Ever rattle in a buck with his own antlers?

[Steve Kendrot]

Just curious. That would be way cool.

[LV2HUNT]

I would bet Mike Mitten or one of his crew has done it.

[owlbait]

I drug one out by his antlers AFTER rattling him in  

[Carbon Jack]

"With his own antlers". This reminds me of a scene in Moby Dick when some sailors are eating whale meat below decks by the light of the same whale's oil.

Struck me as funny.

Jack

[Bowwild]

That would be very wild.

One could never be 100% sure a shed came from a particular deer (except at the moment the shed is dropped and you see it happen).  Gene's are remarkable blueprints.

I always get a kick out of folks who claim to be hunting the same deer 2-3 years or more. Maybe they are correct, but they can't be sure. There's a nice sport shot in Yankton, South Dakota. On the wall are 30+ very nice white-tail heads mounted. When I saw those heads it was remarkable how very similar they were. I asked the hunter if they came from the same general area. He reported they came from the same (very large) farm. Even some non-typical antler traits are passed on (those that aren't injury-induced).

[D. Key]

That would be too cool to do.

[K.S.TRAPPER]

Sorry Bowwild, I have to respectfully disagree with you.    

  We do it every year and if you run a few cameras and scout almost year round like we do you will figure certain bucks out and even certain does too. Shed hunting is a big part of this. Most people won't work as hard or care about deer as much as we do but it something we like to do.

 Most but not all big bucks will keep the same characteristics year after year unless there's a diet change or a injury. Of course we also let are deer grow and don't shoot everything in sight so it gives us a chance to watch them grow.    

  Tracy

[jsweka]

I always get a kick out of folks who claim to be hunting the same deer 2-3 years or more. Maybe they are correct, but they can't be sure.

I totally agree with you Bowwild.  I don't doubt there are some like K.S. TRAPPER who do put in the time to identify the same individual deer year after year, but when someone who I know doesn't put in that much time says they've been hunting the same buck for 2 - 3 years in a row, I grin and humor them, but I'm really thinking B.S.

It would be really cool if you could capture a buck on a trail cam, watch him throughout a season, find his sheds, see him again the next season and rattle him in.  A deer rattled in with his own antlers would kind of be like shooting yourself with your own bow.

[Bowwild]

In 1982 I passed the largest live white-tail deer I had ever seen and haven't seen one bigger since (180-class 12-pointer). He was 15 yards from my pin oak stand in a picked bean field. This was in Elkhart County, Indiana. I was hunting with a Mzzl at the time. I didn't shoot him, although I put the sights on his neck and between his eyes (I had decided, because I was hunting adjacent to a very nasty button bush swam that I was going to drop whatever I shot in its tracks).  I let this buck go because I didn't want the biggest buck of my life to come by any means other than a bow -- in those days Indiana didn't allow us to use archery tackle during firearms seasons. (Later that day I killed a 6-point by shooting him between the eyes at 30 yards -- he went about 24 inches after the shot-- straight down.

My only regret was that I didn't put a .50 caliber hole in this big deer's ear so I'd know for sure that passing him ended up with me getting him.

I used to measure more than 100 deer per year (PY Measurer since 1979-these days I measure only 2-3/year).   I have two sets of antlers in my garage that score in the mid-130's. Laid side by side lots of folks couldn't tell them apart. However, they came from deer I killed 243 miles apart.

K.S. Trapper, You are likely correct that you can identify certain deer by antler, hair pattern, or other unusual features. I don't have much experience with trail cameras. I've seen some bucks with huge long spikes, one antler, etc. on what I thought were multiple occassions in the same season.  I was pretty sure they were repeat sightings. I have deer that come into my yard every other day or so that I also believe to be the same animals. I just can't be sure.

I'm a retired wildlife biologist BUT those degrees don't give me any special insight regarding this topic and certainly don't trump an avid and thoughtful hunter's experience.

[Gun]

Roy, you have my highest respect for passing that Buck. I feel the same way. If its not a trad bowkill, "ho hum".
And I would also disagree on Bucks holding the same antler characteristics. I have lots of multiple sheds of the same Buck. One from 4 years, two complete sets.
I've thought that it would be cool to do that as well. (Rattle the Buck with his own antlers.)

[K.S.TRAPPER]

Thanks Roy and you have my respect also    

We are all in this together and far from knowing everything there is to know about whitetails. That's good too I wouldn't want to know it all and take the fun out of the chasing part of hunting.

We use are cams to keep track of numbers,health and over all stability of the deer we hunt. I sure have seen some wild things in the last several years of using them, Whitetails are one tuff critter.

I could fill this thread up with bunch's of pictures the same bucks and does year after year but that would be high jacking this thread and we don't want to do that.

 To tell you the truth I never thought about trying to rattle a buck in with his own sheds and that sounds like a pretty good challenge to me. We find a lot of sheds from one side and not both so that's always a challenge in it's self.  :D  

Tracy

[Arrowhead80]

Not stepping on anyones toes but i don't know anyone who would pass on a 180 inch deer to shoot a six pointer. I bow hunt but i have no problem shooting a booner with a gun,bow,knife,stick or whatever i am carrying.Just doesn't strike me as the right choice but to each his own.

[K.S.TRAPPER]

Roy sounds like a stand up kinda guy to me and I respect his decision and understand it to.

 Sometimes it's about the animal and the hunt not just the kill and the score. I hunted a certain booner buck the last two years and came close taking him a couple times including a miss with the recurve opening day two years ago. I could have shot him several times during Muzzle loader season but that's not what I wanted to take him with, Never even got the gun out of the case.

Tracy  

[S.C. Hunter]

That would be cool. I did shoot a buck one year within about 5 yds of where I found a shed.

[Wary Buck]

I'm with KSTrapper on this one.  Spend enough time in a particular piece of woods--and when dealing with fairly unique antlers to begin with--and I can say in some cases with certainty I've got the same antlers of the same deer in back-to-back years.  It's remarkable how the blueprint for those antlers is imprinted in that particular deer.  

I've got a pile of about 40-50 antlers or more that are all either matches or else the same deer year after year.  I need to put some photos together, but even then the best way to appreciate it and understand it is to have the antlers in hand and be able to fondle them 360 degrees.  

Trail cams definitely help in this study.  No doubt about it, and the trail cams have solved several mysteries for me when I didn't have the shed antler evidence.  I know some dismiss or dislike trail cams (some having never used them), but they are fantastic aids in studying whitetail racks and have never shown me where to hunt.

One (of many) interesting stories was the one I covered in Ch. 1 (Familiar Face) of my book, My Neck of the Woods.  In this case, I had trail cam and both sheds from the year before of the buck I killed.  I EVEN rattled him in, but not with his own rack from the year before (I hadn't found the second antler yet).  

Interesting that I initially saw that buck but he used a trail out of range.  As I backtracked that buck later that morning to determine where to set up a stand for a different wind, I found an antler (his from the year before, as it turned out).  I then set up a stand, returned, and MISSED him a few days later.  Then about Halloween, I rattled him in and killed him from the original spot (literally a few yards from where I'd found his antler).  Found the mate to that antler a couple hundred yards away later.

I also had a story on this topic in a PBS Magazine from 2nd Qtr 2009.

[gregg dudley]

I saw two guys standing around the deer processor around Thanksgiving and stopped to talk to them.  There were two nine point bucks there with them that looked like father and son.  They had the same characteristics and looked like carbon copies of one another except the older buck was significantly larger and had more mass.  I assumed that they had killed both bucks that morning and commented on how similar they were.  Turns out they only brought in the bigger of the two.  The smaller one had come from another farm 15-20 miles away.  

Point is that antler characteristics alone are not good enough to go by, but combined with other factors like same property, same habits, patterns, and other identifiable characteristics, you can make some informed conclusions about a buck's identity.

Where I hunt, I rarely get the opportunity to see the same buck in the same season, much less monitor the same one over several years. I am much more likely to see the same group of does and fawns on a regular basis than to see the same bucs show up.

[Roy Steele]

On the farms I hunt I watch the same bucks year after year every day summer to seasons end. Though me seeing and camras I to know each. And bucks will and keep the same figgeration.Theynge some in size and the older he gets they form stickers. But if injurys do'nt happen you can uselly follow them from year to year.
  Not all but most. This year I shot a 5 1/2 year ols 6 point with a selfbow. And for the last 3 years he'd been a 6 and had only grew 3 stickers on his right beam and grew deeper forks with age.

[Owlgrowler]

I've tried. Not a gambling man, but would bet these antlers
 
came off this buck