Letting Deer Walk

I have let a ton of deer walk this year and it makes me feel good to know they have a chance at being a giant next year. I let the biggest 6pt walk this morning I have ever seen in my life and this afternoon I let a spike walk on my hayfield that had horns at least 20" long. I only kill one a year so my year has been over for a while. Let em' grow folks!

B

I might give my 1 a year for a 20" spike. Thats pretty rare.

Good on you but I enjoy killing em too much to only kill one a year and I’d gladly shoot a spike with 20” beams

A friend of mine grows large highfence deer for sale to hunting resorts in AL. We have conversations at length about antler growth and how buck genetics work. He would suggest getting rid of that spike as fast as possible, you do not want it breeding/reproducing and affecting the gene pool.

I am not a high & mighty deer hunter / land mangement person by any means, and would happily shoot a nice buck under 115", but evidently large spikes are not ideal.

A good friend that has a nice place in Lawrence Co has struggled with letting them walk for as long as I’ve known him. About 8-10 years ago he started slowly letting them walk. Buck limits really played a part in him to start doing that. Hated being told type. Well he’s been sending videos of pretty decent bucks he’s letting walk. Some are fighting etc…. He’s been in the front yard of watching deer behavior and so forth. Really enjoying it. One thing he has also done. He’s killing several brutes each year off his place.

I think he’s finally tired of asking for me to come hunt with him. Deer just don’t do it for me any longer. Whistles and quacks have always been my thing. I’ve started a few times but always go back to the swamps and fields.

Dang i ready to break ice! Had our church youth hunt tonite - wind swirled again like it says it will for next 2 weeks😀
But 2 does were killed and first time kill

I got a great young heard of 3 year old 8s n Clarke - one 9 that may b awesome if he makes it - decent now. If i never shoot and it late january - he may get smoked. But i trying for 5 r bettr. I got one shooter thats a nine that grew fair amount from last year. Got a stud on my neighbor that i likely hav visit n rut. And i got a pic of partial rack that i thi lnk was my stud 4 year old from 2 years ago - think acorns may b reason i did not see last year. I lov to watch grow and i lov to shoot - dang i ready. I cant even go w swirl wind - crappiest conditions/wind ever

Atleast my herd rested/fresh - getn swirl about 100% of time - season from hades 🤣🤣

I can let them walk here at the house but it sure is hard for me to let one walk hunting public land

Before I ever pick up my gun I ask my self 3 questions.
1. Do I intend to mount the deer?
2. Do I need the meat?
3. Do I really want to go thru the trouble of cleaning it?
If the answer is no to any of those questions it gets a free pass.

I’m just as happy letting middle aged bucks walk as I am killing an older deer. It’s great. If you can get to the point of not picking up your gun on borderline deer and just observing their behavior you’ll have a lot of fun and learn a heck of a lot about deer.

This and if the answer is yes to all three I still might pass.

It’s been a tuff road for me to do up until I owned my own property… I’ve let some really nice deer walk the last few years to see the neighbors kill… it’s tuff bc they don’t live close and are only around during rifle season.. don’t kill predators, don’t plant, don’t do anything but corn and shoot… part of it but I can sleep with it if they can..

I sent a pic I had of what I thought was a nice 8pt and 257 told me what he’d be the next year. He was right turned into a giant, I didn’t get to kill him but after that I became a lot more selective..

I let them walk regularly on both public and private but my questions would be a little different.
Do I want more venison?
Do I feel like getting this animal out of where I’m killing it?

I’m not all that interested in antlers per se. I’ll be thrilled if a get a mature buck but I’m just as happy watching does or young bucks go about their business never knowing I’m there. I don’t ever NEED the meat. For what it costs just to go to my camp I could just buy several weeks of meat.
And the ones I’d mount aren’t the tastiest individuals.

i pretty much shoot what i want too if i want too. i normally dont shoot younger bucks but have .

if im playing with some thing new ill shoot what ever walks out . last two bucks (3 1/2 year olds) i killed was 6 years ago when i got a 357mag rifle and was trying it out .

lol i have them walking around in the yard . i dont shoot any of them

We only own 40 and control another 80. We’ve let tons of bucks walk but only see probably 40% or less make it to 3 or older. Either they get shot by neighbors or disperse to other areas to never be seen again.

I got a 104 and don't shoot any buck unless it's mature. I very rarely get multiple pics of the same buck year after year. They either get shot or disperse just as you said. I always get bucks end of December first of January that I've never saw before. I'm in the lightwood area of Northern Elmore County. If I want meat I shoot a doe. It took me alot of years to mature and get trigger restraint on the younger bucks.

At my hayfield, I have several small areas of hardwoods, and deer love to eat the wateroak acorns when they fall. For the last 2 months, I have had a 10 pt that is a stud visit this area every night along with several 8's and 6's. The hayfield has houses on the north boundary line and the folks that live along the line will kill a deer in a heartbeat! I am pretty sure some of the families there feed the deer and enjoy watching them come and eat. The deer use the hayfield woods as a staging area before feeding in the backyards of the locals. I have not had a picture of the 10, 9, or good 8's in over a week. I know they are after does now and this makes them an easy target for the locals who could care less. So far no one has killed any of the deer as they would be all over Facebook if they were killed.

There is also a gene that grows huge spikes on this hayfield tract. Last year the best young deer I had was a spike that was similar to the one I saw yesterday. He was killed by a young boy whose family land borders me. I hated to see the deer killed as I was seeing him on a regular basis and I "thought" he would have great potential. The boy's family owned the land he was killed on so I had to be happy for the boy on his kill. With beams like these young deer have, when they grow points they will be good ones-I hope!

I have a hard time believing that Alabama spikes won’t turn into a good deer at 4-5 years old.
Our genetics is pretty dang good around here and I see spikes and three points every year.
They have to be growing into fork horns the following year. Imo anyway

A spike in AL is not an indication of anything that he can or can’t do at maturity.

I probably let way more deer walk in a season then I probably should. Especially this season due to the fact that I killed all the deer I needed in Texas. Some of the guys at the camp give me a lot of crap for not shooting but I explain to them that when I’m ready to shoot something, I’ll shoot. I’m past the stage of killing a deer just to say I killed it. I know what I’m after and when I see it, I shoot. First few hunts of the season, I’m a meat hunter and once I get what I need then I get very selective. But if someone wants to shoot and it makes them happy, I’ll be right there to celebrate the kill with them. Deer hunting is supposed to be fun and watching deer in their natural state is way more fun for me then having to clean a process them.

A few years ago I passed on what I believe to be a 2yr old spike. The spikes were about a foot tall and the one on his right side has a sharp bend about half way up. 2 years later, my buddy shoots one afternoon and tells me he shot a big bodied tall 6pt. I went meet him and when I walked up to the deer, I immediately notice the right antler had a sharp bend in it about half way up. The antlers we probably 15-16” tall and only had about a 10-12” spread with big forks and small brow tines. Till this day I believe that was the exact spike I let walk 2yrs prior. He wasn’t a monster but my buddy was dang proud of him and I sure would have been happy to kill him. You never know what a bucks potential is if you kill him when he’s a baby.

I bought a little Camcorder and started filming the bucks I let walk. It was just as good as shooting them to me. They walked and I could show people what I could've killed if I had chosen to.

I let a 4.5 yo 8 point walk last Tuesday because I had to be up for work at 2:45 am and still had a 4 hour drive to the house to complete. No thank you lol.

Meh.

Ya, I like pulling the trigger

Yep! And eating venison!

We pass a lot- I mean a lot. Never really see the benefit over the next couple years. Maybe they get killed at 3 or 4 elsewhere. I have learned to enjoy just watching them and working the property, being in camp. maybe one day our trigger restraint will pay off.

I just wanna shoot chit.. i get to go like twice a year now..i dont give crap if its got horns..spots…or identifies as a hippopotarangutangapuss..i needs ta blowse it…👌🏻

^^
🤣🤣

Glad i still like to shoot - i like letting them walk - tryung to graduate to 5 yr olds and i dont care what others do - i try to take care of me - we all got our hands full just to do that 😀

Agree....I went thru the killing stage about 10 yrs ago and now have become very selective....If I kill a couple early in the season for meat, I am good...my wife will kill 1 or 2 and we usually give most of the meat to family and friends....I have never worried about what others shoot....I tell everybody that once you make the kill, then the real work begins in cleaning and processing....

This right here!!

Dead little deer don’t make big live deer!!! Its pretty simple.

I ask my self two questions about a buck when deciding whether to shoot him or not:
1). Is he mature? That is why if you are going to be serious about a trophy plan you should learn to age them in the field, then shoot the mature ones whether they are a huge spike or a 10. Mature bucks, that aren't trophy quality don't do anything but eat up food that could be used by young, growing deer so take em out.
2). Do I feel like fooling with him? I'm getting old so it is important to me to have someone there to help me load, etc. Usually, there is a front-end loader on a tractor to use if no one else is around. If I'm by myself I always check to see that it is operable before I go.

I would add to your 1st point… it’s not always wise to take them out whether they are a huge spike or a 10. From what I’ve learned from Matt and others here and other places, it’s better to have an older age class of breeding bucks. So don’t just shoot him because he’s old, shoot him because he is old and has a rack that is a trophy to you. Even if he has 10” spikes, there’s no science saying his offspring will have 10” spikes. Maybe he breeds with a doe that has good genes and she throws a buck that has 10” brow tines. Who knows?

Science does say that an older age class of bucks leads to a better fawn survival rate. And with the coyote epidemic that’s a big deal if you ask me. Plus I doubt your deer are starving. The mature buck eating the food isn’t really that big of a deal is it?


Just passing along something Ive learned over the last 3-4 years or so. But I’m definitely no expert.

I got ya Spud

All I see is Sausage and Burger!

for eating thats the best kind , lol

My point.. if where im hunting its legal to kill and i aint going to die getting him out im filling the freezer. dont get me wrong i love killing a good mature big rack deer but those dont come by a whole lot when the surrounding property is brown or down

From what I understand a property can only support a certain number of mature deer even with a strict habitat management program + food plots. Mature deer don't like to be "crowded". Again, someone correct me if I'm wrong here. I do agree you won't change a herd's genetics by shooting a 5yr old spike but you will free up a spot for another mature deer and have that much more forage available for other deer with better potential.

There’s truth in both.

Having older age class bucks in the population is good for herd health. Don’t matter what is on their head.

If you stockpile mature bucks in summer, they’re going to disperse in fall. Facts. Even in superb habitat, some will shift because they simply won’t all coexist together.

As long as you have other mature deer to fill the void removing deer you don’t desire is ok.

Genetics is so complicated in free ranging deer culling isn’t even worth bringing up as a management tool. Every study has replicated the same results.

I leave it right here. Decide what your harvest objectives are and stick with that, regardless of headgear.

I enjoy observing the deer now more than killing them. And I can’t control what happens to them once they leave our place.

Yep... when they step foot off the Ponderosa, I hope a angelic image of me forms over their right shoulder and says, "Go with God."

I laughed 😂

So I guess by that theory if you are holding a large number of mature deer during the summer months that are then dispersing as the rut approaches, shooting mature bucks with undesirable racks would be beneficial as it would, in theory, keep a mature deer with more desirable antlers from dispersing in the future? I can see how there a lot of factors at play here that would not apply for a lot of properties where mature age-class bucks are the exception and not the rule.

And I agree 100%, you will never change the genetics in a free-range herd.

I’ve shot 4 does this year. Our property in west TN is overrun with them. I’ve got pile of deer meat to eat. I’ve passed on 20-30 younger bucks. Some will be killed by others. Some will get hit by cars or die from CWD, but I didn’t kill them because I didn’t need the meat and they weren’t a trophy to me..

Big fan of this mentality. I’d love to be able to hold out for a 5 yr old buck but at the end of the day we are just trying to fill the freezer. A nice buck is a huge bonus.