Growing and keeping bucks


joeaveragehunter

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Our hunting group shoots only 8 pointers or bigger for sometime now. However, despite having cameras and 10 hunters in the party, we have not been able to identify a small 8 that we passed the year before to a bigger one next year. QUESTION: How often does everyone have a deer that they "follow" from year to year? Is there numerous identifiable bucks that you see or just one or two? Or are there new shooters that walk in each year and then they are gone the next?

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Where I hunt we've had one that I have been able to follow. Where I live in the cities I've followed a 10 point from 2 1/2 years old to 4 1/2. An 8 at 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 and another 8 at 2 1/2 to 3 1/2. Hopefully will be able to catch up with a couple of others from last year. If you know where he hangs than you have a good chance of seeing the same buck year to year. If you are mostly hunting during the rut then you could be getting bucks from all over instead of just bucks that live there.

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On our property, we definitely get to see a lot of the same deer from year to year, and all year round as well. It's great to have the history of the deer and watch them grow.

Sometimes though, we'll see the same deer for a number of years and all of a sudden they'll be gone...could have gotten shot, hit by a car, or moved on. It can be tough to tell what exactly happened.

Overall, a lot of the deer on our land stick around, some leave, some come back and during the rut we have a good mix of locals, and bucks cruizing in from other places. Sometimes stranger bucks end up staying too. But like I said, for the most part the locals stay local. One nice thing is that even if a buck we know isn't around anymore, we can still see the deer's gentics and offspring on the property.

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