Marty Edwards
PMA Member
I had 4 different well known bucks on our place all lose an eye this November in the span of about 10 days. Never have seen that many before in my life. Neighbor killed one of them and brought it by the day after he killed it. The socket of the lost eye was bad swollen and infection running out of it all over his cheek. They recover from lost eyes all the time, but with the rigors of a hard rut, then to get an infection, not sure they all make it.
Daver
PMA Member
FWIW, we had a buck that spent time on our place last year and my son found one of his sheds this past spring and there was A LOT of skull plate on that pedicle.
I thought for sure he would die...but he didn't. He hasn't been on our place much this fall, but he is alive and well on a neighboring farm, well at least he was as recently as a couple of weeks ago. I am not sure of his current status, he would be a shooter for just about anyone.He did grow a significantly smaller antler on the damaged side though. He went from a 6 point side to a smaller 4 point side.
sep0667
Land of the Whitetail
10 years or so ago I rattled in a buck the end of november. He came in to the rattle out of range and went to leave. I let him go a little ways and then rattled again and he came in to 20 yards and I killed him. I was surprised when I recovered him to find that he had last an eye that rut....and he still was running into rattling. I'm sure there are bucks that have lost both eyes due to fighting, surely thats a death sentence when that happens.
deerhunter93
Well-Known Member
Ouch!
Several years ago second weekend of second shotgun walked up on a 120” 8 point that couldn’t get up. I had walked the same trail six days before and he wasn’t there. Killed him and when I skinned it out it was obvious another buck had beat him almost to death.
They are tough and ruthless for sure
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
They are tough and ruthless for sure
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
i found a shed off a buck i knew a few years back that had a huge chunk of skull attached to it. he survived and had a messed-up pedicle next year and deformed antler. i found it that year also, shed cleanly. next year and the rest of his life he had normal antlers on both sides. they are very tough
tall@wide
PMA Member
One of the arguments for not shooting a lot of does is the competition among bucks if you do that. With fewer does, it means more fighting with injured bucks and broken racks. I've seen a few bucks this year with one eye damaged. Trail cams show the eye unusable. I wonder how often bucks damage both eyes in a fight, that would be a horrible death sentence.