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Trophy spike deer12/29/2023 Shooting the small buck also keeps you from filling your Antlerless Permit with a doe. Young buck fawns also are more aggressive and curious, making them easier targets. Buck fawns do grow faster than doe fawns, but that just makes them more vulnerable to hunters, who usually will shoot the larger of a pair of fawns. It's easy to tell whether a big deer is a buck or a doe, but buck and doe fawns are difficult to tell apart. Targeting bigger deer helps you avoid shooting young bucks. It just takes another buck out of the population. SMALL BUCKSĪlthough legal, taking a small buck with nubs, or with points less than 3 inches long, doesn't contribute to our efforts to balance the deer herd. The new regulations should work, but it will help if hunters avoid shooting those small bucks. In 29 counties in the state, hunters aren't allowed to harvest bucks ranging from "spike" bucks with 3-inch or longer points to bucks without at least four points on one side of their rack.Ĭontrolling doe numbers is key to keep-in a deer population in check. This year, new restrictions create a kind of "slot limit" for bucks. It also allows more bucks a chance to grow big antlers.įor years, the Conservation Department has restricted the number of bucks that hunters could harvest. Taking more does and fewer bucks raises the percentage of bucks in the population. The best way to achieve this through management is to shift harvest pressure from bucks to does. ![]() ![]() TROPHIESĭuring a series of public meetings this year, many Missouri citizens and hunters expressed their desire to see larger bucks. As the record books show, however, the Missouri deer that man-age to reach their potential weight are real trophies. Because of hunters and other threats, only a small percentage of deer-especially bucks-reach their peak size. Adult does in Missouri usually have two fawns per year, and about half of the female fawns born that year will give birth around the time of their first birthday.Ī deer-buck or doe-generally doesn't approach the 100-pound mark until its second year and won't reach its top weight until it is about 4 or 5 years old. There are many more young deer than adult deer. However, one single thing would have made the day much more satisfying-a bigger deer. I was happy I'd shot a deer and, at the end of a long day in the kitchen, had venison in the freezer. Paying the full fee for such a small deer didn't make sense to me.ĭon't get me wrong. Processors charge by the deer, not the pound. I'd already decided to butcher the deer myself. Once free of the check station, I drove straight home. I was comforting myself with the thought that it was just the luck of the draw, when a little girl sitting on an old man's shoulders stared into the back of my truck and said, "Oh, look, Grandpa! It's just a baby!" After I gutted it, I was able to lift the deer into the back of the truck without lowering the tailgate.Īt the check station, I couldn't help but conclude that the hunters in line with me had seen larger deer than I had. Two fingertip-size nubs on its head showed where antlers would have grown. Other years, I have not been so lucky.Įven describing the buck as "a little small" might still be an exaggeration. He looked a little small, but I was glad to have filled my tag. I found the young buck easily in the knee-high weeds. "Good shot!" I told myself and climbed down from the treestand to tag the deer. The deer collapsed like the bullet had let the air out of it. Several years ago, I fired at the first deer I saw on opening day morning.
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