One thing I would add, with a little of the ole WmHunter creativity is this: I see the North American whitetail world kind of like a big giant spider web of inter-relatedness/inter-connectiveness.

That big giant spider web has countless areas (kind of like the squares and octagons of a web) where within that area there are certain various genetic traits, including antler traits. These antler traits are different from area to area although there is overlapping to some extent until you are far enough away from one area to where all of the antler traits within one area are completely different from another area.

I used the 5 mile radius above as I can see differences within that distance from another area. At 10 miles antler traits are very different if not completely different. Of course that is a non scientific estimate but there is a distance at which antler traits change, then are the traits overlap with other areas, and then they are mostly different, then they are all different, whatever that distance is.

It would be an interesting study to look at such things.

I went to the game in Atlanta yesterday on a shuttle bus and met an older gentlemen who lives in north Russell and who has 3000 acres leased in northwest Russell and far south Lee. of course I had him show me his deer pics from his smart phone, :), and he has some pics of some dandy big antlered bucks - almost all having unique antler traits/characteristics that I had never seen before including 160 and a 150 class ten points.

He has been deer hunting since he was a teenager, and I asked him if he had ever seen a SOOS buck. He said that he had never seen such a thing in all his decades of hunting. (As another example of **variation** of antler traits from area to area).

Some places simply have better antler genetics than other areas. Which should not be any surprise as it is something that should be self evident. Now of course, the better the management to the better the potential expression of those antler traits over the aging process. But some places simple don't have the superior antler genetics that other places do, and that is true not just in the Black Belt, but everywhere throughout the white tail world.