40 doe off of 500 acres? wow, i thought we had problems. for me and my lease near ozona it is too many mouths to feed and i think we need to eliminate the worst of them. that means everyone taking at least one buck of their choice that they think is bad and their 2 does. the second buck would be their trophy and it is a mature 10. we have too few hunters on our 6000 acres and not everyone is taking their bag limit. year round protien is working for sure but as i said there are so many small sh1t bucks to feed and some are turning into giant sh1t bucks. i just killed one yesterday. will post later. so i am all for culling the worst of them in our situation and leave the 10's until they are huge.
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I know what you are saying about too many mouths to feed. They have emptied my 600lb protein feeder in as little as 3 days which means they go about 5 weeks at a time without any feed in that feeder. The thing is, I beleive that after we kill the 40 doe, the season ends, pretty much everyone around us slacks off on feeding, and 40 more come into our place to replace the 40 we took off. Oh well, too many deer, I could find a lot worse problems to gripe about.Comment
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We usually take between 74-100 does off the ranch each year. Most places are over populated. By reducing the number of deer you increase the amount of forage available. The genetics are there but if the deer are not getting the proper nutrition they won't grow to there maximum potential regardless of genetics.
Speaking of genetics. At the ranch we do not shoot any trophy bucks until the first of December. We try to give them the opprotunity to breed. I find it ironic that people shoot the bucks that they want to produce before they even get the chance to spread their genes. We shoot the less desirables first and the trophies last.Comment
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By the time the buck is mature, he's been spreading his genes for 3 or more seasons. When he reaches 6 1/2+, he'll start rutting less and less. He just can't keep up with the youngsters, who'll do most of the breeding. We kill our trophies when they give us a chance. Waiting until December on the Junco will get you lots of broken horns. Of course, most of the time it takes me well into January before I get mine.Comment
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Tuthdoc I agree but again one more year is another year. Much rather shoot the inferior ones first. I have fallen victim to the broken horns more than I care to share but thats the way it goes. At our place any deer over 6.5 can be shot at anytime because of the reason you stated they drop out of the rutting ritual. What we try to do is allow the 4.5 and 5.5 year olds to breed. After the rut they are fair game. We don't put a specific age limit on the deer that can be harvested. To many factors and most of the time people are inaccurate. Just last year a leading biologist( I won't mention his name) Miss aged 75% of the deer we trapped. He had every excuse in theworld. But bottom line he couldn't pin point the age no better than a drunk monkey. We break them down into the 3 categories..Young , mature and post mature. Just our way of doing things.Comment
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That's what I'm talking about Truthdoc...
See a cull -- take a cull!!Comment
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That's the smartest thing in this thread... (of course do that while your culling inferior bucks...)Originally posted by Tuffbroadhead View PostComment
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I read that forked horn yearlings will always be bigger than their spiked horn siblings...Originally posted by Joey~AP View PostComment
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"I'd rather take an 8 pt rather than anything else." REALLY?Originally posted by Bily Lovec View Post
So you're sitting in a stand and you're going to pass up good mature 10-12 point cause you're looking for that big 8 pt? To each his own I guess.
I'll just keep culling deer like the mature 7 point in my avitar on the left so I can take the 10 point next to him I got later that day
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On our San Angelo lease, we kill our deer at 5 1/2+ for trophies. we watch them grow and have a pretty good fix on their ages. I would venture to guess we don't miss the ages by much, if any, on most of the deer that are killling age. I may not hit the ages of a 3 1/2 to 4 1/2, but it doesn't really matter since we aren't going to kill a trophy at that age anyway. All we need to know is if he's 5 1/2 or more. If he's 5 1/2 and I want him, I'll kill him the first day of the season if he presents himself. On the Junco, we just up it a year. We try to kill trophy deer at 6 1/2 +. It's easier to tell a deer of that age group and older, but if we let them go to 6 1/2 on our San Angelo place, we'd lose too many good deer to the neighbors. So, we compromise with a 5 1/2 yo minimum age.
I assume that the bucks that were trapped were known age deer that the biologist couldn't match. Otherwise, what criteria was used to know that he miss aged them?Comment
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Actually, what I said was I'd rather take a "really big" 8-point than anything else, given a preference. Am I going to turn down a mature 10 or 12-point, no way. I just like a real monster 8-point the best of all.
JoshuaComment
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Originally posted by Bucks&Broadheads View Post"I'd rather take an 8 pt rather than anything else." REALLY?
So you're sitting in a stand and you're going to pass up good mature 10-12 point cause you're looking for that big 8 pt? To each his own I guess.
I'll just keep culling deer like the mature 7 point in my avitar on the left so I can take the 10 point next to him I got later that day
read joshua's below answer... i believe the quote was "A GREAT 8 point "
but yes, you're right to each his own...Comment
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If I had to choose between a 150 class 8 and a 150 class 10 or 12, I'd kill the 8 EVERY time. To get the same number of inches with fewer points, it means there has to be some exaggerations somewhere. I LOVE a big 8.Comment
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you guys are funny...
Here's the point:
I love a big 8.
I love a big 10 more than that.
I love a big 12 more than that.
The bigger the better -- if you disagree with that you don't have a pulse.Comment
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