Even though I agree with AR's there will always be one or two that fall through the cracks. This guy shows up nightly and I also have a few day time pictures of him.

Call the GW on that one.

Post a day time pic. Hard to see the entire rack on this one, but to me the buck looks still pretty young. How old do you think he is?

maybe he had an injury that left his rack in that condition.

added to that... it's not a great photo, but that deer doesn't look very old to me.

I don't understand why this is a "nightmare"

another 5%'r

what is a 5%'er?

you think only 5% of hunters favor AR's

please....

+1

I agree on the injury and it is a young deer. Most of the guys on my lease are too quick to blame genetics and say it is a cull. This is probably because we allow to some degree 1 management buck and 1 other buck. We had one this year that would have been an 8 except the G3 on one side was 3/4". They kept saying genetics and I said phoohey, more like a problem while in velvet. Every time some one shoots or sees something that has a problem on one side they blame genetics.

Maybe if you shot him between the eyes it would split his horns out wide enough to make AR's.

This is the all around best picture I can find for him, all of the others have a little bit of blur to them. I think the deer is 3.5 and do not necesarily buy the injury theory. My reasoning for thinking genetics is because we have mature deer with good genetics that look this.

Can you get permission to shoot a deer that is protected by the AR's? First I have heard of that.

Only 5% of the live herd "slips through the ARs", according to the dead deer surveys the TPWD does.

Do you have a Cull tag in your county, GW may allow that.

do you have data to sugges t otherwise?

what does "slip through" mean? that a deer never reaches 13" at any point?

I also hunt in freestone county and 95% of the bucks on my land are more tall than they are wide just like that deer. My bet is on an injury, he still looks a little young and since most of the genetics In that area(atleast on my land) are tall like that then I am guessing he is normal genetics but he just did something during the velvet stage.

That first deer will make it if you measure from one main beam to another. He is tall enough on the left side that the distance is greater than 13".

We have two with messed up racks like that. Give him a year. He's like that next year then take the steps needed.

I'm thinking the same thing. Measure from one main beam to the other, at the widest point, and I'll bet you get more than 13".