1.) Swamp Fox - 08/14/2017

This is an excellent video for aging deer on the hoof, especially looking at the difference between 3.5 and 4.5 year-old-plus deer, which I think is somewhat tricky at the younger ages. It's done in an area of SC I used to hunt a long time ago. In fact, this club used to hunt a lot of the same ground I used to, but I think they're off most all of it now.

They won the QDMA 2011 Deer Manager of the Year award, so they have that going for them, which is nice.

The video includes a lot of instruction, including chest-to-rump and chest-to-ground notes that I think are helpful and mostly undiscussed. It also has a 12-buck [B]yes--no--maybe[/B] test to pick out the 4.5 year-old-plus shooter bucks from the herd---literally.

I got 7 out of 12 on their test. I said

"yes" once when they said it was a maybe

"maybe" twice when they said they were no's

and "no" twice when they said they were maybe's



...which I think makes me pretty damn conservative on their scale.


How do you do?

2.) Swamp Fox - 09/05/2017

[QUOTE]On public and private lands combined, North Carolina’s hunters killed a total of 76,206 antlered bucks, 8952 button bucks, and 64,653 does, for a total harvest of 149,811. [url]http://www.northcarolinasportsman.com/details.php?id=14381[/url][/QUOTE]

So more than 10% of the buck harvest was buttons. I haven't looked at prior years to compare, but this seems high.


Just under 5000 deer were reported killed from 2 million plus acres or public land, which seems low. Factor in a lot of that land is straight up and down and has short seasons (western NC) and a lot of the rest of it is under water or comprised of vast peat bogs with brambles on top (eastern NC), but still...