So far I only know of a few does being killed and then one team had a guy from TN kill a nice buck on the velvet hunt. I think it was a 120” or so deer. I could have missed something though. Now we need to start stacking the does up like cord wood.
I would like to ask everyone's opinion on something...Most of you I am sure have seen my season thread, but truth be told I am keeping a couple deer secret for now. I am having inner turmoil about one of them. My #1 buck, is going to score...a lot. He is also I believe very killable. As much as I would absolutely LOVE to kill him...I know for 100% certain he is only 4 years old. I passed him 3 times last year as a 175" 3 year old. Yea yea I know...great problem to have. BUT he honestly has a chance at being something truly special if he were to live to 5 1/2. I can't decide if I should hunt him this year or try to keep him safe another year. There is ZERO chance anyone within 5 miles would pass him this year, or 99% of deer hunters alive...so I have to decide if I'm going after him or just not hunt that farm at all this year to try to give him a sanctuary. It's a high risk high reward situation. What do I do? If there was a guarantee he would make it, I wouldn't hesitate to not hunt him. But the chances I am the only one who knows about him now are slim to none.
Is he really going to put on that much from 4.5-5.5? Or just some extra mass? I mean if he’s pushing 190+ this year, that’s a once in a lifetime buck for a lot of people. How big do you think Mr. Clean will be? If you let the other one go this year, you have to be able to not get worked up if someone else shoots him, or he gets hit by a car. I wouldn’t be able to let a 4+ yo buck walk, but I my wall looks far different than yours lol.
Boonerville are you close to Albia? I have a buddy that bought a farm down the road from where the Albia buck was taken, Um.. I think you answered your own question. Chances are if he has eluded most hunters for x number of years he may again but I would say the odds are stacked against him for every year older he gets. And you are correct, that dude would have walked in front of me last year, I'm flinging one down range! I watched a buck for a couple of years and when he finally got big enough to take... I found him dead in a ditch after getting hit by car on opening morning, horns cut off. So..
MR Clean I think is right at 170" this year...maybe a shade over. But that really doesn't factor into hunting this buck. He is on a different farm, and I have a different tag, so whether I kill Mr Clean or not it doesn't affect my ability to hunt this deer. In my area many bucks (but not all) do add quite a bit from 4-5 yrs old. A buddy killed a buck last year that was 5 1/2, and he had known the deer since it was 2 1/2. It went from 120" 2 yr old, to 140" 3 yr old, to 155" 4 year old, to 183" 5 year old. The buck I am after I think will blow up at 5...but there are so many variables that could change that
I am about an hour and a half from Albia. GREAT area over there, but a lot of bow hunters too, because the area is one of the best known in Iowa.
My grandfather was born in Manilla, Iowa. I have offered the current landowner of the farm an ungodly amount over what the place is worth but he refuses to sell. I just want the place that my great grandfather bought right after getting off the boat and maybe just maybe have a place in Iowa to hunt..
I haven't been into Western Iowa much except for driving through. Supposedly some giants out there in the Loess Hills though
Couple of things... you say he is killable this year. What if he does blow up to a 200” deer next year but also transitions to being nearly unkillable. You just traded a 70% chance of killing a 185” deer for a 20% chance of killing a 200” deer. Is that a trade you should be considering at your age? What I mean is... you are too young to be thinking about this as your best or only chance to get a 200” deer. I could see one of us old farts thinking that way if we thought we had a deer of that caliber that we might want to try and shelter for a once in a lifetime chance. To me it would be silly for you to be looking at this as a once in a lifetime chance. Given where you hunt and the success you have it seems you have plenty of time ahead of you to get a 200” deer to hunt without having to resort to risky moves to get it done. Next you have other hunters, cars, EHD,etc to worry about. As far as other hunters go he is already going to be attracting maximum attention this year so it’s not as though he won’t be under risk of hardcore pursuit until after he blows up further. He’s already big enough to be 99th percentile in that regard. If other people know about this deer there will be a full court press to kill him. In the end I say that because of your age you should shoot the deer if you get a chance and then maybe worry about this on the next such deer.... cause you know there will be a next one.
Ok so even more to my point then... you could be making the decision to trade a 70% chance of killing a once in a lifetime deer for a 20% chance of killing a once in a lifetime deer.... just sayin.
You now also have to ask yourself if the jump he made from last year to this year wasn’t THE jump that he is going to make in his life. He may not be 5” bigger next year if he lives. I mean how many +20” jumps is a buck going to make after 3.5?
I've gone through this a few times in the past and have yet to have waiting pay off for me. With that said I'm confident I've never been close to the hunter you are today. If you wait there are so many things that have to go your way to actually have this pay off, the odds are pretty slim. You never know when a buck is going to become a ghost. My opinion is if you get a shot at a 4 1/2 y/0 you have to take it. I had a stud a number of years ago that we had on camera consistently for 2 years, saw him on the hoof several times passed because I had another buck I was hunting. Then he disappeared, I assumed one of the neighbors got him during rifle and didn't share. The next year I got one pic with him busted off on one side. 3 years later I got one picture of him, he was on the decline with double drop tines. A couple weeks later my buddy shot him while I was sitting on the other side of the farm. I'm pretty convinced the deer never left the farm, he just ghosted us. Here he is on the ground, unfortunately I lost all the trail cam photos I had of him. They were from back in the film days.
Every area and farm is different. You have to understand the herd on this farm though...The genetics are stupid good. And since 2016 I have killed 3 bucks on the farm. One 4 year old, one 7 year old, and one 6 year old. So there is a decent chance a deer will live past 4...granted none of them were this big.
