This is the offspring of a deer I have known for 6 years now.......he is 2.5 this year and has a very nasty personality unlike his father.......I have seen him flip unsuspecting young deer right over these hay bales. He spends more time chasing everyone else away then he does eating. His father is nothing like that at all.......of course he goes 140"+ now so he has little left to prove I guess. On a side note.......one of the deer in the background is a doe that had her back right leg broken clean in half as a fawn. It was horrible to watch her limp through the snow in obvious pain.........she is now 3.5 and has 2 fawns of her own this year. Her leg has healed so that now her limp is only noticed on close inspection of her gate.......I can't believe how well she gets around.
Couple more.......in the last pic you can see my 3D target with it's head ripped off........I guess they don't like him
Those are some cool shots Atlas, really neat to hear the background on the deer. I am filling my feeder up with protein pellets this weekend in hopes of helping the deer this winter, we had almost no corn planted around here and virtually no acorn crop. Its easy to see that it has hurt the deer body wise, they are a good bit smaller now than they usually are this time of year. Again, great pics!
Nice photos, atlas. We have some we're supplementing feed for behind our house as well. The corn fields were hit hard once they were picked by both the deer and the massive amount of turkeys we have around this year. The acorn crop was weak as Buck Magnet is seeing, so all that's left is browse and our food plot which is almost picked clean. How long do you put out the feed in your yard?
I will put it out right around the start of December and run through to the spring........these deer depend on it for survival since they are trapped in a small amount of woods surrounded by houses.
I has been cool over the years to watch deer grow up from little spikes and forks into 140 class bucks.......the interaction between them is fun to watch as well.........I have seen breeding, bucks fighting, does on their back legs kicking each other.....bleats, grunts, wheezes......you name it. I have actually altered the way I call to deer with a grunt tube and the can because of how different the deer in my yard sound. I have a bunch of video of a couple 130-140 class pushing each other around my yard......a button buck with buttons the size of oranges and a VERY old spiker with about 20 inch main beam spikes with decent mass and nothing more. He was the most respectd deer I have ever had in the yard.......EVERY deer moved when he came to feed.....even the big boys. Weirdest thing.......all these years and all these deer and not one has ever dropped a shed in my yard.
If you put the corn between the bales, with the bales about 12" apart......you will find your sheds and not have to worry about the deer getting caught up in them. Safest shed trap there is, and yours are obviously trained well enough that they wouldn't need to learn that there is corn in there.
That would be something to watch deer interact like that in your backyard. I could watch that for hours.
Check out the bales......that's how I set them. About mid to late January I start dumping corn in between the bales......still no dice.
I'm shocked that your deer haven't dropped anything yet. My inlaws in the northern zone have a local herd as well that are just like your group, with a 2.5 year 7 point about the size of the buck above and a 120"+ 8. The older buck dropped the first side in mid Dec, and both are dropped completely now.
His dad is. This is his dad as a youngster in 2002 I believe. Here he is last year......he was always an 8pt until he turned 6.....then he grew a bunch of stickers. Just a great buck.....double throat patch and everything.
Not at all. They are tame suburban deer.......more like pets then anything else. They will even stand there and watch me shoot my bow. It is a strange thing to wake up and be packing my stand in the truck with bucks staring at me. Although I guess them seeing deer heads on my wall and smelling me cook venison on the grill must be strange as well.
