#75 Santa Rosa Island Mule Deer Buck-- Jon Smith
#75 JON SMITH
Jon also shot Buck #101, the buck that sits on the website portal to the List. Look at his crazy nonypicals on his left antler. Just a great buck. This buck is less that 28" wide, but notice the height on it. Also has great beams, and matching eyeguards.
2007 was nothing in compared to 2006, or 2010. This buck harvested by Jon is the only buck from 2007 that made the List. As mentioned in last Friday's post, 2010 has something like 20 bucks in the Top 100. Moisture had a big impact on antler growth on Santa Rosa Island. The age of the bucks harvested were very similar in 2006 and 2007, but we just didn't get as much rain in 2007. These deer lived on natural feed. So we can do all kinds of management work to improve deer herds, but if the forage wasn't there, the antler "push" just didn't happen. This buck must have found some little hidey hole that had some riparian component that he defended.
