A trend here i hate.

[Bucksnbears]

Actually 2.
One is one or both brow tines not growing.
Another is bucks just seem to stagnate once they hit 4.
Looking back now, sure wish I would have saved more pic.

1st set is a buck I killed several years ago.
I have his sheds from 2,3,6,7 year old and killed him as an 8 year old.
On thing odd about him is, he never was a big bodied deer. Never seen him actually chasing does hard. Have 100s of trail cam pics of him over the year at a mineral site but never got one pic of him over the years at a yearly massive scrape only 50 yards away.
I just think he was wired different?
1st pic was him at 4.5, 2nd at 6.5, last at 7.7.
When I killed him at 8.5 he only had one browtine.
Disregard the cam dates. I seldom mess with them.

As for bucks that hit their peak at 130ish inches, here is an example.
Buck I killed this year as what I (think) was a 5 year old and him last year.
Grew a bit of mass, beam length and maybe a bit of time length.

Anyone else here deal with this?

 

[Sligh1]

I’ve had deer bounce around a lot over the years… I have the blessing of seeing a “lot of bucks” get to 8-9+. One that we have “often” … from 5 to 6 a lot of bucks go down- let’s call it “30-50% get smaller from 5-6 or don’t grow” & I’d say 70% of the time they get bigger at 7. Who the heck knows why & maybe it’s anecdotal but I’ve seen it probably dozens of times.

Few things happen when bucks go down or stay the same …. Big one… like at 5…. I bet they r often rutting fools banging their brains out. Those years where they run themselves ragged, the following they pay for it (in antlers, etc) if it doesn’t kill them. I have no clue whether they “slow down” or “wise up” but it seems like they have a bad year & then rebound.
Other things that clearly do it… “oh crap, we had a horrid winter, food was hard to come by”. Or a drought summer. Or if u in areas where natural browse is in limited supply & u have a year of higher deer #’s. Boom & bust in northern areas if u get winters that wipe deer out but then gradually rebuild with less deer & ample food until they recover.
Other one that’s obvious…. Genetics. I’ve been to areas that for decades “deer have small brows” or XYZ characteristic. Why I’m skeptical of those that say u can’t influence a genetic pool…. To a limited extent I think u can…. U continue to shoot the culls & let beat bucks get to old age…. I think a light trickle of those genetics will start to be more PREVALENT. Not a total change but noticeable. I’ve seen deer on me that are 10 years apart in when we shot them that look almost identical. Or farms where we say “most the bucks have long G3’s” or “split g2 is common” or whatever trait u wanna pin it to. I’ve Also been to neighborhoods that for decades seem to produce deer that are “8-10 points that max out at 160””. Nutrition & genetics are clearly the definer in those cases when u see plenty get to maturity but they only get “so big”.
Best case we still can control MOST of it if we get folks on same page…. We can always get deer to age if folks in area agree. Can do a lot for nutrition but that’s a lot of work & expense. The hardest one is genetics & I still say u can “improve what u shoot” by simply hammering the cull bucks & babying the best genetic bucks- even if they are rare. It’s a fun game & I love the management of it & all this variety of challenges we all face that are unique to our areas.

 

[Daver]

I’ve had deer bounce around a lot over the years… I have the blessing of seeing a “lot of bucks” get to 8-9+. One that we have “often” … from 5 to 6 a lot of bucks go down- let’s call it “30-50%” …. & I’d say 70% of the time they get bigger at 7. Who the heck knows why & maybe it’s anecdotal but I’ve seen it probably dozens of times.

Few things happen when bucks go down or stay the same …. Big one… like at 5…. I bet they r often rutting fools banging their brains out. Those years where they run themselves ragged, the following they pay for it (in antlers, etc) if it doesn’t kill them. I have no clue whether they “slow down” or “wise up” but it seems like they have a bad year & then rebound.
Other things that clearly do it… “oh crap, we had a horrid winter, food was hard to come by”. Or a drought summer. Or if u in areas where natural browse is in limited supply & u have a year of higher deer #’s. Boom & bust in northern areas if u get winters that wipe deer out but then gradually rebuild with less deer & ample food until they recover.
Other one that’s obvious…. Genetics. I’ve been to areas that for decades “deer have small brows” or XYZ characteristic. Why I’m skeptical of those that say u can’t influence a genetic pool…. To a limited extent I think u can…. U continue to shoot the culls & let beat bucks get to old age…. I think a light trickle of those genetics will start to be more PREVALENT. Not a total change but noticeable. I’ve seen deer on me that are 10 years apart in when we shot them that look almost identical. Or farms where we say “most the bucks have long G3’s” or “split g2 is common” or whatever trait u wanna pin it to. I’ve Also been to neighborhoods that for decades seem to produce deer that are “8-10 points that max out at 160””. Nutrition & genetics are clearly the definer in those cases when u see plenty get to maturity but they only get “so big”.
Best case we still can control MOST of it if we get folks on same page…. We can always get deer to age if folks in area agree. Can do a lot for nutrition but that’s a lot of work & expense. The hardest one is genetics & I still say u can “improve what u shoot” by simply hammering the cull bucks & babying the best genetic bucks- even if they are rare. It’s a fun game & I love the management of it & all this variety of challenges we all face that are unique to our areas.

FWIW, I agree completely ^^, based on now many years of observations at our place. If you think about how captive deer herds are able to grow GIGANTIC racks on at least some of their bucks...they eliminate virtually all stress, provide them with maximum food and nutrition and combine superior genetics and then these animals sometimes grow antlers that are absolutely mind boggling. To the extent that we can manage wild deer with those same basic principles we can then expect to see larger, approaching full potential racks.

I also am persuaded that hunters can influence genetics in an area over time via eliminating the low potential deer somewhat systematically. (Some would simply call this "culling". , which is a loaded term.) But...many people do not understand what a "management buck" really is. Way too often a "management buck" is really just a less careful 2 or 3 year old that walks in front of a hunter with an open tag late in the season. Boom. Ironically, these day walkers have as good of a chance at being a high potential buck as not...they just get whacked about 3 years too early.