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?
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.
