Before listening to the podcast, I will kind of give my what I have seen happen (from an antler growth perspective) in MT in the last 25 years. From my observations there have been largely 2 scenarios. Caveat, I think any average deer can get to 150" +/-. This is supported by some data, particularly the data out of UT where they measure most of the bucks taken out of their premier deer units and the average over the years is somewhere in the 160" range.
1. Random big bucks. I've seen these deer where most of the deer are not very big on average. I think these deer are those genetic outliers, the Shaq's of the deer world. Anything that is high 180's or bigger. The biggest buck I have ever seen on the hoof is around 230".
2. In my 25 years of hunting, based on my observations, there have been 2 periods of time where, observationally, I was seeing more bucks in that 170+ range than in other times. Those periods, based on my observations, were the early 2000's and the mid/late 2010's. I'm talking Eastern MT specifically. It is my hypothesis that these periods of time were a result of a series of weather events that caused significant deer die off (mid 90s winters, winter of 10-11') while simultaneously providing the moisture and lapse in heavy browsing pressure to reinvigorate habitats important to mule deer. It is my opinion that after these events, the age classes born in the 2-3 subsequent years experienced largely limitless neo-natal and early life nutrition, causing above average antler growth in many individuals. Once populations rebounded, habitats became limiting and the average buck antler size dropped, and at least in the mid 2010's case, high population levels (relative to post-2011) and drought conditions then led to the opposite happening, where male fawns were subjected to very suboptimal nutrition. I have a feeling we could experience this again in the late 2020's to 2030 with the current drop in deer numbers and the very timely wet weather we have had in 2023 and 2024 so far.
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