GregH

Yes. One of the spots that I used to hunt (subdivided now) had no deer when my dad and I first started hunting for rabbits and pheasants back in the late 60's and early 70's. By the late 70's, the deer started showing up. By the late 80's there were quite a few of them and there were a lot of big bucks. There were 2 1/2's making P&Y and almost all 3 1'2's were too. the 3 1/2's were avg 140. Up until the mid-90's, all of the 1 1/2's were basket racked 8-pointers. There was hardly no hunting pressure. By 1994, I started seeing smaller racked bucks in all age classes. I was seeing spikes and forks bt 1998, something I had never seen before. There were still huge bucks around but it didn't seem like there was as many as earlier.

I believe that with over population, caused by lack of hunting (no one would give permission, country turned suburban) and milder winters, leads to more competition for food sources and too many does. Pretty soon almost all of the fawns were breeding, including late born. It gets to the point where almost all the bucks get to breed which can all have an effect on antler quality.

While looking for a friend of mine's deer he shot in 1998, I found a fawn that couldn't have been more than 2-3 weeks old. This was the 3rd weekend of September!! This means that the doe was bred in Feb., possibly March! Most mature breeding bucks have shed by that time and are no longer breeding. Something younger and less dominant had to have bred that doe.

This is my opinion on why this happens. I see this in some of the areas I hunt now. There are big bucks around, but there are tons of small scrubby bucks too. If the total population was cut down and the buck/doe ratio was brought back in order, you'd see more, larger bucks.