Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Antlers dropping early

SE Oregon here and mule deer. Returning from a dental run and passed 4 smallish to medium bucks just before hitting the driveway. Three of them were packing single antlers. Seems to be about a month early for the drop, but this was a poor year nutritionally with little to no fall green up either.

Ok, this is Wisconsin and I'm referring to whitetails. Several years ago, in the middle of December, I shot a nice 8 pointer (eastern count). By the time I followed the blood trail to its conclusion, he'd lost both antlers. Knocked 'em off on his death run. Fortunately, I retraced his route and found them both. I talked to the local DNR game manager who told me that rutting stress was the culprit. The deer that are most active will lose their antlers first. Can't say if it's the same for mulies, but they are deer.

never heard that before

Shot a nice 8 point December 30 several years ago in the UP bow hunting there was 2' of snow on the ground....buck went 100 yards running when I got to him buried in the snow grabbed a horn and it came off.....now it was bald walked back and found the other side....
Then the dilemma how do I tag the buck punch the tag 4 points on each side because I had the horns from the buck or punch buck no points....
Ended up punch buck no points and butchered the deer the next day....

The first whitetail I ever took 28 years ago was on December 26th......thought I hand shot a doe, but actually a buck that had recently lost both horns.

Neighbor shot a Virginia whitetail last week, grabbed it by the antlers and one came off in his hand.
Very early for that to happen here.

Usually late February down here

We have almost a month of season left

There’s been a couple bull elk on the national elk refuge in Jackson that have shed their antlers already.

i have seen it happen several times around this time of the year virginia/west virginia

Shot a small buck in Pa yesterday with the flintlock. Still had both antlers and they stayed on until I took the saw to them.

Dale

I've had big bucks with horns thru late February some years. I think it depends on their food supply.

Hunted Saturday and saw a small 6 pt that is just a 3 pt now. Seems early.

I have cellular cameras out and the bucks on camera dropped 1 or both within 24hrs of our season ending (12/11) this year. In the past years they went well into February. As of 12/14 no antlers seen on them, just bald spots.

I have had more than one old timer in PENN tell me that the larger bucks that breed a lot will lose their antlers a lot earlier than the other bucks will. Which would explain why some large bucks "disappear" during hunting season

The only antler shed I ever found did not endear me to my "boss"! (also my b-i-l!)
Went to work and a tire guy was at the barn putting a new back tire on the tractor.
I serviced the tractor and swather while the guy finished putting the tire on.
The field was across the road.
Before the tire guy got packed up, the new tire was flat.
There was a shed antler embedded deeply in the new tire.

I’m noticing a few one-siders here too.

I killed a late archery season 7 point yesterday evening and the buck knocked both antlers off when he crashed and died after a short run.

Stress

Probably 35 years ago I shot the biggest doe in a group of two. I thought it was odd in the manner in which they passed by. Ended up being a buck that had shed both sides and it was Jan 1. Back then I was disappointed because the Buck didn’t have antlers and any antlers were awesome to me. This was Georgia.

Normally I see deer hold their antlers here until February and sometimes even early March! I have one so far that dropped one side this year…but I’m not seeing many deer on cameras either.