Thursday, March 26, 2009
Antlers hanging on this year
Bill Cochran
Recent mail
BILL:
While driving home yesterday evening around 7:30 two deer crossed the road in front of me, one with a nice-sized rack of 6- to 8-points. I thought that to be unusual this time of year as it obviously hadn’t been shed from the last season. How common is it for a buck to retain his antlers?
HOWARD WILSON
Roanoke
HOWARD: I ran your question by Matt Knox, deer project leader for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He said that deer normally don’t retain their antlers this far into March, but it happens.
“Over a decade ago, I saw a buck in Bedford County with his antlers around March 15,” said Knox. “I have had reports of deer with hard antlers in April. Last week while I was shed hunting in Wythe County, one of the persons I was with jumped a pretty good-size 8-point buck that still had hard antlers.”
Knox noted that for some reason deer seem to have kept their antlers longer this year. He had a mid-February call from a Bedford County man who said he had 11 bucks in his backyard, all with antlers.
“Generally, deer in better condition keep their antlers longer than deer in poorer condition,” he said. “Also, bigger, older bucks typically shed their antlers earlier than younger bucks because they run themselves down more during the rut.”
BILL
