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Antler GrowthAntler growth is something that we deer hunters spend a lot of time talking about. One of the questions that we often ask is how much a buck’s antlers grow from one year to the next. If we let a buck walk this year, how much bigger will they be next year? For the first time I now have the opportunity to make these measurements. For three years we had a buck that we called the sticker point buck. In 2006 he was a seven point, in 2007 he was a nine point and in 2008 he was an eight point with sticker points extending from his bases each year. On the first day of bow season 2008 Ryan shot sticker point and we measured his antlers at about 120 inches. A 120 inch buck off of our property is an excellent buck, but we still didn’t know how much his antlers had grown since last year although we had suspicions that they had grown quite a bit. On January 7th Ryan and I were walking around looking for shed antlers when I happened upon an antler that was obviously from last year. I didn’t have to look at it long before I realized that it was from sticker point and I was excited to have found it. After walking about another fifteen feet I saw another antler sticking out of the leaves and quickly saw that it was sticker points other side from last year. We now, for the first time, had two complete sets of antler from a buck. Sticker points shed antlers measured about 90 inches with a 13 inch spread. This means that this buck’s antlers added about an additional 30 inches in one year. I’ll admit that we had opportunities to shoot this buck in 2007 and let him go. This is definitely a “let em walk” that worked. The first picture below shows sticker point in 2007 and the next picture is from 2008. I think you can see the increase in antler growth for yourself.
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