Quality Forage Needed to Express Buck’s Potential
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots
We’ve been managing our property of 250 acres for over ten years. Our neighbors on two sides (3000 acres) have been managing for about 6 years. One of the other sides just came under management (1500 acres), and of course, the last side (2000 acres) is not so good (ha-ha). We’ve seen better deer in the 3-6 year old range. The problem is we still don’t see the deer that we know have been around. Are some bucks just “freaks of nature” or is something still missing? Kevin
Kevin,
Mature bucks are a result of good trigger finger management (passing young bucks and allowing them to mature before being harvested). However, to express their maximum antler growth potential mature bucks need access to all the quality forage they wish to consume. Insufficient quality forage is probably the most common limiting factor of mature bucks not expressing their antler growth potential. I don’t know if this is true on your property, but it is worth investigating.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
