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J

John Hunter

New Member
Last year we were hit pretty hard with snow and there was a lot of ground you could not walk. The snow was up past your waist and even a lot higher in more remote places. The bucks I am getting pictures of look mature but I think the stress of last winter is preventing them from growing bigger antlers.

This deer is a mature deer and has a small drop on his right side but he doesn't have much height. Pretty much all my mature deer don't seem to have "huge" racks but have huge bodies. Still not completely sure this is a good excuse for their racks not being what you would think they should be but sounds good. :)

Either way wondered if anyone else is having this thought run threw their head.

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What do you think of the deer??
 
He's definately mature, I'd smack him. Sometimes a bigger trophy to shoot an old deer than to care how big his rack is IMO. I'd say hes around the 130" mark and he's got some really cool character. He's also working scrapes so you might be able to pattern him.
 
I agree with your assessment of how the harsh winter has limited the antler growth. I have also noticed that most of the does in my area only have one fawn and some does don't even have a fawn when I get pictures of them. I had suspected the long hard winter reduced the fawn number for this year.
 
I would think genetics would have more impact than the winter. It was a tough one around here as well and the deer look fine from what I have seen.

That being said, he looks like a tank of a deer, you have any more pics to id him from last year based on the ear notch, he should be easy to identify.
 
Looks like an older buck to me.

Extremely hard winters can and do set back antler growth. I've watched for years as bucks put on lots of antler following easy winters and flatline or regress after an extremely hard winter. If they do not appear to be set back by something then winter was not as hard on them as you perceived it to be.

Does are hit as hard as the bucks and if you're seeing less fawns that is likely why.
 
I haven't seen any doe with twins yet this year, only singles... which is rare for some of the places I hunt. The norm is twins and sometimes trips. Also, sunday night I saw 4 different bucks and I believe 2 were 2.5, 2 were 3.5. The 3.5 year olds looked to have smaller racks than what they normally would. Normally on that farm they've packed on at least a P&Y rack, sometimes more. I guess if and when I see a mature deer I sure hope he's not following the same trend.

Winter sure was tough but this spring/summer was dynamite, they must have had too much 'catching up' to do as far as nutrition goes...
 
After the doe comment was made I started thinking about our doe and fawn count. I think all I've seen are single fawns so far this year so there might be more to the harshness of winter than a guy thinks. Hmmm.
 
In addition to the possibility of a tough winter reducing fawn populations, what is your coyote population like? I ask because we seem to have more coyotes in our area now than in the past few years AND the fawn numbers have seemed to be subdued in the last two years. The winters have been tougher too, but we have also found dead fawns, which appear to be coyote victims, in each of the past two years.

It could be a total fluke that we found the fresh fawn skulls, but I definitely have noticed that many does appear to have just one fawn last year and this year.
 
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