Don’t Count Native Whitetail Bucks Out

Deer management is about herd improvement coupled with habitat enhancement. Although many hunters doubt the antler potential for native whitetail bucks in their area, in every area where white-tailed deer exists bucks exceeding 170 Boone and Crockett inches can be produced. In fact, I have seen native 190+ inch bucks come from every region in Texas. Of course, in free-ranging deer populations the majority of bucks will have their antlers max-out anywhere from 120 to 150 inches at maturity (5 1/2+ years old).

With that said, most deer hunters have never harvested a whitetail buck exceeding 130 inches. Why? For starters, most hunters are hard-pressed to find well-nourished bucks. Often times, habitat is in poor condition from livestock operations or there is simply a lack of deer habitat. This is often the case in farming communities where the only available habitat is low-lying land, untillable areas where woodlots have developed, or along creeks and rivers. Deer can forage on most row crops, but only during certain stages of growth or at maturity. The remainder of the time the crops are not consumed or the alleged “habitat” is plowed dirt. Well-nourished bucks need good habitat throughout the year.  

Maturity. Show me a mature buck and I’ll show you a deer that more than one hunter is willing to put on a wall. Age, nutrition, and genetics combine to determine the potential for any whitetail buck’s antlers. Without a little age, a buck will never reach his true potential. The short answer for this maturity phenomenon is that it takes 3 years for a buck to complete his long bone growth. After this time, valuable minerals can be put toward antler growth, not skeletal growth. Bones also help store minerals prior to and during antler growth.

Mature bucks are easy to talk about, but few hunters will let a potentially great deer walk. And it’s not because deer hunters do not have patience, it’s simply because they do not have enough land to ensure that the buck survives into the next one or two hunting seasons. It’s difficult for anyone hunting on a couple hundred acres of land to let a young 140 inch deer walk through. Sure, that buck may end up being over 200 inches at maturity, but what are the odds that your neighbor let’s him walk, too? And your neighbor’s neighbor? This is why the best thing small landowners can do is form deer management cooperatives with their neighbors, form strict bylaws, and stick to them.    

So proper deer nutrition and age are very important, but genes, of course, play a part. I mentioned earlier that most native bucks will likely never exceed 120 to 150 inches, even at maturity. However, habitat that provides proper nutrition in combination with supplemental feeding can add another 10 to 20 inches, but genetics still determine how big a buck can get. A buck with “superior” genes for antler growth will outperform bucks with “normal” genes for antler growth under the same conditions. This is where the management part must take place for the whole deer management concept to work.

Take any group of bucks on any property in any part of the country and some deer will have larger antlers than the others. Regardless of the bucks a property owner has to start with, the best bucks on the place are the bucks (genes) that a landowner should be managing to increase in the deer herd. The other bucks should be culled, harvested, and removed. Repeating this methodically year after year while keeping the herd size in check with the habitat will improve any deer herd. And with proper nutrition and a little bit of age, most hunters would be quite surprised at what a native white-tailed buck can do. And more than happy to put it on their wall!