Are TV Bucks Pen Raised?

[Nimrodmar10]

Okay, I've had several days of television time lately due today surgery and have been watching a lot of hunting shows on aThe Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman Channel. I've also been noticing it for the last couple of years. I'm amazed at the number of big bucks they show and kill that have bare spots rubbed off of their backs at or just behind their shoulders. Spots as big as your hands rubbed to bare skin. Now I've killed hundreds of deer including quite a few big bucks. Ive never seen a deer in the wild that has that rubbed spot. My only thought is that they've rubbed it in some kind of crate or stall. I know that a lot of these shows are filmed in "high fence" areas which is about like shooting cows in the barn lot. Hopefully I'm wrong but I can't figure out another reason for it.

 

[HUAINAMACHERO]

I agree with you, have seen the bald spots on the back of those deers and it does looks impressive and weird. I never thought those bald areas could be because of how they were raised. Interesting indeed. I have noticed in some of those bucks holes in the ears, like they had an ear tag or something. Would be nice to read what others think about it.

 

[Sackett]

I knew a man in Western North Carolina who raised BIG BUCKS in a fence..."Sportsmen" from up North would come down in the summer, look his Bucks over. Pick out the "one" that they wanted to "hunt". They then paid "big" money for this buck. It then got shipped to a high fence hunting club up North. The "sportsmen" then got to go "hunt" their buck...They were only allowed to shoot their "buck" not another one, since someone else paid for it!!!!! And you know they BRAGGED about killing their MONSTER BUCK!!!!!!!

 

[BEEMAN]

I am no expert but I always thought it was from fighting. One of my bucks this year had a lot of hair missing on his back. It was not right down to the hide. My friend shot a buck a few years ago that had a big bald spot on his back. I live and hunt in Manitoba; no high fences here. Only seems to happen when the buck to doe ratio is good. This year again I was getting about equal pictures of does and bucks, maybe even more bucks than does.

 

[Hogslammer]

Okay, I've had several days of television time lately due today surgery and have been watching a lot of hunting shows on aThe Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman Channel. I've also been noticing it for the last couple of years. I'm amazed at the number of big bucks they show and kill that have bare spots rubbed off of their backs at or just behind their shoulders. Spots as big as your hands rubbed to bare skin. Now I've killed hundreds of deer including quite a few big bucks. Ive never seen a deer in the wild that has that rubbed spot. My only thought is that they've rubbed it in some kind of crate or stall. I know that a lot of these shows are filmed in "high fence" areas which is about like shooting cows in the barn lot. Hopefully I'm wrong but I can't figure out another reason for it.

I killed a nice buck in central Mn with bare spot on back no high fence on the land i hunt.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Most of those rub marks you are talking about are from when the deer goes under a barb wire fence. They will jump a fence with no problem, but a lot of time they will go low and under the lowest strand and when they stand back up on their front legs a lot of times their back is still under the wire and it gets scraped as they go on through and stand back up. The more fences in an area that the buck inhabits the better chance that you will see those rubs on his back.

 

[Nimrodmar10]

Barb wire fence? Really? I don't know.
We've got a lot of barbed wire fences here in Tennessee.

In forty something years of deer hunting I've seen literally thousands of deer (and killed hundreds) and have never seen a buck with a bald spot on his back. I take that back. I saw one a good eight point that had a bald spot just below the top of his back, but it had a bullet hole in the center that looked to be about a week old. He was still walking around but not very well. I put him out of his misery.

But the percentage of bucks with bald areas on the hunting shows are very high. High enough that everybody has noticed. Just wondering.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Sorry, but you asked! Fighting when there is a high buck/doe ratio also results in what you are talking about, but I'll guarantee you are way off base if you think those deer on TV got those rub marks in a crate or stall. Most of the TV shows are free ranging animals on private property that is managed properly and hunted very little. That, in turn, allows the bucks to grow to maturity and develop big bodies and antlers.

 

[Nimrodmar10]

" Most of the TV shows are free ranging animals on private property that is managed properly and hunted very little."

A lot of the shows on the outdoor channels are filmed on pay to shoot areas. Most of the deer you see killed are "management bucks" that the owners let the camera crews kill for the advertisement. If they want to kill a real trophy they have to pay just like everybody else. If you see an advertisement for the ranch they're hunting, usually with a contact phone number, you can bet prior arrangements have been made.

I've got a brother that works for a major paper company as a salesman. A couple of time a year he takes his good customers to properly managed private property where they get all expense paid hunts. There's usually two types of hunts: Hight Fence Hunts and Low Fence Hunts. The more the customer spends on paper products, the higher the fence. The free range that the deer are on is usually a 5-50 acre wooded pasture where the client is allowed to "hunt" his trophy. These hunting areas are in Alabama, Texas and Mexico.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's not necessarily anything wrong with paid shooting businesses, if that's what you want to do. If you can afford it, go for it. If that's the only kind of hunting you're physically able to do, take advantage of it. But it's not for me. I'd rather shoot a 125 point buck on one of my local hunting spots than to kill a 200 point buck on a high fence area. But that's just me.

There's a reason you can't register a buck in the Boone and Crockett or Pope and Young registry if it's shot inside a fence.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

A 5-50 acre pasture is not a free range situation if it is high-fenced. I would disagree with you in that most of the TV shows are on low fenced places that are properly managed and lightly hunted whether the guy shoots a "management" deer or what we would consider a bigger trophy buck. Some of the places do have high-fenced "shoots" as they are not hunts unless they contain as much acreage as the animal needs to have the same chance at survival as if there was no fence there! The Broadmouth Ranches that Rulon Jones operates in Idaho and Utah are good examples. He has lower priced hunts for free ranging animals and ridiculously high priced hunts for elk in high fenced areas. I like Wyoming where I hunt every year because they don't allow any high fence operations.

 

[MNbogboy]

We see these almost every year here in northern MN & WI....Sometimes down to bare skin sometimes not....Bigger the antlers the farther back you see them....I've watched them "scratch" like crazy on several occasions....We have no high fences (or low fences for that matter) in our hunting areas but we have had lots of ticks for many years now....The deer with the rubbed patches usually have a fair number of ticks on them also....It is only a guess but in my opinion the rubbed areas itch for some reason or another and the bucks are using their built in "back scratchers"....Another possibility is that they are scratching for a rut related reason but the patches are definitely self inflicted....We also see plenty of big old bucks with "notched ears" but that definitely is from fighting

Here is a pick of my WI buck from this year and my 11 year old grandson's doe...BTW I have never noticed the rubbed spots on a doe.....This buck has the rubbed spot that I think we are talking about.....He also had battle scars on his ears but they don't show in this pic.....

Randy

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Great buck Randy and that may be another of several reasons for those rubbed spots that I hadn't thought of. PS: Those were quite some animals that SIL of yours shot a couple weeks ago in Wyoming. Mine was decent, but sure not of the caliber of the buck he shot. We did get a real nice 6x7 bull the second day of gun season too (see attached). Peace Bro!