mature bucks

4 Reasons Mature Bucks Are Critical to Deer Herd Health and Hunting

Jan 8, 2025 Kip Adams

Mature bucks can take your breath away. Whether it’s a frosty fall morning in the woods or a summer evening in an alfalfa field, the mere glimpse of a mature buck will make your heart…

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Why Bucks “Vanish” When They Are Tending Does, and How to Find Them

Nov 6, 2024 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

I’ve been hunting deer for 40 years, and I’ve never seen it. Only a few of the veteran deer hunters I know have seen it, and even those encounters were fleeting glimpses. Many wildlife biologists…

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6 Facts You Really Need to Know About Buck Home Ranges, and 1 You Don’t

Oct 16, 2024 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

We know a lot about whitetail buck home ranges, those phantom zones on the landscape where bucks spend most of their lives. We may even know too much about them. In a review of the…

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15 Trail-Camera Lessons Learned From Thousands of Unique Bucks

Aug 14, 2024 Josh Honeycutt

Trail-cameras have been a big part of my life, even longer than my wife. You might say I’ve been married to the former for 20 years and the latter for nearly 10. And I love…

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Bucks With Broken Antlers: Shoot or Pass?

Jul 31, 2024 Cole Gander

Hunters have long been intrigued by deer antlers, and rightfully so. From the countless hours spent sifting through trail-camera photographs to observing bachelor groups of bucks basking in the summer heat and gorging on lush…

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Targeting Mature Bucks Can Be a Lonely Road

Apr 17, 2024 Nick Pinizzotto

I looked at my watch and saw it was 10 a.m. and time to start climbing down from my saddle setup and meet up with my friend and hunting partner, Ron Haas. It was December…

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Bucks of All Ages Succeed in the Wild Whitetail Rut. Yes, Even These.

Nov 29, 2023 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

In the frenzied breeding scramble that is the whitetail rut, are bucks and does selective about the age of their mates, or is rut success random? The answer is: Yes. There’s scientific evidence that age…

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Why Are These 3 Whitetail Bucks So Different in Size?

Jun 8, 2022 Moriah Boggess

“He’s a good buck for the area.” My guess is you have heard this phrase many times and may have even said it yourself. It’s a well-intentioned congratulatory statement to someone who has taken an…

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How I Fooled 4 Mature Deer

Sep 15, 2021 Kip Adams

Deer hunting is fun. I have been thrilled by the chase since before I was old enough to legally hunt. Four decades ago, mature bucks were nonexistent on our Pennsylvania farm. Mature does were abundant,…

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If You Pass a Mature Buck, Will He Grow Bigger Antlers?

Nov 4, 2020 Lindsay Thomas Jr.

You’ve got a 5½-year-old buck standing broadside in your sights, and he’s yours to take home with you if you want him. He’s heavy-bodied, fully mature and carries a large rack of antlers. But as…

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