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2022 Velvet Bucks

Denny, your place seems similar to the spot behind my house in terms of being a hot spot for velvet bucks, then a tough place to kill them in the fall. Your approach to feeding and monitoring makes me think of "operant conditioning". Over the years, how many bucks on average stay consistent through velvet peel and the season change? How many have you watched all summer and killed in the fall? Do you see summer bucks disperse through the early fall, then return in the late season? Or do they tend to stay gone (assuming they leave) until the next spring?
 
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bowhunter1023 said:
Denny, your place seems similar to the spot behind my house in terms of being a hot spot for velvet bucks, then a tough place to kill them in the fall. Your approach to feeding and monitoring makes me think of "operant conditioning". Over the years, how many bucks on average stay consistent through velvet peel and the season change? How many have you watched all summer and killed in the fall? Do you see summer bucks disperse through the early fall, then return in the late season? Or do they tend to stay gone (assuming they leave) until the next spring?
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Most of the bucks stay all season long or at least until gun season ends, around the time the human pressure gets to be too much for them to handle and they will disappear for about a month, returning usually the first or second week of January.

The real mature bucks each year, will roam a good 5 mile radius at least that I know of, however they all tend to show up for about a week during the peak of the rut every year closest to my home. It's usually the roamers I tend to hunt each year, but last year and most likely once again this year, I'll be focused on potentially three if not four of the residents bucks, such as; 'THUNDER' 'VEGAS', 'TANK' and possibly one of the others within the previously shared video.

Never before have I had this many decent antlered bucks and it's been just over the last few years I've seen the improvement in overall number and better genetics. Last year was the first year I harvested an antlered deer off that property by choice and will attempt to do it again this year.

This will be my fifth year maintaining the feed station behind our cabin, which is basically a safe zone for the deer. Two reasons why there has been an improvement in the herd numbers, POSTED signs went up on the property three years ago and my feed station that I've been maintaining year around since the no trespassing signs went up back then.
 
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bowhunter1023 said:
Denny, your place seems similar to the spot behind my house in terms of being a hot spot for velvet bucks, then a tough place to kill them in the fall. Your approach to feeding and monitoring makes me think of "operant conditioning". Over the years, how many bucks on average stay consistent through velvet peel and the season change? How many have you watched all summer and killed in the fall? Do you see summer bucks disperse through the early fall, then return in the late season? Or do they tend to stay gone (assuming they leave) until the next spring?
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My place is similar. I don’t feed at all during the spring/summer months, only put out minerals in the early spring. I stay out of there all summer long except to cut and maintain the trails and pull cards every 2-3 weeks. So in a month’s time I may be in the woods a total of 2 hours and never very far of off the mowed trails. I get a ton of velvet bucks throughout the summer and they disperse after they peel. They start filtering back through once the rut ramps up and return to stay more consistently during the late season. This is my 3rd year with the property and I have seen this play out the same each year. This trend has become more pronounced each year (at least the number of velvet bucks in the summer). I know that the previous owner was in the woods A LOT all year long so I attribute much of the increased summer traffic and overall comfort level of the deer being there at all times to the significant decrease in human presence. Anecdotally, I also notice more traffic when the adjacent field is in beans instead of corn. This year is a bean year.
 
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OTHER FARM VELVET BUCK that I've been paying most attention to blew up over the last six days since the last SD pull. I have a lot of daylight pix of him, but I wanted to get the better captures of him out right away. I'll most likely make a video of that location of all the deer activity over the past week and post it within my journal tomorrow if anyone is interested. I have a few other good ones there showing up too.

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bowhunter1023 said:
Not gonna lie, all I can think about is "one more year"...

He's been elusive in the past and I know our chances are incredibly slim, so all I want is to get velvet pics again next year! If by chance we do get to see him, it'll just be icing on the cake.

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Ha I was searching for this to insert meme here..hope he makes it,has alot of potential.
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