How Does a Buck Reach His Full Potential?
When looking into any quality deer management program, the underlying goal for the property owner or land manager is virtually unanimous: “We want to shoot bigger bucks!” There is no shame in this statement[C1]. Better management means bigger bucks, right? Let’s take a look at what factors best influence Mr. Big’s ability to achieve maximum antler potential.
Sure, we all want a healthy deer herd. And of course, we love working on our property to enhance the wildlife value for all species. It’s the reason we do spend half of Spring turkey season getting summer food plots prepped, or organizing prescribed burns, or pouring sweat equity into our property by maintaining that food plot in the middle of summer. Yes, we enjoy being great stewards of the land; but, deep down, every time we are running a chainsaw, or driving the tractor, we are all envisioning that fall morning when Mr. Big comes stepping out from a recent edge-feather and onto our not-so-perfectly manicured clover plot, broadside at 18 yards. In that moment, all of the ecological benefits of improving the landscape for the betterment of the wildlife community become secondary to getting the buck you want, where you want him. This is when your efforts pay off!
When managing for bigger deer, both for body size and antler size, there are three primary factors for a buck being able to reach his full potential. We are going to explore these factors, listed in descending order of relevance, and discuss why they play such an important role.
3: Genetics
Genetics are like the shiny new toy that everyone is obsessed with. Phrases like “cull-buck” have overwhelmed the hunting arena. Every hunter at deer camp seems to have their own conceptions (or misconceptions) and reasoning as to why a specific deer should be shot on site. The truth of the matter is, unless we are fortunate enough to be managing thousands of acres, we as land managers have very little influence on the genetic makeup of our deer herd.
Let’s take a short dive into why. When a deer is born on your property, unfortunately the most probable outcome for that fawn is death. Either by predation, starvation, disease, being harvested by a hunter, or being abducted by Karen when she finds it hiding in her flower bed, more fawns being born on your property will die before reaching sexual maturity than will survive.
Of those that survive the first year, the does will stay with their mother and kin in what is known as a doe family group. If the fawn who survived its first year happens to be a button buck, his mother and the doe family group will typically tolerate his presence until the does become ready to drop the next cohort of fawns. At this time, the does will turn against their son(s) and, sometimes violently, chase them out of the established home range. This behavior is crucial to the deer herd, as it is Mother Nature’s way of preventing inbreeding amongst relatives. The newly orphaned 1.5-year-old buck fawns will typically disperse across the landscape and establish a new home range anywhere from 2, to upwards of 100 miles, depending on the amount of forest cover on the landscape. In the 2005 study “Forest Cover Influences Dispersal Distance of White-tailed Deer.” Pennsylvania State University researchers determined the average yearling dispersal to be 17.3 miles, with the greatest distance being a Montana deer traveling 132 miles! So, essentially, the bucks you harvest on your property were born somewhere else. This means the bucks born on your property are likely going to be harvested by your distant neighbors.
Why else are genetics nearly impossible to manipulate as a land manager and deer hunter? Let’s not forget that half of the genetic makeup of that buck you just harvested was given to him by his mother! How, as deer hunters, are we supposed to determine if a doe possesses good genetic antler potential deep down in her chromosomes? We can’t!
2: Nutrition
This factor is almost as important as factor number one– mostly because we as land managers actually have an influence on it. The forage availability on your property is going to dictate many aspects of your local deer herd. It is going to influence movement. It is going to increase your carrying capacity. But, most importantly, it is going to limit stress on the animals – allowing their bodies to function at a higher capacity.
What time of year is most important to provide additional forage for whitetail? This depends on your area and current habitat structure., but for a majority of landowners it is going to be the late winter to early spring period before green-up. The bucks are coming out of November exhausted and hungry, having been chasing does for weeks. They will be depleted of fat reserves and biding their time until the temperatures begin to rise and the rain begins to fall. The does, too, will need nutrition as they are carrying fawns and beginning to lactate in preparation for fawns to drop.
Food plots such as clovers or standing soybeans and corn can be a life-saver for some of these animals, but let’s not forget about what we can do as land managers to provide more natural winter forage on the landscape. The importance of woody browse cannot be overstated enough during this time period. Increase stem-count on your property by management practices such as edge-feathering and young forest establishment to get these deer recuperated BEFORE they begin to grow new antlers in the spring! Remember, for the deer, antler growth is secondary to restoring fat reserves and other physiological functions.
1: AGE
Yes, I saved the best and most important factor for last. The most important influence on a deer’s ability to reach his antler potential is, without a doubt, his age. You can argue with me until you are blue in the face; I will die on this hill. Let’s take a minute to look at some of the numbers from a 2013 QDMA article titled “Wille He Be a Good One Next Year?” compiling data from Texas A&M University and Mississippi State University to provide the following graph.
Credit: QDMA ( https://www.qdma.com/will-good-one-next-year/ )
The researchers determined that at age 2 ½, a buck has already reached approximately 60% of his maximum gross Boone & Crockett score. By 3 ½ years old, the buck will be at roughly 75-80% of his maximum potential. This is followed by 90% at 4 ½, and greater than 95% max potential reached at 5 ½ years of age. At 6 ½, he will reach his full potential.
Deer will nearly always achieve the biggest gains in antler size during the first few years of their life, but there are always exceptions to the rule. Unforeseen adversity such as injury, disease, drought, and mast failures all play a role in a bucks growth journy. If a deer is injured during late spring of his third year of life, he may be unable to feed as needed. Inevitably, he will not be able to reach the 75-80% of maximum antler growth potential he is expected to. Some may even label this deer as a “cull-buck”! Now, let’s imagine he recovers in late summer of that year and is healthy going into his fourth year of life. It is completely reasonable to assume this buck will make a drastic jump in antler size that year, potentially reaching the 90+% of his maximum antler potential at 4 ½ years old.
You can have the absolute best habitat in the state, with excess forage abound, and virtually no unnecessary stress on the bucks on your property. And sure, it is easy to drool over an impressive 3 ½ year old deer that many would be happy to harvest. Just remember, that a deer harvested at 75% of his antler potential is never going to achieve 80, 90, 100% of what he could be down the road. You can never un-pull the trigger.
Literature Cited:
Long, E.S., D.R. Diefenbach, C.S. Rosen- berry, B.D. Wallingford and M.D. Crund. 2005. “Forest Cover Influences Dispersal Distance of White-tailed Deer.” Journal of Mammal- ogy, 86:623-629.
