Let them grow?

[littlebigtine]

Ill leave this here

 

[AHayes111]

A lot of bucks will be their biggest at 3 or 4 years.

I can agree with everything you have written down but bucks at there biggest at 3 or 4. I have found little evidence of this. Some bucks will be big at age 3, they will be bigger at age 7 or 8 barring some disease or catastrophic weather event.

 

[LostWapiti]

I can agree with everything you have written down but bucks at there biggest at 3 or 4. I have found little evidence of this. Some bucks will be big at age 3, they will be bigger at age 7 or 8 barring some disease or catastrophic weather event.

Given consistent feed and weather conditions they will probably peak older but we all know that weather and range conditions change a lot. If 3 or 4 is when they have the best conditions then that could be their biggest year. Mass will always go up but length may not. Being biggest at 3 or 4 is definitely not the norm but entirely possible and somewhat common, especially 4 as 4 will be very close to the peak anyways given constant range conditions.

 

[ReaptheHeat]

I do pass on lots of deer thanks. I just don't thump my chest all over social media telling everyone about the deer I passed on and how I'm better than them because of it. I just shoot deer that make me happy when the science says it supports it.

The tricky bit is that actually shooting bucks creates more deer. More deer creates more potential bucks. You don't want to have 50 bucks per 100 does or the does and the fawns will be pushed off feed. If you keep your buck numbers below 20:100 you can have a lot more does on the landscape which can in turn create a lot more deer. Even the most heavily hunted OTC units can and do turn out huge bucks.

I'd love to see 190" deer behind every tree as much as anyone and if there was evidence that supported a way to create that then I would be for it. I think that closing some units to mature deer for a couple years on a rotating schedule would be awesome. Issue a controlled number of tags to let people shoot some of the smaller bucks but 4 points are off limits for 2 or 3 years then open the unit back up. You should still have healthy buck to doe ratios and a lot of really nice deer. If you do it right I think you could ull it off without having a missing age class but that would be a risk if not well managed. If yo really want to see a successful deer program and see places turning out big bucks consistently it would take careful management like this. Like I said before, asking people not to shoot small bucks will never work at scale because for a lot of people a 150-160" deer is an absolute giant and they would never pass on it.

The other tricky bit on passing smaller bucks (150") is a lot of deer will never get much bigger than that or the "small 4 point" you just passed on is actually a 7 year old deer. A lot of bucks will be their biggest at 3 or 4 years.

Fair points. But wouldn't it also be effective to institute minimum point restrictions? A lot of 1-2 year old forkies and barely legal bucks get shot in the early seasons. I'd argue the ratio for my units are in the 5-15:100 range without looking up stats just based on anecdotal observations this year. CPW says its 23. I have found a lot of those bucks are forkies and barely legal spikes. Huge lack in older aged bucks.

 

[LostWapiti]

Fair points. But wouldn't it also be effective to institute minimum point restrictions? A lot of 1-2 year old forkies and barely legal bucks get shot in the early seasons. I'd argue the ratio for my units are in the 5-15:100 range without looking up stats just based on anecdotal observations this year. CPW says its 23. I have found a lot of those bucks are forkies and barely legal spikes. Huge lack in older aged bucks.

Every unit must be managed different to achieve its objective, unfortunately that sort of attention is not hardly every given. In the case above as you say, you would need to find a way to let some of those deer survive to maturity while still harvesting some of the small ones to keep the buck:doe ratio in balance. 5 is really low ratio and they should just close the unit for a couple years.

Unfortunately if you close a unit or prevent people from shooting small 4 points you are going to have a lot of pissed off people showing up at commission meetings, facebook commenting, and generally raising hell. Just like asking people to not shoot small bucks won't work, people will also not see the value in reducing opportunity for the future.

Large tracts of private are able to achieve these things through careful management that the government does not generally offer or have the practical ability to implement. Its sad to see how biologists can sometimes put in the work and create a good plan only to get steamrolled by the commission.