Guys what do we all consider a mature buck?

3.5?
4.5?

A buck doesn't reach his antler potential until he is 5-7 years old....

Most bucks in my area.. public lands, forest land, if they reach 5, they will honestly pack a 140 class gross 4x4 rack...5x5's 150 class gross rack.. some of course with poor genetics won't but if I can I would like to discuss this a bit.. IN all of my years hunting here..I rarely see a scrubby looking deer.. lots of nice 1.5 year old 4x4s and 2.5 year old 5x5s.....You all have me thinking about why my home state produces some nice bucks even though we have tons of public land, and plenty of rifle hunting pressure...

First off..the least of a deers worry here are humans. Wolves, Mountain lions and other predators get after them pretty hard and we have a very healthy population of all of the above predators..Cold winters too..at times..

1. Carrying capacity. Here we are fortunate to have THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of acres of logging areasand replanting. The replants..or plantations make for awesome food sources for the critters. These quality logging practices here actually..equate to food plots. Different from a conventional food plot in that they are not planted in Biologic or whatever, yet they create almost every type of browse you can imagine..along with grasses, forbs etc...

2. Deer here have big country to hide in..theyget a chancelive to an old age, even with all thehunters and predators.

3. Between road kills, ironically mostly does get road killed..I asked a local state highway guy once and he said hecleans up20 doe to every buck he finds roadkilled and he said most of the buck roadkills are baby bucks or younger bucks..now and then they will find a hammer buck dead and its usually during the rut...this road kill coupled with predation seems to in my eyes...keep ourbuck to do ratio is pretty darned stable. The last local Biologist I talked to said it was about 3 or 4to 1...not bad for public lands..Place I hunt I see more bucks than does a lot of times..then again I am scouting out buck hangouts..if I hung around the doe core areas more I would see many more does..so this is probably more to to scouting than anything..

4. I believe the cold northern winters force the MOST FAVORABLE genes to be passed on to the next generations...I witnessbig body sized bucks and big does..that reach 3.5 and older..many 200+lbbucks and does in the 150s...live weight..Not bad for forest country habitat.. where I currently live and hunt now that I moved, I am seeing bigger body sizes..I believe it's because of the added in agriculture, more private lands...and big forest country land backing it all for cover..Many hunters here too look for at least a 2.5 or 3.5 year old buck and pass up the young bucks..its kind of second nature here because we all know there are good bucks around if we wait it out...many local rifle hunters adhere to this philosophy..as well..due to the local big buck contests...which are very popular..

All this to say.. I feel with the logging and habitat enhancement that goes along with the logging... the big country..plenty of room to roam and hide..carrying capacities that never seem to get over loaded and add in predation, hunting and road kills..tough winters, all seem to keep the numbers in check.. we have a pretty healthy herd... by coincidence I feel..... is this partiallyqdm..???? at work without the area even knowing it..??? Help me out here..

Troy