Fishtailed fallow bucks

[foxdropper]

In the shooting community where I live we have two types of deer hunter .Wealthy trophy hunters and trigger boys but never the Twain do mix .The wealthy land grabbers take leases and shoot the big bucks leaving the does to breed and cause havoc at night nearby whilst the lowlife trigger men like myself are left on the fringes to dream about culling the does where the leases are but making do with straggler fallow and roe with the odd muntjac flurry .
Arse about face but I’m sure this is true across the country with a few good lads doing their best in the face of pompous ,stuck up adversity .Throw in a trailer load of jealousy and there you have the fallow situation in England .
Landowners are by far to blame allowing the head hunters to control the mismanagement and not allowing trigger men in to deal with the explosion and keeping lease prices up out the reach of trigger men .
Until a governing body kicks some arse it will get worse ,much worse Id say .RTA s daily here almost but never mind ,the wealthy have a decent buck on the wall .

 

[SussexSteve]

Luckily it doesn't work that way down here most shoot for gratis

 

[baguio]

Unfortunately, shooting the caramelised heads and those with small spikes does nothing to promote or degrade the antler potential. There's no guarantee that it wouldn't have produced a decent head the following year if it had been given the chance. First heads are exactly that. This is the very reason that estates such as Balmoral don't shoot young stags/spikers. The youngsters aren't going to pass on their genes anyway so they wait until they're a bit older when they have a better idea of whether it has potential or not.
Based on the conclusion that the Balmoral stalkers have come up with (I would like to think that they know their stuff ?) I would say that if all deer managers/stalkers waited until male deer were 2 1/2 years old before shooting them they would produce a herd with better heads across all species.

 

[foxdropper]

So you’d ‘manage’ roe the same mate .Any tiny pricket should be left to produce its next head !
All deer species have the same issue with antler growth and where prickets of any species need to be managed surely selection is better based on what’s there than what isn’t .
Id wager a decent lump on caramelised heads not making anything decent and tall spikes going on to make something .
Id also wager Balmoral shoot poor spikes as there is nothing gained in not doing so .

 

[sikamalc]

So you’d ‘manage’ roe the same mate .Any tiny pricket should be left to produce its next head !
All deer species have the same issue with antler growth and where prickets of any species need to be managed surely selection is better based on what’s there than what isn’t .
Id wager a decent lump on caramelised heads not making anything decent and tall spikes going on to make something .
Id also wager Balmoral shoot poor spikes as there is nothing gained in not doing so .

From what I have seen over the years, prickets get shot, just because they are a pricket. With Fallow its all about reducing numbers and taking whatever comes out in many instances. Mainly because the area being managed is not that big, unlike places such as Balmoral, which has the luxury of picking and choosing no doubt. If you have a 100 or 200 acre area, the Fallow are going to be there one day and gone the next. Possibly not returning for several weeks, or most likely coming out after dark.

If a pricket has good 6 inch to 8 inch spikes it has the potential to probably make a reasonable buck in the future, in my opinion. Anything that has a lump for antlers (caramelised, a term I am not familiar with) is not going to make much of a head.
Either way, with the way Fallow numbers are these days, its going to be put it on the floor and into the larder. Keeping the numbers down is a high priority in most areas.

 

[foxdropper]

@sikamalc
Totally agree Malc .Given a choice of prickets among does ,it makes sense to take the poorer specimens .Not always practical but where it is it makes sense to leave anything tall .
The term ‘caramelised ‘might be a West Country thing .

 

[Ratel]

@sikamalc
Totally agree Malc .Given a choice of prickets among does ,it makes sense to take the poorer specimens .Not always practical but where it is it makes sense to leave anything tall .
The term ‘caramelised ‘might be a West Country thing .

I have at the moment a very large "caramelised" (Midlands expression also) buck, which I believe is older than the other prickets and certainly the size of a much older beast. He is easily identifiable so I will leave him until next season to see if Baggies theory works out headwise. If he was a red he would be classed as Hummel by most stalkers. We will see what happens if no other worthy nails him first.

 

[NickJ]

Out of curiosity what do those who cull a lot of fallow think about taking fishtailed fallow bucks ? Many say they will never grow a good head

There are not many places in the UK that have more wild, high quality heads than the New Forest fallow. When I worked for the FC there one of the first traits we looked for when culling bucks beyond sorels/sores was fish tailing. They've been doing it a long time.