When Bucks Don't Read the Rule Book

If you've spent much time around deer hunters, you've probably heard some version of this: by the time a buck reaches 3½ years old, he's shown you what he's going to become(not size as he’s probably 70 percent of his potential but the characteristics he’s going to express at older age.) If your goal is managing for antler quality, the advice often follows—protect the young 10-point plus bucks and target the 8-points or less deer or bucks with less desirable characteristics in the same age class.

Before I go any further, I think it's worth acknowledging something. We can debate all day how much influence we truly have over the genetics of a local deer herd. Personally, I think for 99 percent of hunters, the answer is probably very little.

Sure, there are exceptions. If someone owns a large, contiguous property and has managed it for decades, I do believe they can influence the herd over time. But for most of us hunting smaller farms surrounded by neighboring properties, I simply don't think we have enough control to dramatically change genetics.

What we can control is habitat. Better food, quality cover, secure bedding, and allowing bucks to reach older age classes all help deer get closer to their genetic potential. That's something every landowner can influence.

What I really want to discuss, though, is something I've witnessed several times that has challenged one of the more common assumptions in the deer world.

A trail camera picture this morning got me thinking about several bucks I've watched grow from fairly average-looking 3-year-olds into some of the biggest deer I've ever had the opportunity to chase.

Buck A

Buck A was roughly a 135-inch typical 8-point as a 3-year-old. He had a smaller frame, short brow tines, and solid G2s and G3s. If I had been judging him strictly by his antlers at that age, there were several other bucks on the farm that looked far more promising.

Then he turned four.

He became a 165-inch 5x5. Long G4s appeared out of nowhere, nearly matching the length of his G2s and G3s from the year before. Honestly, it shocked me.

Conventional wisdom says that by age three, a buck has largely shown you what he's going to become. I wouldn't have been surprised if Buck A stayed a clean 8-point his entire life. Instead, he "bucked the system" (see what I did there?) and suddenly added three long tines on each side.

The following year we recovered his matched set of sheds. He grossed around 176 inches—nearly a net Boone & Crockett buck.

Last season he climbed into the upper-180s with multiple stickers and became the top deer on the farm and was truly a magnificent specimen.

Ironically, this year he appears to have taken a step backward. He's still a beautiful mature buck, but probably somewhere in the mid-160s. My guess is a combination of his incredibly aggressive personality, an unusually early antler shed, and a brutal winter finally caught up with him.

That's another reminder that every buck is an individual.

Buck A isn't even particularly large-bodied, yet he's one of the most dominant deer I've ever watched. He routinely runs off bucks much bigger bodied than himself. It's proof that nature doesn't always follow the rules we've created in our heads.

Had this deer lived on a property where someone was aggressively trying to "improve genetics," there's a real chance he would've been labeled a cull buck at 3½ years old.

Instead, he became the best deer on the farm.

Buck B

Buck B is the deer I harvested last season and the oldest buck I've ever tagged in nearly 36 years of hunting.

As a 3-year-old, he was probably a 130-inch typical 8-point. Great brows, decent G2s, short G3s—but nothing that made me think he would someday become a 200-inch deer.

At age four he grew into roughly a 145-inch 5x4. At five, he injured his right antler and carried that damaged side all season. He remained a deer we noticed, but never obsessed over.

Then everything changed.

Over the next several seasons he developed split brows, double drop tines, a huge hook off his base, and eventually blossomed into one of the most unique bucks I've ever hunted.

At nine years old—when I honestly expected him to begin declining—he added even more inches. I was fortunate enough to harvest him, and he gross scored 203 3/8 inches.

Could someone argue he wasn't the buck they'd want breeding their property because it took so long for him to express his full potential?

Maybe.

But that's exactly my point.

How could anyone have known?

Buck C

Buck C is a much shorter story, but it reinforces the same lesson.

For most of his life, he was simply a clean 8-point that probably topped out in the high-140s as a 4-year-old. Nothing about him screamed "future giant."

Then, at age five, my brother harvested him as a 173-inch 5x5 with incredible 13-inch G2s.

Had someone judged him strictly on what he looked like at three or four years old, there's a good chance he never would have lived long enough to become that deer.

What I've Learned

All three of these bucks came from working farms—not perfectly manicured showpieces. They had row crops that were harvested every fall, ground that was tilled, and habitat that certainly wasn't perfect. Were those deer reaching their absolute genetic potential? Maybe not.

But they taught me something.

There's probably a lot more mystery behind what mature bucks eventually become than we sometimes like to admit.

I've also hunted farms where certain bloodlines consistently produce beautiful young 10-points at two and three years old. You'd assume those were the deer destined to become giants.

Yet many of them eventually topped out around 150 inches.

Meanwhile, Buck A—the deer many people might have overlooked—became the biggest deer on the property.

Maybe those examples are simply outliers.

Or maybe mature bucks just aren't nearly as predictable as we'd like to pretend they are.

The older I get, the less interested I am in hard rules and the more interested I become in the exceptions.

Every property is different. Every neighborhood is different. Every year is different. Most importantly, every buck is different.

I've even watched entire years where nearly every mature buck seemed to make a significant jump, followed by years where almost every deer appeared to plateau. There are simply too many variables for any of us to know exactly what a buck will become.

So what deer should you shoot?

I honestly don't know that anyone can answer that question for another hunter.

If your goal is simply to harvest mature bucks, the answer is straightforward—let them grow old. But if your goal is trying to manipulate genetics, I think the conversation becomes much more complicated than many of us would like to admit.

What I do know is this.

Give deer every opportunity to reach their potential. Improve the habitat. Provide quality nutrition. Create security. Let them grow old whenever possible.

After that, Mother Nature gets the final vote.

Maybe that's one of the reasons mature whitetails continue to fascinate us. Just when we think we've figured them out, one comes along that completely rewrites the script.

Because sometimes...the buck you never expected ends up becoming the giant you've been dreaming about all along.

And maybe that's because mature bucks have a funny way of refusing to read the rule book.