We've had our place going on its 5th year. EVERY year we have a pile of 2-3 year old bucks. Always. Without question. However, we rarely see or get pictures of bucks that are 4,5,6 years old. We aren't shooting them, neighbors aren't shooting them...they literally just disappear. Poof, gone. We have a cooperative of 4 landowners totaling about 1200 acres. In 5 years, we have taken roughly 20 bucks. Of those 20, I would say 2 were 2.5, 8 were 3.5 and 10 were 4.5+. I would say, conservatively, we hold one buck/15 acres, or roughly 100 bucks on the 1200 total. Of those, I would say that less than 10% are 4.5 or older. My question, if we are able to hold such a number of 3.5 and younger deer, where are the mature bucks going? Will they not tolerate all of the younger deer and their shenanigans? Would killing some of the younger bucks actually help our ability to hold and harvest mature deer? Just looking for opinions.