I live in a housing community in Mason County. There is no hunting allowed in the housing community but, about .25/mile away is a large swath of Green Diamond logging land where hunting is allowed. This GMU is an any buck GMU. If you know Mason County, you know that, not only is poaching prevalent, but a lot of hunters here have no sense of letting one go because it's just not mature.
There are 2, 2 year old blacktail bucks that frequent our back yard with their mother (She hasen't kicked them loose yet and probably wont until the summer is over). We saw them up close last night and saw that they had their spikes showing.
My question for you is, should we be feeding these spikes and giving them mineral blocks to increase their health and antlers or let them do it naturally? We have fed them a bit and they'll eat any apples or grain we put out for them. In all honesty, IMO, the best case scenario is that only one will make it through the season this year. If we let them go naturally, maybe they will get passed on, maybe not. If we nourish them, maybe they make it to year 3, maybe not but the increase in antler size might serve to their detriment. I'm just not sure what to do. What would you do?