I hunt on a 4,000 acre farm on the Savannah river about 20 miles south of Augusta. These are our 2 opening day bucks, the top is 11 points and the bottom 9 points.Both were killed within 200 yds of each other and the river. We have about 20 members and only kill 31/2 year old deer. In a normal year we kill 5 bucks, 20 does and 20+ hogs.

Nice Georgia deer.

Nice bucks Tom, congrats to ya'll!

Excellent whitetails!!

Great bucks!

Shirtsleeve Deer Hunting at midday is great. Looks like the type of understory that I'm used to.

Congratulations on a fine pair of Bucks.

Any details on the Kills?

Congrats on a great pair of bucks!
I hunt just down the road from you in Screven county.

Congrats, nice bucks.

Very nice buck--congratulations.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tom ga hunter:
I hunt on a 4,000 acre farm on the Savannah river about 20 miles south of Augusta. These are our 2 opening day bucks, the top is 11 points and the bottom 9 points.Both were killed within 200 yds of each other and the river. We have about 20 members and only kill 31/2 year old deer. In a normal year we kill 5 bucks, 20 does and 20+ hogs.


Great deer. That top one is OLD.

Question. You say you only kill 3 1/2 old deer, and older I assume. Why 3 1/2, that's still a young deer and you obviously have older? The lower buck looks pretty young, 3 1/2, and he is big. Why not let him get 5 1/2? I am curious about your comment, not trying to start anything here at all.

Perry

Perry

Where we hunt is thick, you have only a few seconds to make a decision..I quess we could wait for them to get 5 but it's hard to pass a deer like the bottom one. Where we hunt the soil is very poor so we simply don't get the racks you get in Texas.

The best deer we have ever killed on the farm was only 135. Here's a picture of last year's best buck:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tom ga hunter:
Perry

Where we hunt is thick, you have only a few seconds to make a decision..I quess we could wait for them to get 5 but it's hard to pass a deer like the bottom one. Where we hunt the soil is very poor so we simply don't get the racks you get in Texas.

The best deer we have ever killed on the farm was only 135.


Don't believe you can not have big deer. That bottom deer has some good genetics and with a few years he'd be as big as any free ranging deer down here! The two ranches I hunt 95% of the time insist on not killing a deer until they are at least 5.5 years old. That rule has been in place for 15 years and you should see the difference in buck sizes. Pictures from the 90's tell the story. Compared to the deer we see on the hoof now the difference is staggering.
I am not knocking your kill AT ALL. You pay for the lease you can shoot whatever you want but know, you could really have some big deer if y'all will self impose an older kill age. You may already know this but a deer spend his first 3.5 years feeding his body. At 4.5 most of his nutrition heads upward to the rack. You see a huge blow up in rack size from 3.5-4.5.
Congrats on a sucessful hunt!

Perry

Perry,

The bioligist says that we have about 40 bucks on the farm since we only kill 5 a year some of our bucks are 4.5-5.5 years old. The only mature bucks we see are on opening week end or during rut. Last week was the peak of rut & due to weather conditions, no bucks were see. It is very rare to see a shootable buck in a food plot so they are mostly used to cull does.

I'm going down tomorrow morning & hope to post a picture of my big buck monday. We do not lease the farm, it is owned by an individual and he lets us hunt by invitation. We do however put in the food plots and buy the stands.

I can tell you that hunting in the Southeast is vastly different than hunting in Texas. I hunt in Texas once a year and I live in Georgia where I hunt the rest of the year.

If you kill a big deer (over 140) in Georgia, the you have accomplished something. It's not that big of a deal in Texas. Also, in Georgia, you may see a big buck once a season or once every two seasons. And, if you don't kill him, be assured, your neighbor will.

I guess what I'm saying is that hunting in Georgia is just different than hunting in Texas. I love hunting in both states, they're just different in the way they hunt and manage deer.