Excellent year to the vast majority. You guys are doing it right and it shows! Can't wait for next year as the age class should be solid.

We had the same issues on our place. Tons of outstanding young deer, a few middle-aged and a few more 6-7 year olds. The effects of the awful drought in STX 5-7 years ago has produced a gap in numbers within age classes and mature deer, which we knew it would. Kind of amazing how noticeable it is though. We feed and have plenty of water on the ranch.

Do yal feed protein? It seems odd to me any place that had feed and water available during the doubts would be out entire age classes. We are in southern Duval County and since 2007 we have been feeding free choice protein slinging corn and had water out year round and we have never seen a year where the doe didn't raise fawns and I believe even in the worst years even a few raised twins.

Yes, we feed protein. Unfortunately, I took over management of this property four years ago and it had been neglected for several years prior. We had fawn survival rates of -0- to about 30% for three straight years during that period. Protein won't hide those fawns from predators. Run down bucks, either.

It's been stated here many times, and I firmly believe that, no matter how much you pour out of a bag, a deer herd will never be at it's best without timely rains, lush cover and plenty of fresh forbs and browse.

Agreed. No doubt that it helps but you can't replace Mother Nature with a bag

tlk, as the fellas have said, your "poor year" bucks, are damn fine deer by most measures, now I can see why so many THF'rs took the ranch foreman up on them $50 day hunts out there when y'all was gone I always miss those good deals

Couldn't agree more, but it surely can prevent you from loosing a few age classes back to back.

we feed protein and have plenty of water - however our feeders are penned and fawns cannot access the feed. The fawn survival 5-6 years ago was very low - we did not take any does for a couple of seasons back then due to habitat being severely affected by drought. During the past 2 seasons the range conditions have been perfect and we started taking does again - took around 90 this year off of 9000 acres.

couple of the youngsters we have in the pipeline - 3-5 year olds

I posted some of those youngsters coming up

Amazing!! Always enjoy your photos!

Great deer. Top notch place. Thanks for sharing.