Older mature bucks and breeding/bedding (rut).

[Mario]

I have seen a lot of immature bucks chasing earlier in the year, and throughout the day light hours. That being said these are usually the same deer that expose themselves openly under a variety of different conditions. Their survival instinct just doesn't seem to be as honed as the more mature bucks.

I have seen bucks of smaller statue chase off larger bucks due to their aggressiveness / attitude. But hard to say whether the larger buck was just disinterested.

Like was mentioned earlier in this post. I think a buck is going to have a certain pattern of behaviors that it follows based on its age, and experiences. When the rut kicks in those patterns may change slightly but a buck who is keen on its survival will more likely stick closer to those learned survival patterns. So your not going to see him chasing during the day because typically he is up on his feet at night.

Where the younger buck or a buck with different learned experiences is up on his feet more during daylight hours and therefore will be chasing more during the day.

[backstraps]

Under wild, free roaming conditions such as public land, not quality or trophy managed areas....I think the majority of the breeding occurs from bucks within the 2.5 age class.

Giving the fact that the age structure would vary from area to area as well as the sex ratio, naturally the breeding age would also vary.

Once an area is managed for either Quality deer management or Trophy deer management the breeding buck age structures will again change, simply due to the younger bucks breed in proportion to their population numbers

[gjs4]

I think, like people, there are "lovers", "fighters" and introverts. Deer can be caste the same way but visible deer will die before those that are not in most instances.

Not many 6.5 bucks die around here and I have never dumped one. The last 5.5 that fell was with does but I swear he was just using them for an alarm system and he had no missing fur on his shaft or loins. Have seen many 2 and 3 yo that were bald to the skin and a few that didnt even have stained tarsals...or did and had more scars than pitbull from NFL players house