Winterkill

[The scout]

your right a year later all those doe's would have died anyway 

[muleyking]

Here is another one

[jackelope]

Damn. That's a nice buck.

[benhuntin]

Is that a winter kill?  Looks older.

[NOCK NOCK]

   Looks like one that may have been lost during hunting season, or an earlier predator kill. 

[muleracks]

Most winter kills happen after the January 1st and antler drop usually happens about then.   The buck photos were probably kills early in the winter from something other than normal winter kills.  Perhaps the winter range burn found them without food.  Okanogan County does have 133% of average snow accumulations.  I follow the Chelan County mule deer more closely where we only have a little over 100% of normal snow and our winter range did not burn (only the upper part of the Entiat Valley which is way higher than where the deer winter).  For a map of the snow measurements look at:
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/wa_swepctnormal_update.pdf

[muleyking]

That last buck I posted the picture of, was for sure not there on Dec 15 because I took a guy with an incentive tag the tag exact spot, as there was another decent buck in there.

MuleRacks, I agree with you about the deaths being after jan 1, but I completely disagree with you about the avg shed time.  I've kept a very close eye on close to 100 bucks this winter, with the exception of a few small bucks and some whitetails.  Almost all bucks on our property didn't drop before jan 20.  Most of our bucks drop between jan 25-Feb 15.  Two of the largest bucks on our property are still packing as of yesterday.    Almost all the big bucks we've had over the last two years have carried them into Febuary.