He was trying to make the point (alt) that this problem is caused by to many deer in general. He explained this to me two years ago so maybe my explanation is not 100% accurate but the jist of his explanation was that a buck spends little time eating thru the rut and in areas with high doe densities the rut is played out for several weeks longer than usual. ie: the end of Ocotber thru December.

The facts were that the deer (bucks) are not eating as they should due to chasing doe and the mountainous area where we hunt (no farm land around) to provide great nutrition, the bucks sometimes tend to loose their horns earlier than normal due the testosterone levels dropping due to poor nutrition. Especially younger deer with their first set of antlers (caused by poor habitat and too many deer).

All I know is thats a pain trying to hunt bucks when some have already dropped, and frustrating when you are trying to balance the heard and end up shooting a buck with no horns that you thought was a nice big doe. Hopefully this will get bettter with time as we better balance the herd out.