Buck problem I don't get. Anyone else?

[tony185]

So I've been at my place in south Texas for about 4 years and have noticed that I have seen nothing but 8 pointers. From the young bucks to the older ones they are all 8s!!? I don't understand it and I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this problem. And remember it's been about 4 years, 1100 acres,and I have run cameras every yr.

[tony185]

The ones I've taken the last 3 yrs and the one by the feeder is a pic of one from this year I haven't been able to see yet

[txwhitetail]

Prob shot out for years leaving the 8pts and their genetics as the only thing left. Will take a while to get out of that rut.

[Terry]

8 is the norm, assuming you are feeding year round to include protein, points shoud increase, I assume you are not high fenced.

[cj7zrcool]

They probably need more age if they don't have great genetics to begin with.

[venado]

Well the law of deer "normal" in Texas is an 8 pointer that scores at maturity about 130. It is in the genetics of your your/our herd. Some managed ranches kill all eights as they mature but in your case if you did that you would virtually eliminate your buck herd. If you do have a reasonable smattering of 10s or plus, you too can maybe maybe cull your way out of almost all eights. But in my opinion you have to basically decide do you want to have a fun lease or a trophy lease.

[Tx.Fisher]

Prob shot out for years leaving the 8pts and their genetics as the only thing left. Will take a while to get out of that rut.

Yep. I know of a guy that hunted a big place and they had a dumb rule that a buck had to have 10 points to kill. Brilliant herd management, after about 3-4 years all they had were mature 8-9 points doing all the breeding. I suspect the same thing happened to your place before you got on.

[Ksbowhunter]

Did you count both sides?

[tony185]

8 is the norm, assuming you are feeding year round to include protein, points shoud increase, I assume you are not high fenced.

No not high fenced this year I will start year round feeding to try to help out

[nimrodajh]

I hunt two places in Angelina county with totally different genetics. Both over 5,000 acres and both on the Neches river. One is intensely managed with year round protein feed program. It's loaded with big 6's and 8's with very few exceptions. The other has no feed program besides food plots and corn feeders. It has a 10+ point gene that we see some reach a 2.5 yrs old. Incredible genetics and even though most don't reach full potential because of the old school "3.5 is mature" metality, it never fails to produce bigger scoring deer than the other place.

So I think you either have it or you don't and nothing will change that unless you high fence it. Place #1 is a prime example of not being able to cull your way to good genetics. They've been blasting old six points on sight for 30 years and there are still several killed every year.

[AgHntr10]

We have the same deal on out lease in ETex, very few bucks with more than 8 points

[nimrodajh]

Not a thing in the world wrong with big 8's though. I'd be happy with any of those in your pics!

[bowhntrmatt]

On our place in Val verde, we have kind of the opposite problem. We have very few deer over 3.5 with 8 or less points. We even see several mainframe 11/12 pointers every year. Our problem is that all our deer are small framed. We very rarely see a deer that hits 140"

[Terry]

If you go with protein, make it a sanctuary area. It will draw bucks not normally on your property. After one year we had Bucks preferring the protein. During season cut the protein.

[Saltyag15]

When we had that bad drought down in Encinal 6 years ago, it thinned out our herd real bad. Last year was the first year we started seeing bucks with over 8 points again, and that was 5 years from the die off. It just takes time, rain, and feed. You'll get there!