Anyone else seeing an overabundance of young bucks?

[Abcdj]

Throughout the season, we have noticed an influx of what we say are first racked or first-year bucks, spikes, forked horns, six points, a few 8's and a couple of 10's. So during the evening hunt yesterday, we decided to count the deer and especially the young bucks we saw in only two of our four wheat fields. These fields are only separated by a dry weather creek.

We hunt about 2100 acres total. I sat on the Big field 160 acres and saw 76 total deer. Of which 42 were bucks. I would consider 30 of those to be one-year-olds. The other spot we watched was the 29 acres. He saw 57 total deer with 31 being bucks and 25 considered to be one-year-olds. The evening before I sat on what we call the East field 77 acres. I counted 34 deer and 21 of them were bucks. With 13 of those being one-year-olds. We have two more fields and didn't watch them. This also doesn't include the 12 feeders we have going.

In 2010-11 we had really bad droughts. Both years with basically zero fawn crops. I am assuming with the good Spring rains and mild winters the past two years the tables have turned back to close to 80-90% fawn survival rates. It sure seems that we have a lot of little bucks. I guess that's a good thing for the future.

[Jmsck12]

We hunt two different properties about ten minute from each other, all we’ve seen the past couple years Is buck fawns, now we have good numbers of bucks growing but we don’t have the numbers of doe’s we used too.


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[Smart]

We do in the Christoval area....but we are finally coming off the drought of 2011 and are starting to get past recovery mode. Honestly it is a welcome sight to us considering we had a worse than originally thought die-off. This year has been horrible numbers wise for mature bucks. We originally thought it was plentiful food supplies that made them seem low this year but that hasn't been the case now that food supplies are scarcer and they are all slamming the corn and alfalfa. However the 1,2,3-4 y/os are plentiful so it should get better in coming years..

[Ishi&Elvis]

I'm not seeing that many deer in Burnet county, but what I am seeing is a more even number of bucks and does. Lots of young bucks that we are passing on and hoping the neighbors are also.

[HC Sniper]

We have a lot of young bucks 1.5-2.5. It is all about fawn survival rates. The last two years we had a great fawn rate which translates into a lot of young deer on the ranch. The 2 years before that we had a very low rate with very few if any fawn survival. that translates into not many 3.5-4.5 year old bucks. 2-3 years from now, we should have an abundance of middle age bucks for us to choose from come hunting season.

[shooter2007]

We’ve been seeing about 2x as many young bucks as does at our ranch in McCulloch county.

[rtp]

There are a ton of young bucks 1-4 yr olds on the place Im hunting in Harris county. The future looks bright.

[jshouse]

you might try adjusting your nilly/water spray ratio, them old ones like it STRONG

[bowhuntertx]

We are seeing the same thing in Throckmorton county. It’s pretty encouraging


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[IvoryRoot]

We hunt outside Kerrville and we have an abundance of young bucks. But then again, we really haven’t seen much of anything the last month.

[Pushbutton2]

Not seeing any In VZ County

in McCulloch we've got bunch of young uns tho

[roberts]

We are seeing the same thing in Llano. We still some mature deer 5+ but they are few and far between.

[Boyd1212]

I haven't seen 76 deer all season.

[FamousAmos]

Yes, sir. Sat a stand Saturday evening in Mason County and had 12 or more young bucks, all spikes or fours, and two young eights hanging around for an hour or so. This wasn't at a feeder. Saw two does and two fawns later and took a doe. I hesitated because of what I think is an out-of-balance buck to doe ratio, but our agreement with the landowner is to take a doe for each buck harvested and I was behind.

[woodsbound]

Hell I have seen one dink doe all season long out of several hours/sits, I would be happy to see any form of life at this point lol. Hopefully you will have a good bunch of up and comers out of it