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2017 season for "MATURE BUCKS" - up, down, same?

Sligh1

Sligh1

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Hey guys.... What's your assessment for "big deer" or "mature bucks" so far this season? yourself, folks you know, etc. A few guys I know have said they have seen far less for "Top end" giants being shot. Some guys in general trying to find mature bucks, possibly harder than other years. Some are having amazing years, I've heard the spectrum. One tidbit of "reliable info".... A guy I know who does a LOT of mounts for taxidermy... He's a fairly good indicator, I asked him, EXACT RESPONSE "I would say lower this year by a good bit. Many of the "REGULARS" who shoot mature bucks most years, have not got one this year. Top end is down for sure". This is in drought area, which maybe has "top end" part made sense of.

BUT, want your opinions, no clue in reality, , why I'm throwing it out there, GO!!....
 
Numbers are good! Many Mature deer killed but( true giants antler size ) down. But I believe it’s a cycle thing every three to four year cycle.
Last year insanely big antlers as a whole. Sad to say if the cycle holds true 2019-2020 it’ll happen again but I hope I’m wrong.
The last insanely year for antler size was 2012 the year before EHD.
 
two different questions really. Mature deer (regardless of antler size), for me... up. Probably in part because my farms are still getting better and better with the habitat stuff and timing of EHD in 12 and 13. I have already shot one old management deer. I could go tag out pretty quickly if I wanted to end my season that way. More options than ever for me based solely on AGE.

High end scoring deer.... down. I think the drought has a lot to do with this. Hopefully 2018 is a "good" growing year and we see massive jumps on a lot of the older animals.
 
First mature deer I had seen was November 24th, usually id atleast see something older by then, and it's the one I harvested, the landowner who also hunts and resides there had not seen this deer ever before, which leads me to believe he was just a cruiser. I will say I seen several including 1 whopper of younger deer holding awesome genetics, ranging from 140-borderline 180 class.
 
In our area, the 5+ year olds were in relatively short supply this year. A couple of years ago, we easily had 6 or 7 such "prospects" that would visit our place regularly enough that we theoretically could have gotten any of them. This year...really only one definite 5+ and we(my son) got him. So down for us.
 
Very unscientific, but I heard of more mature 140 - 190" deer shot in SE Iowa than normal this year. It also felt like to me that I was seeing more bug bucks on this site than normal. Is that my imagination or did others think there were more big deer stories than normal on here?
 
I would say in Indiana we are steady, several nice mature bucks and two whoppers on the antler size.

In Illinois we are up on mature deer but probably on par with just 1 giant antlered deer running around.

The mature deer harvest in Illinois around us this year was superb.
 
I don't think I hunt that great of places, I see good #'s, but rarely anything over 140 and never even really anything that is truly a mature buck (5.5+). Occasionally I will get a trail cam pic of something that is clearly fully mature. Outside of that I would think there were tons of mature bucks taken this year. The harvest page on this forum sure seemed to have many big bucks that I would assume are 4.5+, certainly at least 3.5.

Last year I started following Trophy Bucks of Iowa and Bowhunters of Iowa on facebook and between last year and this year there seems to be a lot of mature bucks taken. Feels like I'm about the only one that hasn't harvested one lol.
 
Was there more trophy mature bucks shot or were they just more visible to the general public because of those facebook sites. I would have to go with the latter. Like others I've heard both sides of the spectrum. I would say down on both accounts though in my opinion. Believe it or not I know of 3 different local shotgun groups that hunt in the same area I do that never shot a buck all of first season.
 
Another thought..... we all know the whole country is a little bit more cautious on sharing giants. Some guys never say a peep, some do and some “think about it”.... well- for the guys that “think about it”.... I think one very good example of not wanting to say anything is the “Franz Buck”. Guy shoots a mega giant- next thing u know- he’s it court. Not guilty. But- I bet that type of thing makes some guys less likely to show bigguns. Had his buck been 150”- that case would have never gone to court, IMO. I don’t think it’s a HUGE # that would not share based on those cases but I’m sure some.

Overall- I’m 1) leaning towards drought knocking of lot of high end giants down (I bet some areas it impacted 10-25” IMO) 2) mature bucks overall- I’ve seen a lot. But that’s only one schmuck.
Different areas of state are surely different results though. Bet u guys who had bad 2012 ehd actually had darn good years this season after the amount of recovery years. My personal battle there was- my ehd years were 2015 - incredibly bad. Still a fantastic year thankfully this season.
 
Numbers seem somewhat normal to somewhat down for the areas I hunt; as far as mature 150+ whitetails that is. This would be moderate to heavy pressured ground and I think the numbers are due to pressure more than drought. I know most of my buddies had very typical years though. It would be very interesting to ask the taxi what his numbers looked like though. Good idea.
 
Way down around my house this year. I think its a combination of the drought and a bunch of big deer killed last year in the area.

I ran a trapline in mid November and drive through some really low pressure areas and saw 2 mature bucks in 12 days, both on thanksgiving. Normally I see close to one a day if not more.
 
In the areas I ran cameras, we saw more non typicals this year than ever...Various ages groups.... a few big clean typicals...We werent in the high drought area however. Overall, 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 year olds dominated the farm...I shot a 6 1/2 plus year old... I would say its "normal" in our area for what we normally see, other than so many non typicals..
 
It was way up for me this year because I wasn't stuck with Illinois public land. Next year will suck. I'll have to return here.
 
Definitely up here as far as mature bucks in general. No mega giants but several mature bucks that I can document for multiple years.
 
Worst year we've had that I can remember for mature deer. Only had 2 on camera that were locals and 2 more showed up during the rut. I seen the first mature buck from the stand on November 26th and I spent a lot of hours out there. One of the local bucks was killed during shotgun season and the other has been MIA. Might be a cold, lonely late season :eek: unless I find one somewhere else.
 
Still waiting for a mature buck (4.5+) to show up on camera on my main farm. Usually have 5 or more on camera by now. However when I went south I saw 7+ different deer over 150 in two sits mid November. I really think it’s spotty. But I could see the drought having something to do with there being not as many “giants”.. I however have seen quite a few big ones killed this year already.
 
I can say I haven't seen any bucks that I thought were older than 3 1/2. Several of that age class though. Cameras have picked up one that is probably 4 1/2. But only a couple of times. Had picked out a 5 1/2 short tined ten pointer for a target but he hasn't been seen since July and that was on trail camera. Odd because he always was around here till run off by a 6 1/2 year old during rut. But I took care of that old 8 point last year.
 
Home farm had 4 mature bucks on camera but 2 were summer time only. One 4.5 got the pass a few times and the old bully never offered a clear shot. As far as antler growth I'm mixed. We had a really wet July. Had the biggest buck I've had on camera on a small property, but also had 2 bucks that appeared to not continue to grow like they should have.
 
We saw a lot of bucks this year. Quite a nice mix of ages. We have to shoot a couple "bullies" that escaped us this fall.
 
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