Nice deer Rusty! But they score a little too much for me!! LOL Can you knock some inches off?
All your points are good. I have scratched my head on this topic for years and also posted my thoughts many times.
I would say that a 200 inch typical is much easier to sell than a 300 inch non-typical. But the deer that would be in highest demand would be a 180 inch 8 point or a 30 inch wide 160 inch 6 point. Hunters are not stupid. They want that shock value on the wall for THE LEAST AMOUNT OF MONEY POSSIBLE. They read the price list of the preserves and want the bucks that have the biggest frames for the least amount of money.
I've often told people that if they want a pen full of the easiest deer to sell just breed for huge 8 pointers. They will sell like crazy and you won't have to market them at all. You will even get a premium for them. Not enough to make up for low score but more than deer in the same class.
I chuckle when I read posts that state that hunters like this or this. Those statements are usually based on personal opinions about what they like. I also chuckle when I read about a breeder that argues about the big typical, then grows a big non-typical and starts promoting it as the next great deer. It has happened many times, even to the big boys.
When asked what hunters like I'll try to give you a couple of examples of what I've noticed during my 20 years of having hunters through my preserves. Take it or leave it. I feel like its a pretty good sample size.
Just imagine that you are a preserve owner and starting the season with 40 bucks to shoot. You have the normal price list that has deer priced by score. You have an even spread of deer from 150-300.
With that scenario what will happen has happened to us every year. We will shoot some of the big deer early because we have those hunters booked early. Then we will shoot all the 150 to 200 inch deer we can find because they are the cheapest hunt. That is the category that most of the new hunters will be in. We will start in on the bigger deer and have to turn down hunters that want the smaller deer the whole time. We will finally get all the deer taken by the end of a LONG season. It feels like we were way short on the 150-200 inch smaller deer. We wish we had more of them. They were much easier to get hunters to shoot. But looking back though the books we really didn’t make any money on them. Hmmmm!
Now imagine the same preserve but this time you have the same 40 bucks to shoot and this time you price them all the same. A hunter can shoot any deer for the same price. What will happen will be just the opposite of the first scenario. The big deer will be taken first and the smaller deer will be harder to sell. Then you will have to discount those to get them taken. The 8 pointers wont be near as attractive and some of the hunters will tell their guides to put them on the highest scoring deer possible. There will be an occasional hunter that prefers a big typical, but when confronted with a much higher scoring deer at the same price, will usually change their minds. I see it all the time. In fact, we tried this one year on one preserve dedicated to bow hunting only and it played out just like that. We dropped that after only one year.
So when I’m asked what to breed for I still think we need a good variety. I respect the breeders that are looking for the big clean typicals and I’m all for it. I also want the breeders that breed for the big non-typicals. I’m all for that too. I wish I had a breeder that was breeding for nothing but huge 8 pointers…LOL. Anyway I always like a good friendly conversation. Keep the thread going and I’ll be more than happy to add my 2 cents. Its all its worth anyway!
