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Your take on bully bucks

H

hoosierhunter

Active Member
I'm 2011 and 2012 I shot two bucks that I considered bad apples for my herd. One was 6.5(143) and the other 4.5(138). They both showed a great deal of aggression towards other deer and they were keeping bigger deer(20-40 inches bigger) ran off. Upon killing them I had those deer move back into the area that they ran off earlier in the season.

This season I let a few bully's walk because I had my mind set on two other deer. They both ended up dead and I never encountered these bad boys late season so my tag went unfilled.

Typically I've identified these deer by their summer behavior glassing them and how they behave around a feeder late season. What I've found is that they just don't play well with others. They also seem to have a deers version of short mans syndrome. Not the biggest rack but you can't tell by how the act.

Anyone else having this issue?
 
Winke has some great segments on bully bucks.. definitely good to harvest them and let the younger bucks with better genetics take their spot
 
Shoot them and shoot them early if possible. That would allow the deer with more potential to come back to your farm during rut and gun season.
 
hoosierhunter said:
That's the hard part when you only get one buck tag in Indiana.
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that is a dilemma! Absolutely need to go, IMO. Mature, aggressive, peaked out, running GOOD GENETIC BUCKS OFF, etc, etc. Probably the #1 buck for management a guy could shoot.
I come up with some solutions such as.... I have a few close friends that actually step up and ask if they could go after those bucks in particular - they are happy to do it, I'm happy as well. I'll of course shoot them myself given the chance but I do get a LO tag.
 
antleraddiction said:
Bring someone else in to kill them (family, friend, etc....)? Then have your chance at the better bucks.
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Exactly! They make excellent deer for youth season. Real trophy mature deer for kids. That's what I have done in the past and its a lot more fun than if I killed a trophy buck myself.
 
The earlier you can take them out of the herd, the better. Just like everyone else said...it opens the door for others that COULD have better genetics.
 
hoosierhunter said:
Yep I tried and brought in 3 guys. I even brought in an Iowa resident to Indiana. Heaven forbid I know:) None of them could get an arrow in them.
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I call BS! No way on earth an Iowa bowhunter could not easily kill a hoosier buck. No way.;)

My bet, he had an Iowa drivers license and owns ground here but lives in Minnesota or Wisconsin.
 
fletch920 said:
I call BS! No way on earth an Iowa bowhunter could not easily kill a hoosier buck. No way.;) My bet, he had an Iowa drivers license and owns ground here but lives in Minnesota or Wisconsin.
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No sir a full fledged born and raised Iowan. No connection to me outside of meeting him on another forum years back.
 
I agree with what several have already said, I believe there really are "bully bucks", at least some of the time. We had one a few years ago that we could never get shot, but he was on our cameras all the time. We had three consecutive years of pictures of him and I don't think his rack would have ever made it out of the 130'ish range and it didn't change much from year to year, but his body was that of a bull and his personality was VERY dominant.

We haven't seen any trace of him now for about 1-1/2 years, so we suspect he is no longer. But during his 3 year "reign", it was clear that he influenced other bucks on our place...as in drove them off the property. Looking back, we should have "escalated" the situation on him and taken him with a gun. (Almost all of our buck hunting is via archery methods.)
 
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