Antler Growth

[northernbrew]

Saw a bunch of velvet bucks while bear hunting this spring and started wondering how their antlers grow through summer. If I saw 2 pointer in the spring, will this be a 2 pointer in the fall or could he grow out to be a 4?

[Hunter gatherer]

Depends on the stage of growth you saw him. He might only ever be. 2 point or could end up a 6 point. The mass that the antlers have while in the early stages of growth are a good indication of future size.

[j270wsm]

In my experience, if there going to be BIG they’ll be big by the mid/end of June. I always thought all the 4pt bull elk I was seeing in mid July would be 6pts by sept. Then one mid June morning while driving around looking for black bears I rounded a corner and to my surprise there was 7 bulls standing in the road. The 2 bigger bulls were 6x6 and 7x5 both would have been around 310-315”. That brief experience completely changed my thoughts on antler growth.

[Codyarnold]

Depends on the area I find the small little buck that don't have thick antlers Don't grow into 4 points. If you find big deer that have heavy looking antlers, will be your nice 4 points

[Bigdoggdon]

When trying to measure the size of antlers a buck will grow early in velvet I look at the thickness of the bases. If a buck starts off growing thick bases it's likely that he'll develop a high number of points. If a buck has narrow bases and starts to fork out chances are he's only gonna be a 2 point. I've also noticed that the elevation that deer live at plays a big part in the timing of their antler growth. Deer that live in low elevation areas in valleys and such seem to grow their antlers earlier as shed their velvet earlier. I've seen bucks in low elevation areas shed their velvet as early as August 1st. Yet bucks that live in high elevation areas will have still be in velvet until early-mid September. Same seems to go for the timing of the rut. Deer in low elevations may start their rut in mid-October while high elevation bucks not until the end of November.