Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow

For some deer hunters, the opportunity to see and harvest older bucks with larger bodies and antlers is an important component of their overall satisfaction with deer hunting. Older bucks are often more challenging to hunt, yield more venison, create more rubs and scrapes, and vocalize and spar with other bucks more - all things that add to the deer hunting experience. Other deer hunters primarily hunt to fill their freezers with quality venison, or may have limited time, energy, or experience, and value being able to harvest the first buck they encounter.

DEC’s Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow educational campaign encourages hunters to voluntarily pass up opportunities at young bucks to allow more bucks to reach older age classes, while protecting the freedom of hunters to harvest any buck they desire. Throughout the campaign’s implementation DEC has documented a steady decrease in the percentage of yearling bucks (1.5 years old) in the buck harvest, with the percentage of older bucks (at least 2.5 years old) in the harvest continuing to increase. As a result, more older bucks are being harvested in New York than ever before.

Setting Realistic Buck Hunting Expectations

Factors That Influence a Buck’s Body and Antler Growth

The growth and final size of a buck’s body and antlers is determined by four factors: the buck’s age, health, genetics, and nutrition. However, since does do not have antlers (most of the time) it’s impossible to manage or influence the genetic contribution a doe has to a buck’s body size or antler characteristics without genetic testing. Yearling bucks also typically disperse several miles from where they were born to establish their own home range, taking their genetic material with them. Attempting to manage genetics through selective harvest of bucks only results in those genes ending up elsewhere after yearling bucks have dispersed, while new genes from yearling bucks dispersing into the area continue to diversify the local gene pool. Random, uncontrollable factors such as disease outbreaks and injury can also affect a buck’s health and associated body and antler growth.

Factors That Hunters Can Influence

Therefore, deer managers and hunters who are interested in seeing and harvesting more older bucks with larger bodies and antlers must focus on buck age structure and nutrition. Passing up opportunities to harvest young bucks is the most effective way hunters can influence the age structure of the bucks where they hunt. A buck’s nutrition can be influenced through direct habitat management, especially through the creation of early successional habitat, and/or ensuring that the local deer density is well below what the habitat can support. Harvesting a sufficient number of antlerless deer each hunting season reduces competition for food resources and helps ensure that bucks have plenty to eat to meet their nutritional requirements for body growth and antler development throughout the entire year.

Understanding the Role of Habitat Productivity

Local habitat productivity also greatly influences the quantity and quality of food resources available to bucks to meet their nutritional requirements for body and antler growth. Habitat productivity is the rate of vegetation biomass that is produced in a particular ecosystem, and is driven primarily by climate and soil conditions. For example, the Adirondacks has low habitat productivity because of its short growing season and rocky soils. Conversely, the Central Finger Lakes region has high habitat productivity because of its temperate climate and fertile soils. Bucks that live in low productivity habitats tend to have smaller bodies and antlers than bucks of the same age that live in high productivity habitats. Similarly, Midwestern states with high habitat productivity and abundant agriculture will always tend to produce bucks with larger antlers than Northeastern states with less agriculture and lower habitat productivity.

Average Boone and Crockett Antler Scores by Buck Age Class Across New York

To help hunters better understand the variation in buck antler sizes throughout New York and have more realistic expectations for what they might encounter afield, in 2015, 2016, and 2017 DEC collected additional antler measurements to calculate Boone and Crockett scores for 2,932 harvested bucks across the state. Mapping this data demonstrates that there is considerable variation in antler sizes for bucks of the same age across New York, primarily as a result of variation in habitat productivity. Setting realistic expectations for what is a large antlered buck in the areas you hunt may improve your satisfaction with buck hunting opportunities in New York, and prevent missed opportunities to harvest a buck this coming season.

Mandatory Antler Point Restrictions

Mandatory Antler Restriction Program

Mandatory antler point restrictions (APRs) are in place in WMUs 3A, 3C, 3H, 3J, 3K, 4G, 4O, 4P, 4R, 4S and 4W in Southeastern New York to reduce harvest of yearling bucks. In these WMUs, only antlered bucks having at least one antler with at least 3 points that are all at least 1 inch long can be harvested. Youth hunters (ages 12 – 16) are exempt from abiding by these APRs and can harvest any antlered buck they desire. These APRs will continue as DEC continues to evaluate the effectiveness of the Let Young Bucks Go and Watch Them Grow campaign. Over time, as more hunters opt to pass on young bucks voluntarily, it may be appropriate to lift the APRs.

In WMUs with mandatory APRs hunters may only use antlerless deer tags (Bow/Muzzleloading or Deer Management Permits) for female deer or for bucks with antlers less than 3 inches in length. Hunters may not use an antlerless deer tag on a buck with antlers greater than 3 inches but that does not have at least one antler with at least 3 points that are all at least 1 inch long.

To learn more about the results of these APRs, please see:

• A Summary of New York's Pilot Antler Restriction Program (PDF)
• Hunters' Experiences with and Attitudes about Antler Restrictions in Wildlife Management Units 3C, 3J, 3H, and 3K during the 2010 Hunting Season (PDF)
• For related information refer to DEC’s Public Input on Deer Management webpage