Buck Age Structure

[Hoosierhunting]

Does anyone know of any good articles or research that has been done on 3,000-5,000 acres, showing the impacts of the numbers of bucks killed that are 2.5 or younger, and how it impacts buck age structure for the following years?
I’ve had a lease in Brooks Co. Georgia since 2003. I’ve never seen the numbers of 3.5+ year olds this low since I’ve hunted there. I’v been trying to start a cooperative with the people that own land and hunt around me, but it is only getting worse. I’m trying to find an article that explains how Buck harvest effects age structure so these people can understand why we have very few 5.5+ year old bucks. I’ve tried explaining it to them, but I don’t think they get it, or maybe they need to see it written in black and white.
There’s a plantation directly across the river from me that’s over 5,000 acres. They used to only sale quail hunts, but 6-7 years ago it was sold. The new owner started selling deer hunts 3-4 years ago. 99% of the bucks they are shooting every year are 1.5’s and 2.5’s. I’m estimating that they are killing 20+ bucks every year. We also have a lot of younger people hunting around us and they are mainly killing 2.5’s. I need to be able to show them why we have so few bucks.
Thanks in advance!


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How big is your lease and how many hunters? If I had 3,000-5,000 acres to manage I wouldn’t give a damn what the neighbors were up to. If a buck generally has a square mile home range it would seem you only need to manage your fellow lessees.


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[chadmyers]

How big is your lease and how many hunters? If I had 3,000-5,000 acres to manage I wouldn’t give a damn what the neighbors were up to. If a buck generally has a square mile home range it would seem you only need to manage your fellow lessees.


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No, we only have close to 1,000 acres. I have 3 other people that hunt my land, but we are strictly bow hunting this year. We’ve killed 4 bucks in the past 7 years, all are bow kills. There’s a plantation straight across the river from us. They have maybe 5,000 to 6,000 acres. One of my friends owns 400 acres that joins us, and we have another 1,000 acre blocks that surrounds us. Most of our bucks are getting killed at 2.5 by our neighbors and on the plantation. The land around us isn’t broken up into small tracts. Most of our neighbors have 400 acres or more. So the amount of hunters could be manageable, but we are all getting some of the same bucks on camera. The plantation has killed 20+ bucks each of the last 3 years and almost all were 1.5-2.5 years old. They have some restrictions, but none of their hunters are following them. Their customers are rich and they only have a $500 dollar fine. They are just paying the fines and shooting whatever they want. My friend that owns the 400 acres isn’t controlling who hunts his property. He’s one of those people that has a hard time saying no. That’s how most of our younger bucks are getting killed. We’ve never had much of a problem until the plantation started selling deer hunts 3 years ago. Our buck age structure has changed so much in those 3 years.


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[Hoosierhunting]

No, we only have close to 1,000 acres. I have 3 other people that hunt my land, but we are strictly bow hunting this year. We’ve killed 4 bucks in the past 7 years, all are bow kills. There’s a plantation straight across the river from us. They have maybe 5,000 to 6,000 acres. One of my friends owns 400 acres that joins us, and we have another 1,000 acre blocks that surrounds us. Most of our bucks are getting killed at 2.5 by our neighbors and on the plantation. The land around us isn’t broken up into small tracts. Most of our neighbors have 400 acres or more. So the amount of hunters could be manageable, but we are all getting some of the same bucks on camera. The plantation has killed 20+ bucks each of the last 3 years and almost all were 1.5-2.5 years old. They have some restrictions, but none of their hunters are following them. Their customers are rich and they only have a $500 dollar fine. They are just paying the fines and shooting whatever they want. My friend that owns the 400 acres isn’t controlling who hunts his property. He’s one of those people that has a hard time saying no. That’s how most of our younger bucks are getting killed. We’ve never had much of a problem until the plantation started selling deer hunts 3 years ago. Our buck age structure has changed so much in those 3 years.


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Chad, I feel for you. It's a struggle when your neighbors don't share your management goals. It's a little ironic because I always find myself thinking man, if I could just afford to have a couple hundred acres, I'd could manage my place and not worry about what the neighbors were doing. From a guy who owns 40 and controls an attached 46 a 1000 acres is almost unimaginable. I guess neighbors matter regardless.

 

[SwampCat]

Chad, I feel for you. It's a struggle when your neighbors don't share your management goals. It's a little ironic because I always find myself thinking man, if I could just afford to have a couple hundred acres, I'd could manage my place and not worry about what the neighbors were doing. From a guy who owns 40 and controls an attached 46 a 1000 acres is almost unimaginable. I guess neighbors matter regardless.

I have bought my land a piece at a time. I started out buying 12 acres. Built a one acre food plot, and my family would kill five or six deer off that one food plot. I have made several more land purchase and am now up to 340 acres in one contiguous piece. We now only kill two or three deer each year off our 340 acres. I am afraid if I ever bought up 1000 acres, we wouldn't kill a deer. I understand how small landowners don't really feel vested in the deer herd - not really a lot you can do on ten or twenty acres - other than kill deer. As the property size goes up, you can start to see your management practices making a difference. I have a neighbor with 20 acres who kills more deer off his land than we kill off our 340 acres. We don't shoot them so he can - and we all still have some deer left. Not all smaller property owners are like that - but I do understand the thinking of those who are. I just wish I knew what it was like to own 1000 acres.

 

[chadmyers]

Chad, I feel for you. It's a struggle when your neighbors don't share your management goals. It's a little ironic because I always find myself thinking man, if I could just afford to have a couple hundred acres, I'd could manage my place and not worry about what the neighbors were doing. From a guy who owns 40 and controls an attached 46 a 1000 acres is almost unimaginable. I guess neighbors matter regardless.

I find myself thinking, if only I could get 3,000 acres. I guess we always want more no matter what we have


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[Baker]

I don't have any articles at my fingertips but have read numerous ones on the distances bucks move as well as my own personal observations on very large properties along the Rio Grande River. Memory says Ms. State has some published papers that may be helpful. Interestingly I was with a PHD researcher this weekend who was doing gps collared research on buck movement. He has recorded a 3 yr old buck moving as the crow flies over 120 miles!!! yes you read that correctly. Then the buck died of EHD. This in Missouri.

My personal experience in La. with managing 2500 acres is that over a 30 year plus period we found it very difficult to grow any bucks over 3 yrs old. The reason was simple. Perimeter pressure killed almost all of them. That with our habitat being highly managed and an extensive food plot system. The facts are that most bucks will go on a walkabout frequently of several miles and often a lot more, especially youngsters 3 and younger.It doesn't matter how much better your habitat is than the surrounding areas. So to understand what happens to buck age structure , look at your property and understand what is happening for the 5-10 miles [ minimum?] around you. That starts to paint the story of what is happening to the overall deer herd.

 

[Baker]

Here is a brief blurb from another research paper I saw gps tracking deer. When the full report is published I will post. This also from Missouri and helps explain what happened to that buck you hoped to give another couple years to.

" But some deer make crosscountry treks. Dooling said one yearling buck in the Ozarks was harvested by a hunter 14 miles from where it was trapped."

“We’ve seen one doe in northwest Missouri that moved more than 15 miles in a week or two and then came back almost where she started,” McRoberts said. “We can’t say why she did it, but to have those kind of data is quite interesting. We were somewhat surprised at how quickly she did it.”

 

[Drycreek]

I don't have any articles at my fingertips but have read numerous ones on the distances bucks move as well as my own personal observations on very large properties along the Rio Grande River. Memory says Ms. State has some published papers that may be helpful. Interestingly I was with a PHD researcher this weekend who was doing gps collared research on buck movement. He has recorded a 3 yr old buck moving as the crow flies over 120 miles!!! yes you read that correctly. Then the buck died of EHD. This in Missouri.

My personal experience in La. with managing 2500 acres is that over a 30 year plus period we found it very difficult to grow any bucks over 3 yrs old. The reason was simple. Perimeter pressure killed almost all of them. That with our habitat being highly managed and an extensive food plot system. The facts are that most bucks will go on a walkabout frequently of several miles and often a lot more, especially youngsters 3 and younger.It doesn't matter how much better your habitat is than the surrounding areas. So to understand what happens to buck age structure , look at your property and understand what is happening for the 5-10 miles [ minimum?] around you. That starts to paint the story of what is happening to the overall deer herd.

Which is the reason if I see a 3.5 year old buck on my 80 or on my 217, he usually winds up in my freezer. BTW, I average killing a buck on these places about once every three years so I'm not hurting it much. I have four properties to hunt so I spread out the pressure.

 

[Deadeye]

I don't have any articles at my fingertips but have read numerous ones on the distances bucks move as well as my own personal observations on very large properties along the Rio Grande River. Memory says Ms. State has some published papers that may be helpful. Interestingly I was with a PHD researcher this weekend who was doing gps collared research on buck movement. He has recorded a 3 yr old buck moving as the crow flies over 120 miles!!! yes you read that correctly. Then the buck died of EHD. This in Missouri.

My personal experience in La. with managing 2500 acres is that over a 30 year plus period we found it very difficult to grow any bucks over 3 yrs old. The reason was simple. Perimeter pressure killed almost all of them. That with our habitat being highly managed and an extensive food plot system. The facts are that most bucks will go on a walkabout frequently of several miles and often a lot more, especially youngsters 3 and younger.It doesn't matter how much better your habitat is than the surrounding areas. So to understand what happens to buck age structure , look at your property and understand what is happening for the 5-10 miles [ minimum?] around you. That starts to paint the story of what is happening to the overall deer herd.

That is some interesting stuff! Really throws down on the thought of a Buck has 1 Square Mile as his Home Range. I think most all of us were brought up with that line of thinking as the Truth.

Heck I seen it posted in this thread!

 

[X-farmerdan]

Here is a brief blurb from another research paper I saw gps tracking deer. When the full report is published I will post. This also from Missouri and helps explain what happened to that buck you hoped to give another couple years to.

" But some deer make crosscountry treks. Dooling said one yearling buck in the Ozarks was harvested by a hunter 14 miles from where it was trapped."

“We’ve seen one doe in northwest Missouri that moved more than 15 miles in a week or two and then came back almost where she started,” McRoberts said. “We can’t say why she did it, but to have those kind of data is quite interesting. We were somewhat surprised at how quickly she did it.”

Being a Penn State grad, I watch with great interest the research the College of Agriculture's Department of Ecosystem Science and Management has done over the last 8 - 10 years.

https://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer

I'm still trying to make sense of it. And, today, my question is, "When we talk about deer movement do we focus on the general trends...or on the exceptions, the outliers?" The stories about a deer or two traveling way outside of what might be considered a typical "home" range are much more interesting than what the general population does, but are those exceptions really helpful in understanding what we wish to understand?

Today's blog address the "October lull." Check it out here:
https://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news/2018/october-lull

 

[X-farmerdan]

And while I was looking for the article on buck movement during the rut (see reference above to the study) I came across this article related to age structure. Make of it what you will. While the article is a good read, the comments section contains questions and challenges by the readers answered by the primary researcher.

https://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news/2018/to-kill-a-buck

 

[Baker]

Interesting research. What I have found on my farm is historically for the first few decades the % of bucks over 3 yrs old was very low. Hard to quantify but suffice to say sightings were low even though I live on the farm. 8 yrs ago we game fenced the entirety of the 2500 acres. Now sightings of 4 yr to much older bucks are a routine occurrence and it is obvious that they are a material % of the population.

Regarding deer[ buck ] movement I think we would all agree that different deer have different personalities. Assuming the proverbial square mile has everything a deer needs then movement to some degree has a personality element to it. I've watched bucks grow up that appear to live in a much smaller area than that and only saw them depart a small core area a couple of times....that in their younger years. Then there are bucks that could be on any part of the 2500 acres on any given day. Were we not game fenced it is easy to believe they might wander much farther than that and in fact I have seen that on the ranch in Mexico where individual buck movement can be many miles.

I tend to believe that most bucks , while living in a smaller core area most of their life, will do a walkabout of relatively significant distance more than once usually annually in fall/winter especially amongst the 1 to 4 yr olds. This makes them very vulnerable to whatever practices are taking place along their travels. Especially younger bucks are highly vulnerable . A simple observation of what % of a given population genuinely includes 50%+ of bucks 4 yrs old-10 yrs old or older confirm the realism and vulnerability true whitetail maturity faces.

As a side chuckle I have a buck on our ranch that is 15 yrs old and has been filmed every year since he was 3. It is fascinating to watch how herd dynamics change when more than half the bucks are well over 4 yrs old.

 

[chadmyers]

I don't have any articles at my fingertips but have read numerous ones on the distances bucks move as well as my own personal observations on very large properties along the Rio Grande River. Memory says Ms. State has some published papers that may be helpful. Interestingly I was with a PHD researcher this weekend who was doing gps collared research on buck movement. He has recorded a 3 yr old buck moving as the crow flies over 120 miles!!! yes you read that correctly. Then the buck died of EHD. This in Missouri.

My personal experience in La. with managing 2500 acres is that over a 30 year plus period we found it very difficult to grow any bucks over 3 yrs old. The reason was simple. Perimeter pressure killed almost all of them. That with our habitat being highly managed and an extensive food plot system. The facts are that most bucks will go on a walkabout frequently of several miles and often a lot more, especially youngsters 3 and younger.It doesn't matter how much better your habitat is than the surrounding areas. So to understand what happens to buck age structure , look at your property and understand what is happening for the 5-10 miles [ minimum?] around you. That starts to paint the story of what is happening to the overall deer herd.

120 miles?!!! Is this researcher going to publish his findings? I’d love to read that. I know some bucks will travel a long ways. I’m pretty fortunate because I know most of the people that hunt within a 5 mile radius of my land and I have smaller farms that are a mile or two from my main property. I’ve had around 7-8 different bucks in the past 4 years that I’ve followed from when they were 2.5 to when they were 5.5/6.5. I lose a lot of my best 2.5’s, but if I can get them through that year it’s much easier for me to see them reach maturity. So maybe I have it better than I thought. I’m just not interested in shooting anything unless it’s at least 4.5+ and over 140”. I would rather watch them grow than to shoot them.



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[chadmyers]

That is some interesting stuff! Really throws down on the thought of a Buck has 1 Square Mile as his Home Range. I think most all of us were brought up with that line of thinking as the Truth.

Heck I seen it posted in this thread!

I’ve never heard the one square mile. A few years ago some guys I know have a property probably 6 miles from my property. They had a really big buck they named stickers. They had pictures of him for 3-4 years. I went and checked one of my cameras and there he was. I had a lot of pictures of him for about a week. He got killed a couple hundred yards from my camera. I went back and checked my camera about 5 days after I first saw him on my camera and I had several pictures of him throughout the morning and he was killed that afternoon. He grossed in the mid 180’s


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[chadmyers]

Interesting research. What I have found on my farm is historically for the first few decades the % of bucks over 3 yrs old was very low. Hard to quantify but suffice to say sightings were low even though I live on the farm. 8 yrs ago we game fenced the entirety of the 2500 acres. Now sightings of 4 yr to much older bucks are a routine occurrence and it is obvious that they are a material % of the population.

Regarding deer[ buck ] movement I think we would all agree that different deer have different personalities. Assuming the proverbial square mile has everything a deer needs then movement to some degree has a personality element to it. I've watched bucks grow up that appear to live in a much smaller area than that and only saw them depart a small core area a couple of times....that in their younger years. Then there are bucks that could be on any part of the 2500 acres on any given day. Were we not game fenced it is easy to believe they might wander much farther than that and in fact I have seen that on the ranch in Mexico where individual buck movement can be many miles.

I tend to believe that most bucks , while living in a smaller core area most of their life, will do a walkabout of relatively significant distance more than once usually annually in fall/winter especially amongst the 1 to 4 yr olds. This makes them very vulnerable to whatever practices are taking place along their travels. Especially younger bucks are highly vulnerable . A simple observation of what % of a given population genuinely includes 50%+ of bucks 4 yrs old-10 yrs old or older confirm the realism and vulnerability true whitetail maturity faces.

As a side chuckle I have a buck on our ranch that is 15 yrs old and has been filmed every year since he was 3. It is fascinating to watch how herd dynamics change when more than half the bucks are well over 4 yrs old.

This is what I’m seeing too. Bucks do have different personalities. I’ve had some that would only disappear for short periods of times throughout the year. Do you have pictures of the buck from 3 to 15? I’d love to see that! I bet that’s a lot of fun being able to watch them for that long.


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[Baker]

Yes, the results are going to be published and I was promised a copy which I will post. I saw the gps tracking dots and while the 120 miles was as a crow flies the actual walk was further.

While its a slightly different deal I can speak personally to seeing does move up to 90 miles. We frequently trap deer from a helicopter on the ranch and sell them to neighboring ranches who are looking to infuse their genetics with our quality or to researchers from the Noble Foundation who are studying our deer. . Every time we sell does some invariably return with the longest track being 90 miles.

These are deer that were ear tagged on capture then recorded as they were released. Some had to travel around towns and all sorts of obstacles. Generally they had to escape a high fenced enclosure. 15-20 miles has been common . We trap in February to March and by the following season invariably there is a doe here and there with a tag from the earlier release. Deer never cease to fascinate!

 

[Drycreek]

That's fascinating stuff Rusty. Deer "proof" fences only work on deer that don't challenge the fences. I've known that for awhile from seeing particular bucks on each side of a high fence a couple times in my life, but I've always attributed it to how nutty a buck can get in the rut. Does are a different thing altogether, or at least that's what I thought. The more we think we know, the less we really know about deer, and they are probably the most studied wild animal, at least in North America.

 

[dogghr]

Does anyone know of any good articles or research that has been done on 3,000-5,000 acres, showing the impacts of the numbers of bucks killed that are 2.5 or younger, and how it impacts buck age structure for the following years?
I’ve had a lease in Brooks Co. Georgia since 2003. I’ve never seen the numbers of 3.5+ year olds this low since I’ve hunted there. I’v been trying to start a cooperative with the people that own land and hunt around me, but it is only getting worse. I’m trying to find an article that explains how Buck harvest effects age structure so these people can understand why we have very few 5.5+ year old bucks. I’ve tried explaining it to them, but I don’t think they get it, or maybe they need to see it written in black and white.
There’s a plantation directly across the river from me that’s over 5,000 acres. They used to only sale quail hunts, but 6-7 years ago it was sold. The new owner started selling deer hunts 3-4 years ago. 99% of the bucks they are shooting every year are 1.5’s and 2.5’s. I’m estimating that they are killing 20+ bucks every year. We also have a lot of younger people hunting around us and they are mainly killing 2.5’s. I need to be able to show them why we have so few bucks.
Thanks in advance!


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Some times the teacher must become the student. Not everyone share the same priorities.
I let most any deer walk until circumstances inspire me to shoot whatever makes me happy. Oddly my fav bucks taken are not the largest ones. Some of my smallest have the best of stories.
My best friend would shoot anything at anytime. He enjoys his hunt as much as I do. To each their own. Manage the land to hide the bucks and choose accordingly. Or do as some choose and protect your interest w fence. Half the challenge for me is outsmarting the other hunters. I dare say frustration is robbing you of some of your hunting enjoyment. Just my very biased opinion.


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[Deadeye]

It's funny how different Hunters look at Deer in General and Bucks in Particular.
To One a "good" Buck has grown a set of Antlers that has 8+ Points and wide enough spread to achieve a Score of 140+.
To Another a "good" Buck has grown a set of Antlers that has at least 3-points on one side and would probably score in the mid-80's or so.

Both are Correct. At least to them.

When it comes to Hunting and Life in general, each person has to determine what it will take to make them happy and provide a good quality of Life. The one thing that I really hate to see is a guy or gal post a pic of themselves with a smile a mile wide holding a Buck with however many points, then add into their comments "it's not a trophy but _____".

If it's a Trophy enough for you to shoot it, then to you it is a Trophy. Doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks.