What effect does a hard winter have?

[JoeRE]

What effect(or how large?) does a hard winter have on antler development the next year?

I have been thinking about this as I watch 07-08 winter become one of the hardest winters in the past 10 years for this area. Right now it is around 0 with 1-2 feet of snow over everything. It has been entirely snow covered (not counting a short melt about three weeks ago) for the last 2 months too.

I am asking all those who have many more years in a treestand than I in the 'north'. We all know that if you starve a buck, it would theoretically have a smaller rack than if the buck had a full belly all winter long. Does this carry through to what people see? If it does, how great is the effect? Can you visibly see smaller racks after a really hard winter?

I know this varies geographically also. The northwoods have much harder (measured in this case by ability of wildlife to find food) winters than my area of farmland. Do you think the effect would be noticible in northern WI, but not IA or southern WI?

Whats your opinion, taking into account physical location and local resources for your area?

[Deleted User]

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[JoeRE]

I know what you are saying. It would be hard to get quantitative data on wintering stress and corresponding antler development. Here in NE IA, we have had (and its not over!) about twice as much snow, and it has been here about twice as long, as any one of the last five years. I was getting used to only one month of significant snow cover, now it looks like we probably will have closer to three. Would this reduce anter size 10%? Or perhaps only 5%...which I am not sure I would notice.

I would love to see b&c record book entries on a county by county basis around here, and compare that to inches of snow on the preceeding winter. However...there would be many other variables to somehow exclude, like # of hunters, conditions in hunting season, etc..

[MO_Hoyt]

i dont think winter has muchto do with antler size for the next year. its more like spring.i think the deers antlers are not only based on genes, but what he eats and how much minerals he consumesduring the antler growing season.

winter is rough. plant winter food plots and put out corn for them.

[Schultzy]

Bad winters aren't good for anything, its hard on all the wildlife period! I think though the most important time for a buck is in the spring, if he's able to get all of his necessary proteins and ingredients he should be good to go for the most part. If its a tough spring, the racks will show it too!

[TJF]

A hard winter means a stressed buck going into spring. Body needs come first, rack second. It does effect the potential sizeof the rack more then most think.

Tim