Mature Buck Behavior Data (poking the Nutter)

[BackSpasm]

Certain unnamed trouble makers around these parts have been recently alleging that mature deer are basically the same as the rest of them, just more rare. I came across these articles today and thought they were worth sharing. I am sure there is more GPS data out there from the primary literature and would love to read any that is posted in this thread.

What Scientists Learned that Changed How They Hunt Mature Bucks | National Deer Association

www.deerassociation.com

From a GPS collar study in an area with significant hunting pressure:

"We separated both bucks and does into two age classes: deer age 4½ or younger (in this article, we’ll refer to this group as “immature”) and those 5½ or older (mature). After breaking apart the age classes, it became clear why we didn’t see bucks taking advantage of wetlands to avoid hunting pressure: Immature bucks were avoiding getting their feet wet at all costs, while mature bucks barely ever left the swamps until the cover of darkness. In our analysis of all bucks, the behaviors of the two age groupings were canceling each other out and showing no preference! The same pattern held true for nearly every cover type. Mature bucks also selected for edge habitat and avoided both upland forest and agricultural fields, while their younger counterparts did the exact opposite. The only behavior bucks of all ages agreed on was a similarly strong avoidance of roads."


10-things-know-mature-buck-movements

 

[dalton916]

I don’t think that rebukes anything he’s said that I’ve read. In fact, it backs it up. You have to hunt where they live, but once you find that spot they aren’t all that impossible to kill.

 

[Nutterbuster]

Kill all those deer and see if other deer are "smart" enough to move into the vacuum left behind.

Big bucks hog the best bedding and don't have to show up first to feed because they are big and can run off whoever else happens to be there.

 

[BackSpasm]

I don’t think that rebukes anything he’s said that I’ve read. In fact, it backs it up. You have to hunt where they live, but once you find that spot they aren’t all that impossible to kill.

"Take an already small subset (deer who have survived to 4.5 years or better) and split it in half (just the males) and a mature buck becomes a 1 in 100 or 1 in 1,000 animal. I think this scarcity, and not any ability that can be attributed to a buck, makes him a tough target to acquire."

"He may always have the best hiding spots, travel routes, and food source but he doesn't have it because he is smart and other deer are dumb. He has it because even though every deer in the woods knows those are good things, he is bigger so...sucks to not be him!"

"Another bonus question. Can the people who say big bucks are "different animals" than "does and young bucks" describe exactly what makes them so different, without leaning on personal or secondhand anecdotes? Is there an independently published, peer reviewed scholarly or scientific source that documents specific and measurable differences in "huntability" of deer based on age and sex?"


Here are a few of the many slanderous statements I am referring to!

 

[BackSpasm]

Kill all those deer and see if other deer are "smart" enough to move into the vacuum left behind.

Big bucks hog the best bedding and don't have to show up first to feed because they are big and can run off whoever else happens to be there.

The article addresses the survivor effect a bit, and even if you are right, there is a clear behavioral difference in this article between mature deer and other deer. Whole HABITAT differences, not just bedding on a hillside. Coincidentally, these are places that the occasionally maligned big buck killers of the north hunt nearly exclusively, swamps and thick cover. Not at all saying that soil and pressure aren't the major factors, just that there are observable and measurable behavioral differences in older deer.

 

[BackSpasm]

I don’t think that rebukes anything he’s said that I’ve read. In fact, it backs it up. You have to hunt where they live, but once you find that spot they aren’t all that impossible to kill.

Here is another good one:

"Big bucks are not smarter than other deer, and do not require fundamentally different strategies to kill. "

This statement flies in the face of GPS collar data presented by this study. Hunting in the uplands will get you does and young bucks, slogging the swamps leads to older bucks, that would be a fundamentally different strategy to me.



Original thread for the curious;

Thoughts on My First Year "Trophy Hunting"

Love this thread. My credentials = 1 buck which would just barely squeak out 100 inches, so not a pro. I think what nutterbuster (and me) wants to hear is for someone to quantify this “mature bucks are a completely different animal,” rhetoric that we hear all the time. I could definitely...

saddlehunter.com

 

[BackSpasm]

Kill all those deer and see if other deer are "smart" enough to move into the vacuum left behind.

Big bucks hog the best bedding and don't have to show up first to feed because they are big and can run off whoever else happens to be there.

They also found the big deer avoided upland forest and agriculture fields more in general, not that they arrived late to feed at night

 

[Nutterbuster]

Intelligence is not required to explain buck behavior. Using intelligence as a yardstick is a uniquely human trait. Most organisms have beaten the game of life with other Neat Tricks.

If humans aren't in the swamp, that's hunting where the pressure is light. I'd call that Deer Hunting 102. 101 is Access to Quality Habitat.

All deer eat and hide and not-much-else. Even smart-ole-bucks™

 

[BackSpasm]

Intelligence is not required to explain buck behavior. Using intelligence as a yardstick is a uniquely human trait. Most organisms have beaten the game of life with other Neat Tricks.

If humans aren't in the swamp, that's hunting where the pressure is light. I'd call that Deer Hunting 102. 101 is Access to Quality Habitat.

All deer eat and hide and not-much-else. Even smart-ole-bucks™

I haven't used the word intelligence once except in a quote. Im talking about scientifically observable behavioral differences in age classes of bucks. Isn't your hypothesis set up for all deer in a good area to kill a big deer? Well setting up for the average deer in the this study area may guarantee you a doe or small buck, but it would not increase your chances of killing an old buck.

Edit: if anything, these data show that setting up for any deer would DECREASE your chances of killing a big one, as the young buck and does are using a different habitat type regardless of hunting pressure

 

[dalton916]

I still say the original study still backs up what he has said.

 

[rhagenw]

I agree and disagree...But agree got to kill em where they grow...but young deer and old deer act the same...mmmmkay?

 

[Nutterbuster]

I haven't used the word intelligence once except in a quote. Im talking about scientifically observable behavioral differences in age classes of bucks. Isn't your hypothesis set up for all deer in a good area to kill a big deer? Well setting up for the average deer in the this study area may guarantee you a doe or small buck, but it would not increase your chances of killing an old buck.

Edit: if anything, these data show that setting up for any deer would DECREASE your chances of killing a big one, as the young buck and does are using a different habitat type regardless of hunting pressure

My hypothesis is that the average hunter goes about things bass-ackwards and gets his head full of fluff about "advanced tactics." And confuses "essential" with "basic."

The thread you link to is mainly me trying to lay down a framework for a worldview without an Intelligent Buck. And positing that folks are better served worrying more about the essentials and less about the advanced stuff.

Hunt the swamps in Florida and then go hunt hardwoods in Iowa and tell me if advanced tactics matter more than applying the "basics" in the right neck-o-da-woods.

I'm glad you brought it up because it means it gets in the public eye without me breaking out the soap box again.

 

[Nutterbuster]

Also, this is all good-natured disagreement on my end. I'll save my bickering for the scent control sub-forum.

 

[BackSpasm]

Also, this is all good-natured disagreement on my end. I'll save my bickering for the scent control sub-forum.

I agree, you know I love ya nutter. But you asked for data so I bring the data

 

[Nutterbuster]

I agree, you know I love ya nutter. But you asked for data so I bring the data

It is data. I just think the data doesn't necessarily say what people are in a hurry to think it says.

I'm content to be the fool of my time. Great ideas take time to make it mainstream!

 

[Weldabeast]

Bla bla bla hunt wetlands bla bla.....

Gotcha....I'm on it

 

[Nutterbuster]

Bla bla bla hunt wetlands bla bla.....

Gotcha....I'm on it

Hunt wetlands where big bucks live.

 

[MNFarmHunter]

Wetlands, shmetlands. I much prefer areas I can easily walk to and if necessary, drive a tractor to.

 

[rhagenw]

Hunt wetlands where big bucks live.

And how big bucks will use it’s own experiences, nose, ears, and eyes in the given circumstances.

 

[kbetts]

I watched one of our “targets” walk out of a corn field, across a road, and then smile as he walked into our wood lot tonight. No swamp, no thicket. Went from standing corn across a bean field. Anything we would’ve been trying to hunt…we would’ve expected to come from the exact opposite direction.

That‘s a big buck for you.