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the doe serial killer gets her first set of horns......

my wife has been whacking and stacking does since she was 12, never shot a buck but got the itch for horns this past fall, did a mile long stalk to get this one, woulda done an European mount but when he refused to drop she put a third bullet up the nose to convince him to lay down.....the head was like a bag of gravel......a buddys 15 year old son offered to do his best to make a presentable mount and came up with this which he dropped off last night:

IMG_1114.jpg
 
Hey rattler - are racks full grown at this time of year or do racks only stop growing when the bucks lose them? The reason I ask is because I was in the woods the other day and my dog came across a dead buck with a rack smaller than the one your wife shot. I was thinking the buck was a juvenile based on the size (the body was buried under snow and pretty well eaten away).

Actually I have a picture that I'll post in a few minutes.

Anyways, nice mount there. What is it that makes the racks split? Is it genetic or structure/density make up?

xvart.
 
it varies depending where you are but around here they shed their velvet in aug/sept, rut is in Nov/Dec and they lose their horns in Jan/Feb.....thats usually can vary some based on individuals, ive seen bucks with hard horns in March and velvet in October, individuals though seem to loose them about the same time every year within a week or so....

rack size does not equal age, my wifes buck was a young one, prolly bout 3 years old, but have seen smaller racks on older individuals, biggest horns usually appear somewhere between 4 and 7 years depending on the genetics of an individual and they usually start to get smaller after that......some deer just dont have the genetic makeup for huge racks no matter how pampered they are.....genetics control the shape of a rack to a large extent but injuries can influence the shape to, even injuries no where near the head.....

general shape depends on species which is why for typical racks from bucks atleast a couple years old you can glance at them and say its a mule deer or whitetail......whitetails usually have a main beam with single points growing off it, mule deer horns like to fork.....

when watching deer its pretty easy to tell what bucks are young or old even if its early spring and they arent showing much for horns by looking at the nose, back and belly.......old deer have sagging backs and bellies and a roman nose......
 
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