Big Hairy - sound like y’all got it going on

Keep pressure down for me key - goin to try to target inferior deer next year - out of the 4 deer me and my son killed this year - 2 of them very inferior - my 1st deer needed another year or 2 but I was not going to turn down a nice 9 for first ever bow kill - I do think he was young super star - he just stepped out at wrong time - I think we also gone start feeding protein this year and I just started predator control 6-7 months ago

So if one can't change the genetics and you have plenty of food and cover and all the stuff a herd needs, why shoot the 6 and 7 pointers?

I tracked a deer the other day on a couple thousand acres of prime habitat in Fitzpatrick just inside the prairie soil region that had 230 acres of plantable ag fields…..I bet you I could grow a few 130’s on that place.

To reduce the competition from the other bucks......To keep them from possibly running the three year old 12 pt off to the neighbors where he gets shot.....You're not really looking to have an intense rut with lots of fighting between bucks etc......You're wanting to keep things nice and comfy for your potential young trophies....Don Higgins used to talk about this on the old QDMA forum....It's where I picked it up and it made sense to me what he was saying.

We used to kill bigger bucks when we used to shoot spikes and all kinds of young bucks.

Not gonna happen with a 3 buck limit on many properties. Who wants to tag out first week of season? That sounds good on a small wood lot ,Midwest property. That's nothing but "culling" . Those 3 yo 6 and 7s may be a dandy 9 or 10 in a couple years.

I have had a lot of difficulty aging deer on the hoof. Mostly my fault for making snap judgements. Last year I killed a 12 point that I thought was 5. When I got to him he was definitely no older than 4. Earlier this year I killed a 10 that was running a doe on a snap judgement on nothing but horn size. That deer was a solid 3 year old. I swore that would be the last time I killed one that hadn't shown what he could be even if I never kill another one. Since then I've let a couple of solid 4 year olds walk and one old warrior that was probably older than 5 go. I don't care what his horns are, if that deer ain't walking with a cane on his way to pick up his social security check, I ain't dropping the hammer on him.

Yeah, I think putting it into practice on a property in Alabama would be more less focusing on just reducing the numbers of those lower potential bucka and not necessarily trying to eliminate everything BUT the high potential ones……There are some bucks on either end of the bell curve that are no brainers for the most part

There’s not if you have plenty of food, especially if you have plenty January through March. Except possibly opening up a spot for another buck to move into during dispersal.

What 257 said - back in 70s n 80s folks was shooting 150 to 180 inch deer in Natalia (Marengo county) and back then it was more if it brown it down - had more does around then too

And most of them had a pack of hounds after them

I grew up hunting the Massillon/browns area and mollettes bend. Was some sure giants killed then. I can remember one of dads friends shooting 5 spikes in one sit cause they were inferior deer. I saw some very big deer come from those places in those days. Of course it was all row crop and oak woods back then too.

I’d say 50% of the 4 year olds at my place in Fayette get that way. I killed a 4 year old last year that was probably only about 100” and could tell he didn’t have the genetics. Both of these were killed by neighbors up there this week. Hard to get them all when you’ve only got 315 acres to hunt on but we have some really nice 4 and 5 year olds on camera

It’s not about food or cover…..It’s more about buck to doe ratio……It’s keeping there from being a lot of competition amongst the bucks……Rack size has nothing to do with dominance or subordinance and its often times your highest scoring potential deer that may be subordinate with the big ol’ bodied 7 pt being dominant…….You don’t want there to be competition that might run that high scoring subordinate buck off so you reduce the middle aged buck numbers and the ones you choose to take out are the ones you feel like are the ones with the lowest potetial……..Most people are doing the opposite……They are shooting the good young 10 or 12 and letting the low potential ones grow old.

You had deer reinhabiting areas that hadn’t seen deer in decades, no trail cams for patterning and taking any deer was a totally random occurrence. There were 170-190” deer being killed all over the state between the 70s and early 2000s because they were exploding in new territory and they had got age on them. VERY few deer reach 7-8 years old now. Almost non existent. Back then almost all of the BIG deer were older than 5.

Hunting sure was fun back then. I know that.

Yea - that story brings back good memories (257 5 spike story)

Back in 80s I was on deer drive in Marengo county - I was a driver on a big drive - one of the stand guys was a 75 year old man that could bairly get around

We heard 5 shots come from his area when the dogs ran and thought what the heck - wonder if he got a good one - got to him and 4 does we’re laying there dead 🤣🤣🤣

I went on some fun drives at Millwood plantation back in the 80’s. Some fine Brunswick stew lunches were served

I think more bucks would reach 130" than wouldn't reach 130" on our property. The problem we had is up until 2 years ago, for the last 30 years, we leased the property to a club that operated off of state rules and would kill anywhere around 15+ bucks a year ranging from young spikes to a mature deer. I've dropped the hunting pressure tremendously and we've pretty well let everything we've seen walk with the exception of a few nice bucks over 2 years. Just those 2 years have showed a dramatic improvement on my camera studies across the property. More numbers, more aged deer and we don't have a completely obsolete 3yo and 4yo class of deer like we did 2 years ago. We plant plenty of plots and row crop now, So I'm guessing and hoping all of that helps in the long run.

But but!! Most 3-4 year olds will never develop into big deer, you must be making that up!

I just can’t fathom any reason for shooting a 3 year old buck with potential then gripe for not having big bucks.