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Author Topic: deer have a lot of fat this year  (Read 2091 times)

Offline brew

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deer have a lot of fat this year
« on: September 23, 2017, 11:03:13 PM »
2 of our hunting party have killed does with their bows already this season.  we cut them up ourselves and both deer have had a tremendous amount of fat on them---more than any i have ever seen when cutting up blacktails...thinking that its because of the wet spring we had and there is a lot of feed available...wondering if anyone else have encountered it this year ?  the first deer was killed 2 weeks ago at around 1500 ft elevation and my son killed one this past Thursday at around 3100 ft elevation...was literally cutting off 1.5 " of fat in places on his deer.  posted a pic of the doe he shot at 48 yards.  he is 6'3" and shot it high in the lungs...thankfully the rain had stopped because we tracked it with only a few pin drops of blood before we recovered it as it had bled out internally...now getting ready for modern season
beer---it's whats for dinner

Offline Skyvalhunter

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Re: deer have a lot of fat this year
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2017, 07:47:18 AM »
It depends on the area. Know some guys that took deer on west side that didn't have alot
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Offline PolarBear

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Re: deer have a lot of fat this year
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2017, 07:50:15 AM »
It is supposed to be a cold winter.  I know that my oak trees are dropping acorns almost as big around as quarters.  Biggest I have ever seen.  The deer are really getting fat on them.

Offline fishnfur

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Re: deer have a lot of fat this year
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2017, 08:51:24 AM »
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!   

Saw a few fatties last summer closer to sea level, but I have no idea if this year is out of the norm for deer body fat storage.  Perhaps your observation illustrates some sort of cervid metabolic response to the unusually cold and wet winter we had last year.  (?)

A weather prediction I saw last week called for another La Nina type winter - colder and wetter than normal. 
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Offline MerriamMagician

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Re: deer have a lot of fat this year
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2017, 01:24:22 PM »
I killed a buck in central Idaho over Labor Day weekend. I couldn't believe the layer of fat he had on him. It was 6-10 inches thick across his entire back. It was unreal. Signs of another hard winter to come most likely.
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