Patience to Grow a Monster 8

[Ronnie41]

Do the property owners or hunters around you have patience to wait or will they harvest it first? That is the problem we all face if we try to do it right.

[MarkV]

A lot of high fenced ranches would have killed him at 4 1/2, including most of my friends on their places. Hopefully his G2's don't split, put me down as the package hunter if you need one for him next year

yup, my buddies HF place, he would probably get the green light by me to shoot a 4.5 yr old 8(that's a cull in their mgmt plan)

[Mexico]

Do the property owners or hunters around you have patience to wait or will they harvest it first? That is the problem we all face if we try to do it right.

We are HF so that's not an issue [emoji106]

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[KactusKiller]

I'm all about age and letting them grow old but I'm just gonna play devils advocate here just because I'm looking for some good deer conversation on a Tuesday.

I agree that this avg looking 8 that would have been taken out as a 4.5 on most places made a big jump from 4.5-6.5. BUT how many other avg 8's still look avg even at 5.5-6.5-7.5?? How many of these avg(below 130") 8's are dominating feeders and kicking exceptional 3.5-4.5 10 pnt plus deer off feeders and does?
While I agree that there will always be some deer whether 8 pnts, short brows, spikes etc. that turn into exception even trophy caliber deer they are in the minority compared to the deer that have trophy type characteristics as 2.5-3.5 yr olds.

I never want anyone to shoot any bucks until 3.5 no matter what headgear they have and no bucks with 8pnts or more until 4.5. If you haven't shown me something IE long tines, trash, mass, width by then then the percentage chances go way down that he ever will.

Becomes a numbers game with the herd. If you need to take say 30 bucks each season to keep your population in check then typically 5-8 of those will be mature trophy deer then the rest I want to be the lowest bucks on the totem pole. If we waited til every buck hit 6.5 plus you would be feeding alot of unworthy mouths instead of the true cream of the crop.

Just another side to think about for the others reading this. Obviously "Mexico" knows what he doing and it works for them and their herd but not all properties are the same whether it be genetics or population or nutrition.

Just some food for thought and my .02 cents which isn't worth much

[TildenHunter]

Great deer Shane. Love those long beams and tines.

[mjbtexas]

that deer at 3.5 looks like every deer in Tx.

It takes time and $$ to feed and grow em. And I can understand why guys dont always wait.

but man, when you do wait. great googly moogly

[SHSU18]

Hell of an 8!