What I was getting at was If my Buck had the average spread in my area I would have gained only about 2" Between my Bucks and alot of friends in the area 17" is about the max with 16" being more common on Mature Bucks.
Most bucks that I hunt have bright white racks. Muley was chocolate. The pic is a comparison between muleys mount and mr cleans shed. Where do bucks get their rack color, crick? Genetics? Habitat? Both?
That's why I said...... "Spread can be one of the better adders to score ". I was talking generally, not your area. For mature bucks, 17" is usually a starting point for inside spreads. Your area seems to be below average for IS. Therefore, to say IS doesn't make much difference is misleading. I guess if you had said, " spread does not matter much for score in my area", then I'd have no argument.
16 - 18 for spread is the most common for mature bucks here. Brow tines are usually under 4 inches. 10 inch G2s or G3s is a tall tined buck. 8 inches or less tines are the most common. Mass is decent here but you are gonna have to kill a 5 year old buck to hit 40 inches. 30 - 34" is more common here for mature bucks. 22- 23" main beam is a very long beamed buck here. 20 - 21" is more common. Bucks tend to be 8 or 10 points and very typical. You will occasionally find a buck with stickers on the G2. Flyers and droptines are very rare. I can count on one hand how many flyer/droptines bucks I have seen, founds sheds to or gotten trail camera pictures of in the 24 years that I have been here. Very, very few bucks will ever break 160 here. Very,very rare that they will ever hit the 170 mark. A 150 is a very good buck here. Very few guys have killed a 150 plus buck with bow or even rifle for that matter in my area. I've killed 2 with bow over 150 and one with rifle that scored 149. Well... the rifle buck was 149 but his G4 on the one side was busted off. Technically he was over 150 before he snapped it off. LOL Tim
I have been seeing a lot of bucks with a good spread on them last year in my area. Now when I get out to my parents place I have been seeing some bucks with really nice mass on them.
In my area the most have short brows and the g2s are usually shorter than the g3s. I hunt rivers bottoms, it seems these deer have blunt antlers
What state you hunting Tyr? I remember the same characteristic in the bucks we would see and harvest hunting a river bottom in northern IL back in the late 80's early 90's. I am not sure if it was from the genetics, soil composition or the fact that nearly every tree had a rub on it!!
I will try and be more precise in my post Greg, I guess the thread title with the words in your area was not clear enough LOL,,No quit pickin on me Mr.
Pretty wide and pretty short racks where I'm at. Out of the 4 bucks I have pegged as "shooters," all of them appear to be around 20" wide, but my best guess on the tallest tines would only be about 10". Mass is pretty average for the most part maybe even a little below average. The only weird thing that I've noticed is that every now and then i'll see a buck with a set of g2's or g3's that grow inward instead of up like the buck in my avatar. I don't know if this counts as "genetics" but in the last 3 years or so I've been noticing a fairly large number of does that are having triplets instead of twins also.
I am hunting in north central Pa. Unsure why they're like this. There's rubs on about every tree in the woods tho.
I've only started using a trailcam a few years ago. In that time with the camera and just pure observation while hunting it seems that we always have a lot of 8 pointers running around. Mostly typical in our area probably because of age, not sure? The most unique deer I saw 2 years ago. Very wide and very thin rack. It was either an 8 or 10 point with zero mass, but probably 22 inch spread. Haven't seen him since. We see both dark and white racks. Probably mostly whiter.
Two dominant traits here. Either narrow and tall with good tine length or wide with short tine length. Mass seems on par regardless of the configuration. We don't really see the mass jump until 4 1/2. All of the deer I hunt have chalk white antlers. Rarely, if ever, will you see any "junk" on the beams or tines. Been hunting here since the early 90's and never saw a buck with a drop tine, but I did find a shed a long time ago with one. Go figure. The best buck to come off our property to date was a 171" ten pointer. 24" wide and 11" G2's.
Bucks in my home area don't have a lot of mass and they seem to need to make it to 4+ years old before they score very well. Seems like there are two specific types of racks... One is 'high and tight' (that one is more likely to have non-typical stuff) and the other is more of a traditional rack, usually a 4x4 or possibly 5x5, not super long tines but not super short either - marginal brow tines at best. Here is a picture of both 'types' of racks side by side...
