Hey y’all,

I have been hunting my own 20 acres for the past 7-8 years. I usually take 1-2 deer off it each year.

There are a lot of deer on the property and see deer most hunts until late December. Every year I am LOADED with young bucks. It’s always 3-4 spikes, 1-2 4 points, and 1 6 point. It’s been that way every year for the past 7 years. I keep passing on these young bucks with hopes of them turning into something decent, but that never happens.

I do have a good number of does on the property as well. Should I start burning a buck tag each year and try to thin the young buck herd or do I keep passing them up?

For older deer you need low pressure and good bedding. If you don't have it, they leave.

I see the same on my 30 acres here, but even a small eight doesn't trip my trigger, and a kid would love to get that, so I shoot does. Bigger bucks will show up in rut, but it is always them passing thru, right place right time to get them.

Sounds like you’re raising them and they’re moving off. Are your neighbors killing big bucks? Are they managing?

And don’t feel too bad, I don’t have a buck over 3.5 on camera yet. Got plenty of does so we are picking them off as practice, lol. The older bucks will show up within the next 3 weeks or so. I’m on 2500ac but we are assigned blocks. I have an oak drain with tons of cover and food…and does, lol.

What state are you in? I assume Georgia.

I get a kick how different folks want to be in deer management , and dont have 300 acres to play with...shoot what you want to eat and dont worry about it, you probably wont have an affect on the overall management of the herd anyway.

Your problem is the 20 acres. These yearlings are all dispersing to other properties, and apparently you do not have the habitat to hold the older ones.

I agree with this. I see the same with my property. I have always called it the nursery. A lot of does and fawns and small bucks. I personally don't shoot the small bucks either but on occasion will take a mature doe later in the season usually after the rut. When rut comes we have the mature bucks show though because of the doe population that stay here.

20 acres is great but will have no affect on passing up bucks.

This ^^^^ and that^^^^^

A mature buck's home range is much more than a square mile (640 acres) during the fall. With just 20 acres to hunt you are playing hit or miss. Your best bet to catch a mature buck there is during your peak rut. In Ga, the peak varies from late September/early October along the coast to January in deep SW Georgia. Not sure where you're at.

My advice is to keep food on your property thru entire season to hopefully keep a couple doe family groups satisfied.....and wait it out. If it dont happen for you at peak breeding...then your next best opportunity will be post rut after Christmas to end of season on Jan 15th as bucks reduce travel and settle on a food source.

We all experience some of this same behavior no matter how big the property. My place is 400 acres and every fall there are new young bucks there....and several that leave when the velvet comes off. Most seasons I do have one or two 3.5 plus year old bucks that I consider shooters. But, my property has a lot of cover with half being river bottom and swamps and half being upland sand ridge. Being along a river, it is a natural travel corridor, which helps greatly with new bucks coming and going. I plant 5 to 10 acres in plots....summer and fall....not neccessarily for the deer , but to aid in killing em. Many of my plots are long and narrow like shooting lanes. Tract is heavy with mature water oaks and live oaks. Soft mast is limited, but there are some persimmons.

I caught this guy on camera (bottom pic) near my cabin. My buddy caught him on his camera six miles away.
I don't have as many deer on two thousand acres as the OP has on his twenty. Anyone got any pointers on how to pattern a buck like this?

As stated twenty acres is not anywhere near enough to "manage". Shoot some meat if you want. If it's antler your after buy more land or keep on waiting. Big bucks like cover you could always try to thicken up part of your land for bedding and cover

Posco,
There is ALWAYS an element of luck needed in getting a chance at a mature buck, especially those travelling bucks like that one. There are studies where radio-collard bucks have travelled 15 miles over night and 200 plus miles in one direction in a few weeks.

All bucks dont do that.

Patterning bucks that do is NOT possible.

I'll add that there is a core area (where he spends more daylight time) somewhere for those travelling bucks, but it is probably not on the property where only a late night pic or 2 has been taken of the buck. It could be miles away...

That one intrigues me as it seems to occur in many different species. Studies may show the average male moving a short distance from where it was born then settling down into a "range" while other males of the same species might strike out for parts unknown before settling down or not at all.

I wonder what triggers that? Hormonal? Could the one have a more active endocrine system? Conflict with other males? Maybe the wanderers are poor "fighters"?

We'll probably never know. But I chalk it up to the good Lord's mechanism of getting genetic diversity across the species with outcrossing, assuming the wanderers are successful in breeding.

We hunt 60 acres that adjoins close to 2400 acres of solid woods that has very low deer hunting pressure. One half was select cut logged about 6 years ago and the other half about 4 years ago. We are now at the point of so thick its hard to walk through. But even before the logging took place this woods has always been a nursery in the early season with lots of does and young bucks with the occasional mature buck wandering through at night. But once the rut starts the high doe population draws in the bigger deer even more so now that the entire woods is excellent bedding. And then once the rut ends its back to a nursery until the last week or two of archery season which is the first weeks of January then the big ones filter back through.

As others have stated shoot what makes you happy, if there is a lot of pressure on the surrounding properties then that 6 pointer may be the big buck in that area.

Kill off the Doe's and the Bucks will have no reason to stick around!

I agree the 20 acres is the issue.

Another thing I would consider if a better buck is the goal is waiting until the best week to hunt. If you are early season archery hunting (at least here) you are pushing some of the better bucks that may partially reside there off the property.

Once I said goodbye to warmer temperatures and bugs by skipping early season archery, the quality of deer I saw improved greatly.

I personally have no problem putting spikes in the freezer. I don’t have the time to invest in waiting for one of the big bucks to be where I am. I get three or four big bucks on camera about the end of October. One or two two pics of each and then they are gone for another year!

Many people says they would rather have a small buck or doe to eat, but.....let a big buck be standing beside that doe or small buck and watch which one that hunter shoots.

Folks should just be honest with themselves....cause they aint foolin anyone.