This will mainly pertain to everything north of say Waco and mainly east of 35, but anyone can chime in. On both my Oklahoma ranch and my Navarro co ranch bucks just do not spend the summer/off season on my property. Only does/fawns and yearling bucks. Hard to give them good nutrition all summer during growing season if they don't hang around. Cover is plenty thick, plenty of water and best nutrition by far in the neighborhood. I have never understood why, no matter what I feed or do we never have mature bucks staying on property. Of course I would rather have them at home in the fall than during the summer and they leave but I want to up the nutrition game but they aren't around to feed. For reference one property is 320 ac that has very little activity in off season and the other is about 245ac with quite a bit of activity but great neighboring sanctuary cover but no supplemental feed of any kind.
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I grow food plots regardless of what I see on cameras. However, I see bucks doing the reverse. Eating on me, and romancing somewhere else.
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Not really going to help you because we’re roughly halfway between Houston and Dallas, but we feed corn and protein year around so yes they do tend to stay in the area.
About the only places they can travel from where we are is west and north, most of those people don’t feed. There’s also a good amount of woods, bedding and a spring fed creek that’s never ran dry in the not quite 24 years the land has been in the family so all that probably factors in as well.Comment
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We have 1200 acres so it’s a little different. When we first started hunting the place in 2001 we didn’t have many resident bucks, just had them show up during the rut. The last 15+ years they never leave. We have protein and corn 24/7/365 and oats in the winter. It took a while but they started staying a few at a time. We still have bucks that show up during the rut and decide the living is good and stay.Comment
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Yeah thats my hope is that once they find what I'm offering they stay. But like said above I'd much rather them live somehwere else and then come to me in the fall when it matters rather than the opposite. My other place in Navarro I planted fall and summer and fed yr round for 7 yrs. Had a yr or two where the bucks stayed all summer and I got to watch them grow. As our herd grew the mature bucks again ventured off during the summer. This new property seems to not be a summer destination so far but I'm putting a ton of money and effort to get it there right now. Hopefully it becomes a yr round hotspot.Originally posted by Bowhuntingobsession View PostComment
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Not the same but my neighborhood bucks disappear once they shed and don't show up til pre rut.Comment
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I’m in Freestone County and I am the exact opposite of you. I have some good, mature, solid bucks in my back yard almost daily throughout the spring and summer but they disappear every year right around the end of September early October. Been here 20 years and it happens every year.Comment
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This. Be grateful if you want to kill them. I have a bachelor group that hangs out eating all the feed they can consume until the day they go hard horned (mid-end August). They then change zip codes, only to seen again when all the rutting periods dry up (usually Christmas time at the earliest). I’m lucky enough to know where they go and it’s on our property, typically 2-3 miles away from their home range.Originally posted by Drycreek3189 View PostI grow food plots regardless of what I see on cameras. However, I see bucks doing the reverse. Eating on me, and romancing somewhere else.Comment
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Originally posted by Walker View PostThis is what mine do. I only have 80 acres at home, but I put out mineral blocks and grow spring/summer plots and see bucks on them until they rub the velvet off, then they vanish. I do manage to see some during the fall but not the nice ones I fed all summer. All in all, it doesn’t matter much to me, I’m not a bone collector. I enjoy doing the work and I enjoy eating venison. I have one yardstick on bucks, I want him to be 3.5 or older.Originally posted by texan16 View PostComment
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Absolutely. I grow every buck in 4 square miles….. seriously
cost a fortune. I’ve killed 2 in 32 years. But the neighbors kill some fat 3 year olds. Lol
plans currently are to switch the entire property into a whitetail Mecca starting this December converting into timber with irrigated food plotsComment
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Just a few weeks ago I met a high school friend that is hunting close by one property. He showed me every single buck I was missing over the last 4+ years… none were killed within a mile of where I raised them from January- September. Most were 1.5-2.5 miles away.
one big cull 6 from dairy was killed over 4 miles away. I had him from 2” bumps- full frame. Never seen him hard hornedComment
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Kinda have the reverse situation, we see bucks all through the summer because we feed year round and some of those peckerheads leave once the other neighboring ranches decide to start feeding. We are in the NW hill country on larger acreage, I'd like your situation much better if I had a choice. But we do have enough bucks to go around I just wish I was feeding protein to the ones I wanted to see prosper and might could harvest. Oh well, could be worse I suppose..Comment
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My place doesn’t have enough thick sanctuary to stay in my opinion. We take care of the cows and I think that activity keeps them hidden on nearby undisturbed places
But at night they hit my food plots and protein feeders. Luckily the does stay home and most of the bucks spend fall and winter here checking does.
Except one old buck that has left every fall during October and comes back in late December for past 3 yrs.
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Bucks just live in our lespedeza fields all spring and summer. We are in Houston, trinity and East edge of leon coComment
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We feed year round as well. Both protein and corn and we also have food plots on all the leases. So they stick around at our places. The sure do hit that protein hard the first part of the year and you notice it come Oct. 👍🏻Comment
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