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Anyone seeing Velvet bucks yet?

Mr. Deeds

Mr. Deeds

Member
Just curious who all is seeing velvet bucks yet? Saw a dandy of a buck last night at the edge of the drive near my new clover plot with atleast 8" of velvet already grown. Going to be putting the cameras up here real soon!
 
Watched three from the house last night feeding on the neighbors bean field. All had brows and a good start on mainbeams.
 
The only one I've seen, unfortunately, was lying on the side of the road. I've only seen does out on the hoof. Pulled a couple cards this last weekend, but haven't had a chance to view them.
 
StickersNKickers said:
The only one I've seen, unfortunately, was lying on the side of the road. I've only seen does out on the hoof. Pulled a couple cards this last weekend, but haven't had a chance to view them.
Click to expand...

You have more patience than me! Whenever I pull cards the anticipation is like Christmas as an 8 year old! :)
 
I had a buck jogging in front of my truck Monday evening that had probably 8" worth of beams going now. I suspect he will be a nice one this fall.

Trail cams are showing some with nubs, some with 2"-4" worth of beam growth too. One buck, which I think I know who it is and if so, this would make sense based upon previous years, has double brow tines going too.

The next 2-3 weeks though, things will really take off in the antler department.
 
I saw group of 3 bucks a week ago. One of them was out to his ears already. Massive beams. The other two only had maybe 2-3" of beam past the brow tines
 
Elk are starting to sprout in velvet! I'm hoping to finally get a camera out this weekend for my Sept archery hunt! I found a wallow three years ago that I want to keep an eye on.
 
Does anyone have any good sources on stages of growth starting this early? I've never ran cameras this early and a little excited to see what some could end up like. Maybe just too early to tell with any certainty...
 
...May 2nd last year. He ended up being 3 1/2 145" 10 (found dead). There is no doubt in my mind that individual deer have very different growth patterns (seems to be as much as a 3 week gap between certain deer). I would classify this deer as an "early bloomer".

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Time was off 12 hours for sure. 99% sure date was correct (if it was off it wasn't by much). That is a river bottom and for reference that area right now (May 31) is 5' tall of thick green growth. That being said....I've done dumber things...so I wont say for 100% certain. That deer grew a s*** ton early and I thought he was going to be a for sure booner.... then he just slowed right down and didn't grown much if any after June.

I was just attempting to show the differences in how a few deer grow. In statistics you would call him an outlier. Sorry for the confusion.

In contrast, I was watching a different deer last year and I didn't think much of him for a while and he ended up being a stud ~170" 10. He just started later than most other deer for whatever reason. (I wish a biologist would explain that to me, but whatever).

Here is a pic of what I think is more the norm for this time of year for what will be a decent deer of similar age as previous pic.

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