Hunting with Mike

Some people say “If you seen one Ansel you’ve seen em all!” Now I don’t see all that great of a resemblance, but I’m sure my kids have picked up a few of my good genes. More than once we’ve heard “Oh I bet your an Ansel you all look alike!” There probably is more “truth” than”fiction” to that statement.

All of creation has common traits, talents, physical features, and genes from the proceeding generations. I’ve noticed this firsthand while observing the natural world, but whitetail bucks, in particular, catch my interest! Early this year I had two 6-pointers come by my stand at the same time. They were the same size, except one had a wider rack than the other, What caught my eye was that each deer had a right brow tine that curved toward the left side of the rack. I figured this particular brow-tine formation made them brothers, and that “daddy” was probably running around somewhere with a similar set of headgear.

I didn’t really think of it very much after that evening, but toward the end of the season I got somewhat of a surprise! A very nice 8-pointer caught me “empty handed” (my bow was hanging on its hook) doing a stare-down at 15 yards. One of the first things I noticed was the tip of the right brow tine angling toward the left. I figured this was the “bad boy” that was passing those crooked brow tine genes around, and all I could do was look.

Several years ago my son took a fat corn feed 8-pointer, here in Monroe, that had 6-kickers coming off his bases. The deer was only 1-1/2 years old (first bow buck) but was already starting to show”who’s your daddy!” The reason I say that is because my son-in-law missed a “monster” with several noticeable kickers around his bases. He was less than a half mile away from where Micah shot his deer.

I’m sure you’ve all watched the hunting programs on T.V. where only 5 year old, and up, “wall hangers” are harvested, while the lesser bucks are “culled!” The reason for that is simple. It’s in the gene pool! Most of these ranches try and keep a 50/50 buck to doe ratio, which helps insure healthy deer. By eliminating the inferior bucks they maintain a sizable “trophy” population for hunters to dream about.

Not only is good genetics essential, but keeping the doe numbers down is also very important. Just today I ran across an 80 acre lease in the heart of deer/farm country. The owner had a stipulation of “bucks” only, no does. To bad, cause I would of leased it in a heart-beat, but I believe you have to harvest some does in order to keep the herd healthy.

Mike

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.