Right, but that would still be genetics, yes?

Bingo, It also explains why their women folk parallel the same reasoning.[:-]

I hunt up on the Mississippi north of Dubuque, IA and there a TON of HUGE bucks up there. The guy who owns the land and I came to the conclusion this last week while I was up there that it's the acres and acres of high protein alfalfa that they grow for dairy farming. It's LOADED with high quality protein that is essential in growing racks. The best thing, it's available throughout the year...

Maybe it's that the hunters are not as good a shots as they are in some other states, thus the deer live longer and get bigger.......




or maybe not......geeeeezzzz, I was only kidding....

You guys are overlooking a huge part of body and antler production.....

The areas soil quality is the determining factor of how nutritious their diet is. Poor soil = poor nutrition.

For body size, there's a rule ( Bergmanns rule?), that the farther north of the equator you go, the larger the body size gets in order to deal with the colder environment. This also goes hand in hand with food quality and supply.

I was watching a t.v. show on TOC and they had 2 sets of racks, side by side, offenced indeer that were the SAME age. At 1 1/2 yrs. one was a spike while the other was an 8 point. Both were fed EXACTLY the same high quality food. They ate out of the same feeder. The spike, consistently, grew small antlers each year and lived to be 6 years old. While the 8 point grew HUGE antlers w/massand is still alive.It goes to show that genetics is the MAJOR factor in antler development, while nutrition plays a minor role.

I also personally feel it has to do with the amount of undeveloped land in a given area. Northern Indiana is VERY industrialized, every time you turn around they are cutting down trees and putting up foundry's, office complex, shopping center, etc... We have a ton of nice deer up here, but we don't have nearly the environment statewide for them to reach full maturity due to the overpopulation of hunters vs. hunting grounds available. I do feel as though the one buck rule is working in Indiana, although it's frustrating to have your buck tag filled as you watch a monster walk by, it keeps the numbers in check. We are starting to gain steam in recent years for pulling out some decent bucks.

We also have the corn fields all over the dang place, so that helps a little. Perhaps if Indiana would start to conserve it's natural resources rather than squander them away on industry, we would see more quality bucks taken out of this state.

i dont really know but id say genetics is the key factor. alls i know is South Western KY has some huge deer. 195 nontypical killed 500 yards from my farm last year. wat a heartbreaker.

I look at some of the pictures of deer and some seem small compared to N Dak and Mt. deer. I really think the deer are healther like some onesaid in the north country. Also all the grain,corn,beets ect. as a big part in size and antler size.