How much have you seen a buck regress in a year?

[Hunter1212]

How much have you seen a buck regress? Can a 200 inch deer regress significantly in one year due to factors such as age? On the contrary, how much have you seen one grow in a year?

 

[manitou1]

I was hunting a 200+ inch whitetail for a couple of years and during blackpowder season I bumped him at 30 yards. He was running straight away and I (stupidly) took a shot and hit him in the right rear quarter.

The next year I took my (soon to be wife) on her first whitetail hunt. The stand was set up about 50 yards from where I shot that buck the year before. She missed a very nice buck at first light and about an hour later she shot the buck I hit in the butt the year prior... at 20 yards!

The buck's right beam measured 92" and some change. His left main beam. although it carried mass, was short and only was three short points. I never scored him but due to the deficiencies I would say he was around 140"-150" gross.

I credit the deformity to his wound from the prior year, but he was also getting up in age.

 

[roadhntr]

I saw one grow from 130" to 175" to 260" in a three year period.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

Around 50” reduction after a hard gnarly winter and a really long migration. Saying that I watched another buck pack on an additional 45-50” increase that exact same year.

 

[Huntnnw]

Killed a whitetail that was 130 ish the year before and 177 the year I killed him. I hunted a 180's whitetail one year and following year was 135 or so

 

[Rich M]

Lots of variables - drought and hard winters come to mind first.

 

[CMP70306]

https://realtree.com/deer-hunting/galleries/photo-gallery-from-buttons-to-booner

This shows that this particular buck went up from 85 to 122 to 164 and on the back end went from 143 to 105 before he died.

 

[Jaden Bales]

Pretty sure I saw in Brock McMillan's study that he suggested up to 30% of growth was due to habitat year to year, so 180" deer at 5.5 years old could, in theory, drop to just under 130", then maybe be back up to closer to 180" if you got rain at year 7.5.

Probably pretty tough to control for that variable and all the others in real world.