Good example of a management buck

[Santeerangerman]

I saw this buck for the first time, 2 years ago. Showed what I thought was very good potential. Never saw him last year. I saw him again this year on Aug 24th. He was still in velvet at the time. He was with 4 other bucks, and I could tell he had a good bit of age on him. I judged him to be 5.5 yrs old. He really stood out from the other bucks he was with. I passed on him that day only because he was with several other bucks that really looked good, and I didn't want to spook them.
I knew when he left the field that day, that if I got another chance to shoot him, I would. With his age, and rack size, I knew that A. he wasn't getting any bigger, and B. I didn't want him to pass his genetics on. I've already seen his traits in other bucks on the property.
Anyways, I caught up with him this past Wednesday.

He measures 20" inside, and 23" outside. His G-2's are 9" long, and he has 23" long main beams.
Really a pretty buck, if he would have had some points...

[adchunts]

WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!

[Supergas]

Good Cull

[BP in ME]

Pretty decent rack but an awful small body.

[hooks2bset]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BP in ME &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Pretty decent rack but an awful small body. </TD></TR></TABLE>

[bigjigs]

That's a good one to get rid of. But looks like he had good main beam length.

[Earl320V]

what did you do,shoot him out your bedroom window? The least you could do is look the part,and get some camo PJ's and slippers!!!! Nice deer....

[jseasor]

def. a mangagment buck, good call on your part..

[enforcer410]

[Chad]

Great buck...any deer with age is a trophy, despite what his headgear looks like....I am pretty sure I could find a nice spot for him above my TV...

But don't fool yourself into thinking you made any difference in your herd by shooting him for the sake of culling....culling does not work, can not work, and will not work on free ranging deer....period....Its an excuse alot of guys use to shoot deer that they otherwise would have passed on....

[rangerman1963]

nice pj,s oh nice buck too

[Santeerangerman]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chad &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

But don't fool yourself into thinking you made any difference in your herd by shooting him for the sake of culling....culling does not work, can not work, and will not work on free ranging deer....period....Its an excuse alot of guys use to shoot deer that they otherwise would have passed on....</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sorry, but I disagree 100%. Based on what we've done, and where we were 8 years ago, it's absolutely making a difference. My lease is on my brother in laws farm, which is over 6000 acres. That, along with cooperation from our neighbors, we now have nearly 10,000 joining acres under a QDMA agreement.
We have gone from an avg weight of 155lbs, to this year, and avg of 196lbs live weight. We are also letting 3.5 yr old and younger 8pt and 10 pt bucks regardless of score, go to do the breeding. With the right amount of acreage, and cooperative agreements, you can have an effect on the deer genetics/ antler traits.
It's not easy at all. You have to be willing to pass on some bucks that the avg hunter would relish killing.

[Chad]

I know it was a typo, but you meant QDM agreement...QDMA is the organization...we founded the South LA branch several years ago...just a pet peeve of mine...sorry...

Like I said....I would have shot the same deer....simply because it appeared to be of advanced age....so please don't take what I said as a knock on you....

But I would submit that what you are seeing results from is simply the act of managing and not the result of culling practices....some of the world top biologists will tell you that culling in a free ranging deer herd isn't effective....culling in a penned deer herd is minimally effective....at BEST.....that is why some of the oldest ranches in the country still continue to offer "management" hunts after decades of "culling"....and that is on penned properties....

It is very easy to attribute what a buck looks like to his father due to the fact that antlers are a tangible item.....so obviously a buck MUST determine what another buck looks like......well....that is not exactly the case.....while even though a whitetail has been determined to be the most biologically complex mammal on the planet, we still do know some things.....for example....the doe contributes AT LEAST 50% of the genetic makeup of what a young bucks antlers will be....some researchers have equated this to male pattern baldness in men....you are bald not because of what your father was like, but rather due to the genetics your mother passes on....in the deer world, this means you would have to know what exact genetics each doe carries for bucks in order to be able to weed out the genes you want removed.............and this isn't even taking into account the fact that a very large percentage of "genetic problems" are actually a cause of nutrition or age....

Apparently you are familiar with the QDMA, and have probably seen Bryan Murphy's name in the magazine....he's the executive director of the QDMA, and before taking that position, he actually "ran" the deer program for New Zealand....New Zealand's #1 export is deer....hide, antlers, meat, etc.....all things deer....anyway...he told me one time that what they had discovered as far as culling goes is that in order to remove traits from the herd, you have to be able to know every deer in the herd, which buck/doe were its parents, how old it was exactly, and then remove those deer individually each year before they do any breeding......in those specific cases, it would take 13 years to remove a particular trait from the herd....none of us can come anywhere close to that in the wild.....

Sorry for the long winded-ness of this post...deer biology and management has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember...and I try to suck up every bit of knowledge I can find on the subject....and for whatever reason, I feel I must run my mouth about it every chance I get....

[Chad]

Let me also say as a disclaimer...I don't think you are doing anything at all wrong...sounds like you guys are doing the right thing there....its great to see people out there actually trying to manage the resource instead of just using it...

[BP in ME]

Randy/Chad,

Been following your discussion here and let me just say that while I have a degree in biology and I'm a deer hunter, I'm no deer expert. I have to agree with Chad here on most points. The biggest factor in QDM producing bigger, better bucks is the simple fact that it allows a higher percentage of bucks to reach their full potential in body mass and rack development. When hunters tag spikes and crotchhorns, it drags down the averages reported in harvest data as well reducing the number of bucks that could be trophies in 2-3 years.

To get the absolute best racks via genetics (ignoring the does and going with Randy's method only) not only do you have to cull the inferior racks but you have to LEAVE the biggest and best racks. That's not what trophy properties do. The whole idea here is that most QDM areas promote the possibility of shooting a 200+ B&C buck when in reality they should be left to breed more of their kind. By the time a buck has reached the age when you decide it needs to be culled, it's already been passing on it's genes for multiple breeding seasons.

Recent research is also indicating that young bucks do more breeding than previously thought and it's not just the dominant bucks that get all the girlie action. So unless you have some way of telling what a spikehorn is going to grow into, then Randy's method is going to be very difficult to get the stated goal.

A few years after Maine put the "doe tag" system in place meaning that unless you have a permit, you can only shoot antlered deer as defined by at least one antler of at least 3 inches. A neighbor (who's a excellent hunter but lousy geneticist) complained that it put too much pressure on mature bucks leaving too many young bucks to do the breeding. His theory included the idea that many hunters who would have otherwise shot a doe and been finished for the year would instead pass on the does, spend more time hunting, and end up shooting more bucks. Two problems: 1. the hunters that would have been happy with a doe are also happy with a spikehorn thereby removing a lot of young and/or inferior bucks 2. The idea that a young buck produces inferior offspring is like saying that his teenage son would not produce as good a child as he, himself, could produce. When in actuality, his son would pass on many of the same genes that he would and you simply can't ignore the contribution of the female's genes.

Lecture over.

[Chad]

Good points....some data i saw a couple years back showed something like 70% of all twin births were by different fathers, and most times, the oldest of the twin (or triplet for that matter) was fathered by a yearling buck....

[del]

Sweet bike! deer's pretty nice too.

[Team Hobbie Hut]

Nice buck.....But GREAT hunting clothes.