Originally Posted by Mbrock
It doesn’t take a savvy woodsman to smoke the 2-3 year old age class. Nearly every property I’ve hunted the older bucks were no harder to kill than the younger ones, except there just aren’t as many of them. You can’t kill what’s not there and there’s lots of places they simply aren’t there. The properties that consistently produce very nice deer all have one thing in common. It’s simple. They don’t shoot them until they’re big. Nothing spectacular. Average hunters can kill big deer where they exist.


That's not what we experience on our property. We see 2 & 3 yr olds all the time (with our eyes while hunting). A two yr old buck is as dumb as can be and anyone can kill a 2 yr old... if they're not already shot up. We let three yr olds walk. However, and here's my point... we don't see near as many 4+ yr olds except on camera. We have them! They're there!! But, those 4+ yr olds are harder to kill and we have a good many as we see them on cams at night. But when the rut happens, they do show themselves a lot more!