John, I've posted on this topic quite a bit in the past. I've been weighing most of my bucks live weight and dressed for 10 +years now. We have so many predators here, I dont dress bucks in my good hunting areas, I get them out and dress them at home. The weights of bucks 3.5 and older here almost always top 200 lbs live weight and 175 plus dressed. I've killed two bucks that field dressed over 215 ...so they pushed 250 or 260 live weight.. Cold winters and pretty decent feed keep the body weights up..we dont have the 300lbrs like I see in hvy ag country of the mid west or in Canada....

Here the majority of the deer I hunt are products of logging habitat which produces excellent feed in the form of many different browse type species of plants. Some of our deer get the best of both worlds, where ag like alfalfa, wheat, oats, etc butt up against mountain habitat. In the farm country I have seena couplehuge bodied bucks that I know would push 300 lbs live weight, I just dont have any access to those types of private ground. Most of my bucks are Timber/mountain bucks..


Hey Gary, the swing set looks great! I wrestled with one of those earlier this summer..looks almost like yours... I know what you mean when you talk about putting it together..geesh I hated ours by the time I was done, but the kids love it! thats what counts.. I took rebar and bent it in a big U shape and pounded like 6 of them into the ground to really anchor ours..

Tlutter, great bud, I hope it turns out to be a nice honey hole!