we seem to be missing our 6.5 year old buck class - we have some awesome 3-5 year old up and comers and some nice 7-9 year old bucks. I went back and track our rainfall specifically for our 9000 acre lease and for a 9 month period we had a total of one inch of rain - this was during the time our 6 year olds would have been born. Several other ranches in near us are experiencing the same thing. Anyone else seeing this this season?

Should be true for much of Texas, that kicked off the drought

Same here. We don't have 5 1/2s either. Lots of 2s and 3s, a few 4s, and then some old pre-drought bucks hanging around.

Same thing in Lee county. Very few really mature bucks.

This, same here. Fawn crop was very low 2010-2012, and just a little better in 2013.

Same in Freestone county....

Same at my place in Eastland

Same way in the panhandle too!

Killed one 6.5 or 7.5 year old two days ago. No five year olds at all. Few four year olds. Good crop
of 3 year olds and even bigger crop of 2 and 1 year olds.

Ours would be the 5yo class. 6yo class started strong and has been whittled down to nothing. (1 lone survivor to be exact, which is sad bc excluding 1, they all had stud potential).

Missing 5 yo class, 6 yo class probably has been reduced since they were 3. Low percentage ever make it to 6yo.

yep

Concur. No 4s, 5s, or 6s.

The bad drought was 6 years ago, that year I never say a fawn on the big ranch or on my place.

Missing the 5 year olds also........

I'm sure some places were hit harder by the drought than others. I believe there were some bad fires that spread around during that time frame as well.

We never had any fires but had our share of dry. We feed free choice protein and had water troughs available when the tanks etc. dried up. We had deer coming in from miles to get to the water, trails became visible on aerial maps that were never their before. We never had a year where we didn't have fawns though. We got our place in 2007 and have had at least a handful of does raise twins every year since.

There are places in the Panhandle where you'll have 3 years of missing age class bucks due to the drought. Now, the last two years have been bumper for fawns, so I have hope for 4, 5 and 6 years down the road. I can't tell you how many fawns thru 2.5 yr old and bucks I have counted this year, but we are way short of 3-5 year old bucks.

We are missing 5s (mostly didn't hit the ground or didn't survive) and 6s (lots of them died) and are thin on 4s (thin crop because of less breeding/survival during the drought).

A few old deer, and LOTS of 2.5s and 3.5s.

We have noticed the decline in numbers of this age class from the double whammy of fire and drought.

We are lucky that our pastures were not grazed during this period and we only hunt one hunter per thousand acres so we have these age groups but the numbers are down.

yep,same in Coryell .. the next few years should be really good though.. lots of youngsters and lots of good 2.5 to 3.5

This is our experience in Foard County also. A lot of young bucks and a few old timers

lots of up and comer 3 and 4 yr olds though.

5.5 age class and up completely missing at my OK lease. 4.5 age class is below average compared to pre drought numbers but 3.5 year olds and down are way above average. Next year will be good and the years after that will be phenomenal unless another bad drought hits, knock on wood.

4.5 to 6.5 age class is almost non-existent on our lease in Motley county. Lots of youngsters and I haven't seen this many yearling spikes since I've been hunting the panhandle.