People killing small young bucks has always baffled me. If you never let small deer walk then how are they supposed to grow up? Here are 2 pics of the same deer. The first one was when he first showed up on my trial camera in December of 2011 and the second is when I shot him last month.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Inside spread was 18.5" I know thats probably small for parts of the country but its pretty nice for the part of SC I live in. I will just never understand why people around here complain about never seeing a nice buck when they mow down anything with antlers.

how can you say it is the same buck from those 2 pics?
RR

WELCOME to the forum!! What a fantastic buck by anyone's standards. There are several reasons but they all lie in the hands of the shooter. If your trophy hunting they say let the small one walk. If your meat hunting any thing's fair game. again Welcome and stick around!

ya seems impossible

My thoughts exactly.

You can't even see the deer good in pic one.

sorry i didnt realize the resolution on that camera was so bad but it was the only pic I had of him. It was on my farm and around the same stand. I saw that buck several times over the last 3 hunting seasons and he always behaved the same way. I really enjoyed watching him while I hunted so I kinda got to know him. Watched him chase does several times last year but never took a shot.

Good explanation because I was going to post the same thing before even reading what the other guys said about that first picture. Beautiful buck---Congratulations!!!

nice buck no doubt, but there is no way of connecting the buck in the top pic with the dead buck. from what I can see I would say no, the left beam on the buck in the first pic is offset from the right, the dead buck doesn't carry this trait.
RR

Congrats on a very nice buck! Would have been better next year. (LOL)

What part of SC?