One of our bloggers sent us the first good buck of 2014, which we posted back on June 27 and post again (top).
Here’s a look at him now in the images below.
With that first post I said the buck’s antlers, including those brows, would continue to grow into mid-August. Several people commented that brow tines seem to develop early in the antler cycle, and might not grow more as I had suggested.
As you can see, we were both right. Brows do develop early, especially as compared to tines, but the brows have continued to grow, and the tine length has exploded. Another great 2014 buck, good luck to the hunter.
Yes, it seems that since brows are the first “tines” on the list of tines to develop they get a jump start on growth; but I agree with Hanback in that they don’t stop growing in the early weeks. It’s as if they slow down as the main beams and G2s, etc. begin to develop and grow.
I’ll tell you something else I’ve noticed over the years. The actual mass (esp. on and around the bases) continues to expand, and any basal/burr points will develop over time as well. Some will become nothing more than “bumps”, while others grow and become scoreable points= (at least 1″ long, and also less than 1″ wide 1″ down from tip of tine) That was a mouth full…
Good stuff Hanback.