Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting First kill of the year for me

Been kind of a slow year for me. I have got to hunt a good bit and have seen some deer. Today i only worked a half day and was in the woods around 2pm. The week of Christmas here where i hunt is typically rut kick off. Deer seem to really start marking and chasing. Soon as I got sat down I seen my arch enimies (neighbors dogs) running all over the hillside I was watching. Happens more than I care to talk about. An hour latter I had a hit list cull buck step out onto one of my shooting lanes. This buck like several others on this property seem to grow a half way decent rack on the right side and a cow horn spike on the left. We seem to kill a couple like it every year. I had this deer 20 yards from me last week in the fog and couldn’t shoot him today he was unaware of me and didn’t mind the dogs scent on the hill side. I knew instantly when he stepped out what deer it was and the x bolt 270 did its job at about 110 yards. When i can figure out how to put up a picture I will. My 16 yr old daughter killed one just like him last year on the same hill and I’ll get its picture up for comparison. Would be interested in theories of the half rack genetics we have going around here. My uncle was in a club a few years back that every buck killed had a screwed up twisted rack on one side. After several years they seemed to grow out of that trait. I doubt I could kill enough deer or the right deer that keeps spreading this gene. Also these deer have no signs of injuries of any kind and seem healthy the one i killed today goes around 150 lbs. And probably only 2 1/2 years old. And was full stink rutting. Rotten legs

deer sure get used to local dogs for sure. We have a cur in the yard, and the deer have bred about 50 yards out from the fence with him barking. They eat there all the time. They don't even bother if we walk him as long as we are about 30-80 yards away most of the time.

Good job on the cull. We killed out a no brow tine gene line at one lease once. It took almost 10 years and killing every last one we saw but we were about 5 years free of the thing when we lost the lease...

That qdma article is quite informing. I’ve read something similar in the past. I have given pass to some of these deer in previous years on the see them have a bigger one side and a bigger spike. Who knows heck he may have put grown it but right now he is headed to make jalapeño cheddar summer sausage.