Big Medal Class Roe Buck Lightning Strikes Twice.

Some of you may remember that I have a permission where the landowner allows me to take one roe buck per year. Two years ago I was fortunate to take a 130.4 cic gold medal buck on my first visit of the season. Last summer I visited several times but failed to grass a buck. So last Wednesday saw me heading to the land for the first time in almost a year.
Having greeted the farmer and made the customary gift of some prime venison cuts and sausage I made my way onto the property.
To cut a fairly long story short I took this magnificent buck at 120yards off the sticks just after the sun had set in a standing pea field.
The irony being that not only was it my first visit of the season again but he dropped within 150 yards of the big buck from two years ago.
I have prepped the skull today and the wet weight is 630 grams so I think he will make a comfortable silver medal. The trophy is very dark and heavy. The carcass weight was 40lb compared to the gold buck which weighed 48lbs. The skull is smaller so he should score well on volume.
The thing is this patch of land has no woods or hedgerows on the 300 acres and is all arable crops and dykes. It is also very flat. And they say lightning never strikes in the same place twice!! The fourth picture is of the gold buck from two years ago. Cheers FM.
 

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To shoot one buck a year and both being gold medals I would say that's impossible , but you are one lucky hunter well done matey. Let us know what happens next year ! I love the colour on the antlers
 
To shoot one buck a year and both being gold medals I would say that's impossible , but you are one lucky hunter well done matey. Let us know what happens next year ! I love the colour on the antlers

Absolutely not impossible.
I used to shoot a farm where I could almost guarantee a medal buck every year.
From three fields over a period of ten years I had 3x gold medals 2x silvers and a bronze that I can remember. Some areas just have 'it'.
 
It has been my experience that it generally takes a new/replacement buck a couple of seasons to 'fill the shoes' of the recently departed territorial animal; in the immediate period after the erstwhile encumbent is removed, the new kid on the block is generally a subordinate, often (though by no means always) related to the departed animal; if he was already 'superior' then he would have himself been the master of the territory, but is only so now by virtue of the 'first' superior buck being removed. This being said, the new kiddo already has his headgear fixed for the entirety of the season, and tends to spend the first period in the vacated territory looking a little nervously over his shoulder in case the former holder comes back from what we know (but the new boy does not) is beyond the grave, but slowly gaining confidence in his new domain, as the traces and marks of the former owner of the territory he is now occupying fades. You will often see subordinate animals moving cautiously in the domain of their superiors, and keeping alert in case they get chased or worse!

This tends to permit him to grow a better (but not best) pair of antlers in the first winter succeeding as encumbent, notwithstanding the territorial breakdown during the autumn and winter - it is the total nutritional quality of the feeding he has access to in the post-rut and winter period that determines the 'size' or volume of his next set of antlers, in combination of course with his age.

Given one more year in the territory, as the by now fully confident incumbent, himself then 2 seasons older than when he first took vacant possession, the replacing animal is himself generally min 4 and often 5+ years old, and therefore mature, and more or less at his peak development potential (6 yr old is generally accepted as being the 'top' by those managing for peak trophy potential).

Thus, your landowner restricting you to one per season is doing you no harm, especially so if you have a choice of more than one territories on the land, and a plan to select or at least attempt to take the animal from alternate territories in alternate years would permit the developing encumbent the time required to maximise his potential, when thought about in these ways.

Well done!
 
I was just as stuffy in my first year 141.25 Roe buck was the first one I shot on my new ground in my first year. Then went a mates and shot a gold medal munti in the same year, all went downhill from there. ))
 
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