RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Not the one I was talking about but he will suffice for now

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

QDM and AR are not about big heavy beamed TV show bucks, but mature bucks, in age. YOur breed theory is way off. My genes are the same now as they were when I was 18 yrs. old. Now, I'm just bigger in the waist. Same stuff as far as gene pool.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

A bucks rack will get bigger the older he gets. How can you dispute that? 1 year older means he's going to be bigger than he was. Yes food is important, he'll get bigger faster. Genetics are important butI feel highly over rated. Even a buck with "moderately" good genetics, is going to be rather large by the time he is 4 1/2 years old. Heavy and thick.

I want to see these 120" 1 1/2 olds. I'll go with you on the 2 1/2's, but I live in an area with good food and good sized 1 1/2's and I just don't see that coming close at all.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Rybo is right - as bucks age from fawnhood to 4.5-5.5, their racks get increase in size without some bizarre intervening factor (injury, disease, etc.).

I don't care where you go, or what deer you're watching, when he's 1.5, he'll have a smaller rack than he does when he turns 3.5. Obviously, somewhere, sometime, there is an exception, but in the vast majority of cases, an increase in the age structure of the buck herd will result in better racks across the board.

I read a really great article on genetics once, authored by a geneticist/deer hunter. In his article, he wrote that the genetics of all north american whitetail deer are 99.9999% identical. He opined that antler growth potential is a crapshoot, of sorts. To prove his point, he looked at the antler growth results of the offspring of artificially inseminated trophy does and trophy-bred bucks. In a nutshell, there wasn't much difference between those deer, and other, random deer raised in the same environment. Hisconclusion? Age makes rack, not genetics. What it's worth? I don't really know. Besides, you can't change the genetics in your area, you're stuck with the hand you're dealt. Kinda sillyarguing about genetics, really. Changing the genetics in your deerherd is liketrying to change the sky from blue togreen - impossible. So we do what wecan, and try to rearrange the age structure in the herd.Seems pretty simple.

I just can't see how increasing the average age of the PA whitetail buck harms anyone or anything. Obviously, you're forced to hunt an older, wiser animal, which makes it harder. I'm seeing less (but much, much bigger)bucks from the stand. That's a trade-off that I'll gladly make.

So what's the moral of this story? A 1.5 y.o.spike is usually a late-dropped fawn. By the time he's 2.5, he might be a pretty decent buck. By the time he's 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, he might make his way to a taxidermist, and make some lucky hunter mighty proud. If you shoot the blasted thing while it's a baby, you'll never know, and the local taxidermist will maybebe out of $350.

Who really cares ifthat spike or forkiehas the "genetics" to be a 150" buck? If he grows to be a 120-class deer, that's a pretty good buck by most guys' standards.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Someone better tell these guys that genetic doesn't matter cause they are all the same 99.999 What suckers these farmers areto believe in genes and waiste all that money. Look at these yearlings.

http://www.dskranch.com/bucks.htm

http://www.airenet.com/wildtailranch/yearling_2001.htm

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Those are penned deer that are undoubtedly fed a turbocharged cocktail of nutrient rich foods. Probably some steroids too. If money is involved, you are not that naieve to think they just turn these deer out into the fields to get all their nutrition. Comparing these to wild deer is like comparing a 25 lb butterball to a wild gobbler from PA.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Well, Krockus, you better refinance your mortgage, buy a big fence, andpurchase some of those finely tuned genetic monstrosities for your own hunting enjoyment.

The rest of us are stuck hunting plain old, North-American whitetails.(Canadian Implants in PA).

Those deer that you're seeing are 10-20th generation deer, genetically selected and bred only with the cream of the crop, and fed the finest nutritional buffet available. The fact is that there are deer that big (and much bigger)running around on public land,amongst the peasants, eating plain old browse, your garden-variety acorns, and some poor farmer's corn and soybeans.

After generations and generations of very select breeding, deer farms are only producing marginally better racks than native deer raised under similar conditions.

Those pictures you're citing are only evidencing each farm's finest deer. What you don't seeare the 1.5 y.o. forks and sixes that they don't put on the website.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

That's a nice buck. However, would he be legal in western PA? It doesn't look like he has brow tines and that would mean 3 points to a side. You have to let that one grow.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Actually, in Pa, a broken point counts as a point. If those are broken brows then he is legal. If not then well yes...Pa'sAR plan does have some drawbacks as far as giant six points being illegal in some parts of the state. Remember that not all of Pa is 4 points a side. Some of PA is 3 points a side and junior hunters can shoot ANY buck with an antler of 3 inches or more.

RE: Bigger Bucks in Pa., where?
 

Quicksilver, that article you referred to is indeed interesting. However, if that indeed is true, I'd like someone to explain to me about two bucks my father and I have killed. My father killed an eight pointer a few years back that was very strange. One side came around fine, however the other side looked as though he fell on his nose and bent his antler straight up. He figured he did something to it in velvet. Then, just a year later, I killed a buck (my first buck) that looked identical to him, except he was a five point. Same side was bent straight up. There is not a doubt in my mind this was a genetics thing.

I'll take some pics of these two and post them here. Pretty neat actually.