venado

Here is a buck that I have been fortunate enough to get pictures of 3 years in a row. This is unusual for me to have this opportunity tosee what happens when a very average buck gets to grow up. I hope I can come back next year withthe 5 1/2 yo buck picture.

SDarcher

wow, he put on quite a few inches each of those years. Nice buck

timbercruiser

I'm not doubting that a deer can have approximate antler growth likethat, but why do you think that it is guaranteed to be the exact same buck? Bucks will range over several miles and there should be multiple bucks in that area where you have the camera.

bassfisherman711

must be corn fed

mohunter82

It could be a posssibility that it is a different buck but the 3 pics all have similar markings. The only thing i'm wondering is about the massive jumps in inches after only one year. unless he is trying to incorperate some minerals into the heard to help with antler growth. But the older bucks get the less they travel. There was a buck killed not to far from me that was at minimum 5 1/2 years. But they found out his home range was only about a 1/4 mile radius. Still some good deer in the pics regardless.

venado

It is for certain the same buck showing the progression from 2 through 4 years old. I know the face and other unique features of this buck. The change in antler shows how it is hard to identify a buck on that basis year to year. The pictures are not from a camera set-up like a fixed game cam but is a camera that I use while sittingobserving what is there. The big jump can be attributed to perhaps 2 things. The first is that bucks are building bodies in their youth and in their 4th, 5th and 6thyears more "energy" is available for antler, the other is that we were in a severe drought in 2005 and 2006. In 2007 so far we have had 3 times the rain as we had all of 2006. I anticipate that next year all of our bucks will make a big antler jump and I'd love to see this one again at 5 1/2 yo. He is getting harder to photograph each year and of courseI fear that someone on adjacent property might kill him since he is getting pretty nice.

retrieverman

So you are saying that you don't "know" the deer on the place where you hunt?

For those of us that have hunted the same places for several years and use game cameras, it is not rocket science to figure out "who" deer are and distinguish traits between different bucks. Yes, some bucks do just move through, but I have several hundred pictures of some bucks over 3-4 years.

timbercruiser

Exactly, I don't know all the bucks on the lands that I hunt. A couple of years ago I had a camera on a scrape for two weeks and had 21 different (as best I could tell) bucks just in that one short period of time. I hunt a couple of thousand acres of private/leased land in south Bama and there is no telling how many different bucks range in and out of the property. Genetically I would be surprised if there aren't a lot of them that look alike. Venado might not have but one buck on his property, I don't know.

Spoiler

Wow cool comparison pics..

gallred

I've noticed, at least on our place, that there is generally a large jump in antler growth between the 3rd and 4th year.