davidhelmly
Senior Member
“Be warned, this is pretty long…”
I can’t count how many times I have asked that question and also heard other hunters ask it. I guess that’s one reason my wife Cindy and I like to shed hunt so much, all year long we guess “what will that buck score” from trailcam pictures and sightings but I want to know what he scores if possible!
This spring was one of the worst years that we have had on our lease for finding sheds, we found maybe 8-10 fresh sheds, another half dozen or so old ones and the usual 6-8 dead bucks. There was 1 shed that I found this year and recognized right away, it was off of a buck named Cheesy from 2013. We have found hundreds of sheds off of Little Creek in the 10 years that we have had it and have found a decent number of matched sets as well as sheds from the same buck on successive years, with finding 1 side of Cheesys 2013 rack that gave us 4 consecutive years of antlers for him and that was a first for us!
We have his matched set from 2012, 1 side from 2013, his matched set from 2014 and I killed him during the 2015 season, I know it’s not that big of a deal to some but it was huge for me. We have all read the articles and seen the pictures about the researchers and biologist having several seasons of sheds from penned bucks and what changes they made every year and that is very cool but they are still pen deer, now we have sheds from a live free roaming average GA deer from 2.5 years old to 5.5 years old and I couldn’t wait to sit down with a tape measure and actually see what the year to year changes with the tape, that is what this long, picture heavy post is about!
The story of Cheesy started on the morning of Nov 9th 2012, I was running the camera and Cindy was hunting in some mature pines with a decoy setup in a small linear food plot. She did a calling sequence and a couple minutes later we caught movement coming toward the decoy, it was a little 7 point with his ears laid back and he looked like he meant business. After staring at the decoy for a while and then posturing in he just slammed the decoy, we sat there and laughed at this very aggressive little 2.5 yo buck who was later named Cheesy! That was the first time we remembered seeing him but for the rest of November it seemed like it didn’t matter where we were hunting on our 1250 acre lease, if we called or rattled you could count on him showing up quickly, he was very aggressive and very responsive to calls!
Here is a short clip of him slamming the decoy and a trailcam pic I found of him in velvet.
Here is 2013 where Cheesy was 3.5 years old and had done a decent amount of growing from the previous year. This year we knew who he was and kept an eye on him thru the summer and also the season, he looked like he may have some potential…
Here is a short clip of him from July, he is the buck on the left of the video in the beginning.
2 trailcam pics of him and a trailcam video in late season after he had broken off a brow tine, (the side I found this year).
And a short clip of him from November 9th AGAIN, following a doe and not far from where he was Nov 9 the year before when he attacked the decoy.
2014 rolls around and we are getting trailcam pics and videos of Cheesy all summer long and he is certainly bigger than he was the season before, and even though we had several mature bucks to hunt that season he was one that I put at the top of my hitlist. Surprisingly Cindy said that she would probably pass him if the situation arose because he was making great jumps in size every year and she would love to see what he would be the next year at 5.5… I told her I thought she was crazy because everyone on our club and surrounding clubs would kill him the first chance they got, she used a phrase on me that I had used a lot in the past… “The only thing for sure is, if you kill him there is no chance of him making it until next year and getting bigger, if you pass him he at least has a chance.”
Here are a couple trailcam pics and a video of him in 2014.
On November 12th true to her word, Cindy had a chip shot at Cheesy and passed him. I saw him first and bumped her to get her attention and I was busy getting the camera on him, I got him framed and gave her the nod, I waited… and waited… and finally looked up from the camera to see what was wrong and her bow was hanging on the hook and she was watching him with her binoculars!! Once again I let her know that I thought she was crazy!!
That brings us to 2015, for the entire 2015 season I hunted 1 sit without a cameraman, I just didn’t have anyone to film that day and of course that was Jan 1st 2016, the day I killed Cheesy… I wasn’t thinking Cindy was crazy for passing him the year before at this moment!!
Here is some velvet footage of him from July of that year, and a couple of trailcam videos and pics of him.
And a couple of after pics.
If you are going to make guesses at his gross scores for each year now’s the time to do it before you go any farther, how many inches did he put on each year…
Here is a pic of his score sheet for 2012 when he was 2.5, the only score guessed was his spread.
2013 when he was 3.5, the length of his missing brow tine was guessed and since I only had 1 side of his rack I just doubled the score of it and also guessed the spread.
2014 when he was 4.5, the only guessed measurement was his spread.
2015 when he was 5.5, these figures were copied straight from the official P&Y score sheet
Here is a pic of all 4 score sheets and a pic of the sheds together it may make it easier to compare them.
To me he is a pretty average deer for our area of the state and the jumps he made from year to year are about what I would expect but to me it was just cool to know what he did and not just guess from pics!
Sorry it was such a lengthy post and so pic/video heavy, I tried to shorten the videos as much as possible and keep the pics to a minimum but it still stretched out, lol. Anyway it was a good distraction for me to kill some time until Sept 9th and hopefully it’ll do the same for some of you!!
I can’t count how many times I have asked that question and also heard other hunters ask it. I guess that’s one reason my wife Cindy and I like to shed hunt so much, all year long we guess “what will that buck score” from trailcam pictures and sightings but I want to know what he scores if possible!
This spring was one of the worst years that we have had on our lease for finding sheds, we found maybe 8-10 fresh sheds, another half dozen or so old ones and the usual 6-8 dead bucks. There was 1 shed that I found this year and recognized right away, it was off of a buck named Cheesy from 2013. We have found hundreds of sheds off of Little Creek in the 10 years that we have had it and have found a decent number of matched sets as well as sheds from the same buck on successive years, with finding 1 side of Cheesys 2013 rack that gave us 4 consecutive years of antlers for him and that was a first for us!
We have his matched set from 2012, 1 side from 2013, his matched set from 2014 and I killed him during the 2015 season, I know it’s not that big of a deal to some but it was huge for me. We have all read the articles and seen the pictures about the researchers and biologist having several seasons of sheds from penned bucks and what changes they made every year and that is very cool but they are still pen deer, now we have sheds from a live free roaming average GA deer from 2.5 years old to 5.5 years old and I couldn’t wait to sit down with a tape measure and actually see what the year to year changes with the tape, that is what this long, picture heavy post is about!
The story of Cheesy started on the morning of Nov 9th 2012, I was running the camera and Cindy was hunting in some mature pines with a decoy setup in a small linear food plot. She did a calling sequence and a couple minutes later we caught movement coming toward the decoy, it was a little 7 point with his ears laid back and he looked like he meant business. After staring at the decoy for a while and then posturing in he just slammed the decoy, we sat there and laughed at this very aggressive little 2.5 yo buck who was later named Cheesy! That was the first time we remembered seeing him but for the rest of November it seemed like it didn’t matter where we were hunting on our 1250 acre lease, if we called or rattled you could count on him showing up quickly, he was very aggressive and very responsive to calls!
Here is a short clip of him slamming the decoy and a trailcam pic I found of him in velvet.
Here is 2013 where Cheesy was 3.5 years old and had done a decent amount of growing from the previous year. This year we knew who he was and kept an eye on him thru the summer and also the season, he looked like he may have some potential…
Here is a short clip of him from July, he is the buck on the left of the video in the beginning.
2 trailcam pics of him and a trailcam video in late season after he had broken off a brow tine, (the side I found this year).
And a short clip of him from November 9th AGAIN, following a doe and not far from where he was Nov 9 the year before when he attacked the decoy.
2014 rolls around and we are getting trailcam pics and videos of Cheesy all summer long and he is certainly bigger than he was the season before, and even though we had several mature bucks to hunt that season he was one that I put at the top of my hitlist. Surprisingly Cindy said that she would probably pass him if the situation arose because he was making great jumps in size every year and she would love to see what he would be the next year at 5.5… I told her I thought she was crazy because everyone on our club and surrounding clubs would kill him the first chance they got, she used a phrase on me that I had used a lot in the past… “The only thing for sure is, if you kill him there is no chance of him making it until next year and getting bigger, if you pass him he at least has a chance.”
Here are a couple trailcam pics and a video of him in 2014.
On November 12th true to her word, Cindy had a chip shot at Cheesy and passed him. I saw him first and bumped her to get her attention and I was busy getting the camera on him, I got him framed and gave her the nod, I waited… and waited… and finally looked up from the camera to see what was wrong and her bow was hanging on the hook and she was watching him with her binoculars!! Once again I let her know that I thought she was crazy!!
That brings us to 2015, for the entire 2015 season I hunted 1 sit without a cameraman, I just didn’t have anyone to film that day and of course that was Jan 1st 2016, the day I killed Cheesy… I wasn’t thinking Cindy was crazy for passing him the year before at this moment!!
Here is some velvet footage of him from July of that year, and a couple of trailcam videos and pics of him.
And a couple of after pics.
If you are going to make guesses at his gross scores for each year now’s the time to do it before you go any farther, how many inches did he put on each year…
Here is a pic of his score sheet for 2012 when he was 2.5, the only score guessed was his spread.
2013 when he was 3.5, the length of his missing brow tine was guessed and since I only had 1 side of his rack I just doubled the score of it and also guessed the spread.
2014 when he was 4.5, the only guessed measurement was his spread.
2015 when he was 5.5, these figures were copied straight from the official P&Y score sheet
Here is a pic of all 4 score sheets and a pic of the sheds together it may make it easier to compare them.
To me he is a pretty average deer for our area of the state and the jumps he made from year to year are about what I would expect but to me it was just cool to know what he did and not just guess from pics!
Sorry it was such a lengthy post and so pic/video heavy, I tried to shorten the videos as much as possible and keep the pics to a minimum but it still stretched out, lol. Anyway it was a good distraction for me to kill some time until Sept 9th and hopefully it’ll do the same for some of you!!
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