoring bucks.
 
megalomaniac said:
I'm being serious... 3/4 of my mature bucks are culls. And the top quartile of mature bucks won't break 135.

Never seen such high grading of young bucks as what's been going on past 3 years.
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IMO, based on sightings and trail cam photos, this has been the case for the last decade on most farms I hunt in West TN, with plenty of hunting pressure around them, generally speaking. While hunting and reviewing trail cam pics, I see more mature bucks at or below the average gross score per cohort, compared to at or above the average. TheLBLMan has preached it for years and so have I. I first noticed it at Ames around 2010 when the hunting club was repeatedly high grading the standing crop of bucks on the landscape. (killing best 2.5s/3.5s) The top scoring wandering and inattentive 2.5s/3.5s are cherry picked out of the herd more times than not. Furthermore, their smaller bodies make their antlers appear even larger than they are, thus drawing more attention to them in the heat of the moment.
 
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megalomaniac said:
It would blow your mind how many 110in 2.5yos and 125in 3.5yos we have. The larger antler deer just can't survive till 4.5. Only the 85on 2.5s and 105in 3.5s make it.
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We definitely see a lot of that. The really great 3 1/2s get killed (primarily by me!) and only the super secretive ones live to maturity. Plus, we seem to see the most antler growth early, as in they really stop growing much after 3 1/2.
 
megalomaniac said:
How do you not have a bazillion mature culls?

I'm being serious... 3/4 of my mature bucks are culls. And the top quartile of mature bucks won't break 135.

Never seen such high grading of young bucks as what's been going on past 3 years.

Here's a newcomer. I'll kill his ass if he shows up.
Click to expand...
Oh, we've got them! I'm just super lucky to have the neighbors I do (huge agricultural bottomlands) and one of those neighbors is a Federal Refuge. So we still pick up the occasional top-end buck.

But as for bottom end, check out the mature buck in the below video. He can't score 80 gross.
 

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BSK said:
Oh, we've got them! I'm just super lucky to have the neighbors I do (huge agricultural bottomlands) and one of those neighbors is a Federal Refuge. So we still pick up the occasional top-end buck.

But as for bottom end, check out the mature buck in the below video. He can't score 80 gross.
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Who cares what he scores?! That dude would make me proud!
 
Here's a question for those good at scoring funky racks. What will this buck score? He just showed up. He makes my age limit but for the life of me I can't get a good gross score on him:
 

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Not 115". I'll pull up the vid better when I get out of the woods and run some numbers. Regardless of score that's a cool deer.
 
BSK said:
Here's a question for those good at scoring funky racks. What will this buck score? He just showed up. He makes my age limit but for the life of me I can't get a good gross score on him:
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75-80in gross

Basically just count the 3rd beam as a point, making him basically a small 8ptr instead of a mainframe 7
 

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