Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[bgleaton]

What I think is. From the start of this thread till now... (YOUR KILLING IT) No introduced genetics. Deer look Fantastic, just another testament with age & nutrition

Thanks for your kind words. It definitely takes a lot of work to get these deer and land the way we want it so that we are providing enough native groceries throughout the year along with an intense supplemental feeding program with protein and cottonseed and some timely rains. We are hoping that we will eventually be able to grow some 165in bucks within the next couple of years.

[Chance Love]

Yes, this is Big Brows. I think he’s right at 155-160 but I’m not great ant scoring. I agree that this view is somewhat deceiving but it’s the best picture we have of him. He has always had really good mass. The crazy thing is that he is either 7 or 8 years old this year and we thought he was on the decline bc his antlers last year weren’t nearly as big. I think he will be the biggest buck we’ve ever taken if we get the chance this season.

Probably a 50's deer. That "decline" has been the demise of a LOT of bucks unnecessarily. I've heard it my whole life..."well he was on the decline so we shot him". In reality it's nonsense. No one knows when a buck will peak. I've seen them "decline" for a year, or even 2-3 years, then pop their biggest set of horns. It happens a LOT. Those years of 8-10 years old are the magic years. That being said, since he's 8 I wouldn't blame y'all a bit for hunting him this year. That's a good age. But he's also not hurting your program to leave him for another year or two.

[cehorn]

Probably a 50's deer. That "decline" has been the demise of a LOT of bucks unnecessarily. I've heard it my whole life..."well he was on the decline so we shot him". In reality it's nonsense. No one knows when a buck will peak. I've seen them "decline" for a year, or even 2-3 years, then pop their biggest set of horns. It happens a LOT. Those years of 8-10 years old are the magic years. That being said, since he's 8 I wouldn't blame y'all a bit for hunting him this year. That's a good age. But he's also not hurting your program to leave him for another year or two.

How much of the decline vs peaking do you think comes from range conditions in a given year vs just that deer's time (i.e. genetics)? I think this year's range conditions are/have been about as good as it gets. Using this deer as an example, was the decline last year due to drought and this may be his pop year because it has been such a wet year. I guess ultimately what I'm getting at is do you factor in range conditions when trying to decide whether a deer is peaking or truly declining? Again, using this deer as an example do you say this is the year for this deer because of range conditions or roll the dice that even if next year is this deer's year that he could "decline" due to range conditions? Or maybe look at it the opposite way if say a deer "declines" in a year like this year when he has everything a deer could possibly need maybe he needs to go.

[RMW]

I think big brows is easily 160+, big body also. Your deer are looking tremendous

[bgleaton]

I think big brows is easily 160+, big body also. Your deer are looking tremendous

thanks for the kind words! It’s fun to be able to use this property and see how big the bucks can get with age and proper nutrition.

[Chance Love]

How much of the decline vs peaking do you think comes from range conditions in a given year vs just that deer's time (i.e. genetics)? I think this year's range conditions are/have been about as good as it gets. Using this deer as an example, was the decline last year due to drought and this may be his pop year because it has been such a wet year. I guess ultimately what I'm getting at is do you factor in range conditions when trying to decide whether a deer is peaking or truly declining? Again, using this deer as an example do you say this is the year for this deer because of range conditions or roll the dice that even if next year is this deer's year that he could "decline" due to range conditions? Or maybe look at it the opposite way if say a deer "declines" in a year like this year when he has everything a deer could possibly need maybe he needs to go.

This made my head hurt.

Short answer is...who the heck knows?? Sometimes bucks will drop a little on what we perceive to be optimum range conditions. Sometimes they explode. There is NO 100% when it comes to deer. What I do know is that if you shoot them at 6 or 7, you will never know what they would have done at 8-10. And those are typically the "good" years. We RARELY have bucks that we would say are "on the decline"...mostly because I hate those terms. And we regularly have known aged bucks at 10+. Some have had their biggest set of horns at 11 and 12 years of age. Some were their biggest at 4. Like I said, who the heck knows? You, me, and the OP are all hunting hill country deer. I cannot stress enough how important AGE is to letting these suckers reach their maximum potential.

The OP is in a great position to really get some age on his deer. Should be fun to watch over the years to come. It's been fun so far.

[bgleaton]

This is one of the great things about our property being high fenced is that we can continue letting the big ones go and see what the optimum age will be without the worry of them being shot by one of our neighbors. I'm hopeful that we will be able to continue sharing our findings over the next 10-20 years so others can see what can be grown in the hill country.

[cehorn]

This made my head hurt.

Short answer is...who the heck knows?? Sometimes bucks will drop a little on what we perceive to be optimum range conditions. Sometimes they explode. There is NO 100% when it comes to deer. What I do know is that if you shoot them at 6 or 7, you will never know what they would have done at 8-10. And those are typically the "good" years. We RARELY have bucks that we would say are "on the decline"...mostly because I hate those terms. And we regularly have known aged bucks at 10+. Some have had their biggest set of horns at 11 and 12 years of age. Some were their biggest at 4. Like I said, who the heck knows? You, me, and the OP are all hunting hill country deer. I cannot stress enough how important AGE is to letting these suckers reach their maximum potential.

The OP is in a great position to really get some age on his deer. Should be fun to watch over the years to come. It's been fun so far.

LOL on your head hurting. Yeah, age is a huge deal. I'm still trying to get to 5-6 year olds much less anything older than that. Baby steps I guess.

This is one of the great things about our property being high fenced is that we can continue letting the big ones go and see what the optimum age will be without the worry of them being shot by one of our neighbors. I'm hopeful that we will be able to continue sharing our findings over the next 10-20 years so others can see what can be grown in the hill country.

Absolutely true and I look forward to jealously following your posts. This is definitely one of my favorite threads on here and a lot of what y'all have done I have tried to do on our place (planting perennials, etc.). Even if we had the money, I don't think I could talk the rest of my family in to high fencing our place. But man, I sure wish we could fence our place.

[Capt.Brown]

Great deer! The number one thing I’ve learned over the last 10 years of hunting the hill country is age, age, age! I’ve been very blessed to hunt a well managed ranch in the hill country and have seen this first hand, they just start getting good at 5.

[bgleaton]

We are getting ready to get our fall food plot seed ordered for this year at Justin Seed. We will be planting Bob Oats, winter wheat, elbon rye, and silver river clover. My plan is to add 150lbs/acre of 16-20-0 fertilizer in two of the three fields to see how big of a difference it makes. We will be planting around 7 acres worth of plots this fall. Our plan is to broadcast the fertilizer and seed first, disk the soil lightly (1-1.5in) to cover the seed, and then run the cultipacker over it all at the end several times. I’m hoping to get it all planted around the beginning of October or whenever we get a good chance of rain toward the end of this month or early October. I’ll keep you posted and hope we all get some good rain for our plots this fall. Have a good one!

[bgleaton]

We received our #'s from the biologist and we need to harvest 1 trophy, 8 cull bucks,12 doe, and 5 blackbuck females We have been seeing fawns everywhere so the fawn recruitment has been high this year. The goal for this year is to reduce our overall numbers to help increase the amount of native browse and forbs to help our deer herd even more next year. We have our work cut out for us.

[Droptine3030]

Just curious how many deer are on yalls place ?

[Chance Love]

State biologist?
What are the criteria for culls?

[Big pig]

I am not sure, but I think I have read he removes the “worst” deer of each age group. Only time I have heard that management advice but I really like it. If I had a high fence, that is the method I would employ.
I would manage my does the same. Smallest and ones that produced single fawns first.

BGleaton, please excuse me if I am wrong here. Anxious to hear your answer.

BP

[Chance Love]

I am not sure, but I think I have read he removes the “worst” deer of each age group. Only time I have heard that management advice but I really like it. If I had a high fence, that is the method I would employ.
I would manage my does the same. Smallest and ones that produced single fawns first.

BGleaton, please excuse me if I am wrong here. Anxious to hear your answer.

BP

The “remove the worst from each age class” is a very common method. I was really just wondering if the biologist was giving cull criteria, or if the ranch came up with their own.