On the 2010 trail cam thread I posted a really cool sequence (I think it's cool) of two bucks fighting at a mineral lick I put out last Spring. I would have started a new thread but felt it would be more appropriate to put it on the trail cam thread...page 36. I've never seen a whole fight sequence before on a trail cam. Seems a little early for this kind of behavior but these two seemed to know where the camera was.
That's pretty cool Bill! Good luck tomorrow.
David
Nice set of pictures. I saw it happen live once, and it was trully amazing. I decided to take the oportunity to loose an arrow at the bigger of the 2 6 pointers, and the lower limb of my recurve smacked the tree I was in, and the arrow stuck in the ground between the other deers legs. It never phazed them. They kept going for another minute or so, then moved off after the does that came through a couple minutes before them. I was not offered another opportunity that day at either of them, but did score on the bigger 6 point almost 2 weeks later.
Been my experience they'll lower their heads to each other anytime they are in hard horn or late winter without horn, depends on the squabble as to the intensity. Cattle do the same.
Seen late winter shed bucks (before new growth) shove around with fully crowned bucks and have video of button bucks going at it. Locking horns is the nature of the beast.
One of my employees showed a video to me of a buck that his hunting partner found in his pasture. The buck was a decent 4X4 or 5X5, (I don't remember)locked up with another comparable buck. The first buck was near exhaustion and the second buck was long dead with no hindquarters left.
There were three guys available. They had to hold down the buck and saw the dead bucks antler to separate the two deer. They think the buck survived.
MnFn – Once read where odds are only about 30% he'd make it from an article about radio collaring locked up bucks and releasing them after over exhaustion. I believe the article was from TX biologists if I remember correctly, and the stat was about 70% die shortly after the exhaustion. Sad but true, nature's survival of the fittest, and deerfarmers will confirm whitetail don't do well after heavy stress.
Never found them locked up but I know a farmer who cut a mid 170's buck out of a fence that was extremely stressed and cut up and when he took him with a rifle a month or so later he said he said he was on his last leg so I can see that they dont have a high stress tolerance. Too bad cause pretty much only the great ones can get locked up!
i have watched bucks in the early season push each other around but never fight. this time of year they will lock horns and push each other around like kids wrestling, building up strength and playing.its not time for n a knock down drag out fight yet. thats prob what they were doing