Atlas posed this question the other day. It's a hard one to answer because we seldom see a small fork and spike one year, and then see what they become the next. I am a member of QDMA here in MI, I have been trying to learn as much as I can about CO-OP's and how to start one. One of the neat things a CO-OPS does is share pictures of deer from one year to the next. Below is a picture of a small 1.5 4 point. He has small forks and this is a mid Michigan deer. This is in 2008 pic of this smaller sized 1.5 fork horn. This is a picture 1 year later, without the hunk missing from his right ear, I don't think any of us would haved know this was the small 1.5 year old fork. As you can see a lot has changed, is this the norm? No way, I only posted to show what happens when APR are in place and what can happen. I am not saying this is right for NY, MI or any other state as a whole. These are private land owners working together for better hunting.
You may already know this, but most QDM co-ops don't use an antler point restriction. They are asked to shoot by age, and if they can't field judge, then they use a spread of "out to the ears". A lot of nice yearlings would get killed in our area if we used a 8pt restriction or 4 pts on one side.
Yeah I know But he point is this buck by most MI hunters(and you know this) would be deemed a "cull" buck or has inferior genetics and all the crap we learned over the years that is dead to nuts wrong.
Here's another real world example.........one of the first I can positively identify at my place that was passed and then seen again the following year. It really doesn't always happen like what Germ's pic shows (unfortunately), but I'll continue to pass them. In 08: A little video of him last year too, he just got sparring with the other buck in this video almost right under me. And now in 09' as a big body 2.5 y/o:
I only have 1 frame of reference & its not in pictures. I saw a tiny, scrubby 6 pt one fall that had some slight piebald marks on his side. The following summer I saw a run of the mill 14" spread 8 pt in velvet with piebald marks on his side. The 2 sightings were 200 yds apart.
What I should do is start a post with all of the bucks I've gotten on camera over the last 4-5 years, seperated by year. The difference in age structure today compared to when we started our project would really shock some people and the naysayers. When we started the project at my place, we would get pictures of maybe a half dozen 1.5's, with a 2.5 mixed in here and there. This year based on my best guess, we have 4x seperate 3.5's on camera, 3x seperate 2.5's, and 3x seperate 1.5's. It took me 3 years into our project to even get a 3.5 on film, now we get multiple of them in the same season. This is all on a 130 acre patch that gets absolutely clobbered with pressure on 4 sides during rifle season. I don't think it's simply because we are passing little ones either, I think it's a combination of that, highly improved bedding cover and sanctuary from our logging projects, providing much better food sources for them, and whacking the heck out of the does to get that in check. We don't just have the bucks cruising through now looking for ladies, they are actually resident bucks.
I would love and appreciate the effort in posting it. At the end of the year with my camera's I am going to put them out and see what is left. I have a feeling there is more than I thought and things are not as bad as I thought.
That's a crazy difference in one year! Like GERM said, you would never have known that was the same deer without the his ear missing a notch!
Great thread Germ, i have ALOT of examples i could post up of 1 year buck differences, some make great strides, others do not. The thing is, Ohio doesn't have any restrictions besides 1 buck limit.
I would have to say the average Michigan 2.5yr old buck would be about 20% smaller than the buck Germ posted when given good food and thermal cover. This is assuming the same size as a yearling. In some area's of the state a buck would be at least 3.5 and maybe 4.5 to get that size because of poor habitat. I have never understood why this cull buck thing and the "spikes are inferior" talk has been around for so long (& still is around in some area's) because there has been proof since the early 80's that small spike bucks can become 200"+ bucks in some cases and almost always hit the 140's and usually the 150's or better. Yes, the bucks in these studies were given quality food, but it was not as good as many QDMR's have available on their properties. However, these deer were given shelter. Something very important yet often overlooked (I rarely hear people talk about providing thermal cover).
I'm glad you made this post. All those steps are important, but it seems many people still fail to shoot enough does. They figure the does will attract bucks during the rut as well as produce future bucks so they like high doe numbers on their property. It just doesn't make sense to them that you have to "make room" for the bucks.
That theory works if you want bucks on the property during the rut, but if you want resident bucks you have gotta thin the does. In the last 6 years, I can count 12 does off the top of my head that we have shot and only 3 bucks. Last year we really started seeing the difference in buck/doe ratio and it's about even now (if only counting 1.5+ year old animals).
I always tell people to keep a balanced age structure of does because of the rut. Different age does tend to come into heat at different times so even if you don't have large numbers of does there will often be a hot doe on your place to keep bucks hanging around and make them less likely to be shot by spending less time on your neighbors place. Not to mention attracting non resident bucks on a regular basis.
Ours in PA/NY are probably about the same, maybe a hair heavier averaging around 180 I'd say. Was just curious, for some reason I thought KY deer would be much smaller in the body.
