Yeah but if you feed sack after sack of protein during the off season, you can to the ranch, sweat your balls off and feel like you are accomplishing something.

Thays the problem with the question hud, people spend all this time and money feeding protien and “want” to see the differrnce so they “do” see the difference....without realizing/recognizing the other things they have done to see a difference, most of the time not shooting young deer and letting bucks get some age (because those things can be done for free and no one wants to know the money/time they spent all year on protein really didn’t do much)

Its a terribly vicious cycle and yet we read about it all the time from folks, esp with whatever newly developed protein feed they decided to use this year “made all the difference”

Don't over think this. Consider the equation a three legged stool. Nutrition, age and genetics. Genetics are either there or they ain't. Letting them age requires patience. Feeding the supplemental requires diligence. I ain't pulling any of the legs from under the stool. Would make it hard to sit on.

Hud, your analogy is a good one and sometimes you have to go a little beyond to make a point, which you did. Your stool will not FALL DOWN, it will just not be as you would like it to be. You are willing to put time and money into shoring up that leg to get your desired result and thats fine. You would probably agree the other two legs to the stool would be more harmful if pulled out, and of course some(not me) are just fine sitting on the ground.

A couple of other points to add. If you are low fence and feed protein and your neighbors don't, you'll pull quite a few deer off of their property onto yours. And that will last until the rut hits and then those bucks will scatter to the wind. At that point the neighbors will thank you for growing them some bigger deer. But the survivors will probably be back around mid January looking for that protein again. It's like sticking a needle in an addict's arm once you get the deer started on it.