Im really starting to think that half the hunters I meet or see dont know the difference between a spike and a Cull buck. I was walking through syracuse sunday night after dropping off my deer and saw all the LITTLE first year spikes and it seriously broke my heart. I honestly think there needs to be a class about this.

Majority of the "spike" buck I saw hanging at the processor were young bucks that the hunters should have passed on. Not sure this is going to help my AR county....

I'm going to bet that half the hunters out there don't care if it is a first year spike or a cull. The are at the processor and that's what they care about. I'm all for shooting does instead of young bucks but this obsessive need to hunt antlers is ruining this sport and making an [censored] out of a lot of us.

I really wish the state would at least impose a length minimum on spikes because so many hunters either don't care or don't know the difference between a yearling and a cull

Please share your best advice on determining the difference, for someone who is fairly new at AR's and how to best decide whether or not a spike should be culled or not.

I go by body size for the most part 2 1/2 yrs. have more bulk and the size of their heads look large for their thin necks. The only real way to know after the shot is to check the teeth.

in a nutshell:


if the deer looks like a doe with two little spikes, let it walk.

if the deer has more bulk to it and the spikes are around 6 or more inches long, lay down the hammer.

The problem is that so many people hear "Once a spike, always a spike"...which of course is total BS but you can't tell them that. Their daddy told 'em that, their grandpa told 'em that, their buddies all told 'em that so it's gotta be true.

All I can say is don't shoot young deer. Unfortunately too many don't care. They just want to kill something. Anything.

I'm right there with ya bud.....but unfortunately, TPWD will not do anything about it. They are the ones preaching about how it's such great "management" to shoot all spikes, regardless of age (yes, they even advocate shooting yearling spikes).

We are also dealing with this issue first-hand right now.....

We joined a lease in the hill country (Mason County) and this is our first year there. My dad and I have 2 of the 11 total memberships for the 1,340 acre ranch. It is in a very high deer density area, and we recieved 75 doe permits and 45 buck permits for this year (we are on the MLD level 3 program). 11 of the buck permits are to be saved for our "trophy bucks" (one per member), and the rest are for "culls". Well that sounds all fine and dandy until you realize what is being shot. So far this year, there have been 22 "cull" bucks taken, but 19 of those are yearling spikes or 3-pointers. Makes me want to puke. I've tried talking to the other guys on the lease, but they all believe what our biologist tells them is the gospel truth.....and he says shoot EVERY spike you see. He will even give us more buck permits to shoot spikes if we run out.

I did shoot a legitimate cull this past weekend, which was a 6.5 year old buck with no browtines and a strange looking rack.....but besides him, only 2 other actual culls were taken. The rest were just babies that never got a chance to grow.....

Not only does shooting spikes not make any sense regarding "genetics".....but it can completely screw up your age structure of a herd.

I think it is unfortunate when people shoot really young deer. I believe that wait until the deer has some weight on it and at least 6" horns. If it hasn't branched out by then, take it out. One of the guys I hunt with shot a nubbin buck, I was livid. He said he thought it was a doe a the horns hadn't broke the skin. I asked him why would you shoot something so small ? He had no real answer. Its irritating.

people think biologists word is gospel.

i've seen biologists do some strange things......like stick a 130 inch 8 point in a DMP pen because "thats the biggest deer he found that day"

i believe, that on certain ranches that are extreemly managed, that you can cull yearlings, but those make up exactly 1% of the ranches in the state.


a yearling spike may have been born late, had a rough go of things early in his life, etc. kinda like the scrawny kid who grew up to be a 6'2 inch football star.


in all my years of hunting, I've really only seen a few cowhorn spikes, i've shot a few fork horn 2 year olds, but by and large, even when we have a majority spikes and 3 points for our yearling herd, the next year our 2 year olds are sporting 8 points for the most part

Who would you like to put the class on The Pro-Kill-Spike researchers or the Anti-Kill-Spike Researchers?



Oh dear Lord No!! Not another judging-of-length regulation.

Well....on second thought,
Since a tape measure is required equipment now to go out and deer hunt.

Nah.

Same here. In fact....I can only remember seeing one. It was a very obvious 3.5 year old buck with spikes over a foot long and probably 4" bases. It was one week before season opened and nobody ever saw him during the season.

I got to say that alot (not all) of the hunters I meet dont know the difference between their but and a hole in the ground. One of the guys started reading up on deer management and came to camp talkin about "skull" bucks that will never amount to much... Maybe the guys I hunted with are just slow.

matt

On 99 percent of the ranches in Texas

a Spike is a 1.5 year old deer or younger that no one in the world can tell you what he is going to be at 5.5

also

a cull is nothing more then the biggest deer that you can shoot with out counting toward your trophy buck... under the false pretention you are improving the genetics of the herd.

now thats FUNNY!!! But you have to give him some credit, atleast he is learning the benefits of not being brown and its down

Bingo. Let's shoot all our yearlings, so in 4-5 years we have no mature bucks. Makes perfect sense.

There are some years we see lots of spikes on our lease. That usually coincides with a drought. Never seen a 2.5+ spike on our lease.

The problem is "hunters" that have no clue on how to age a deer...

never heard that one, but a bunch of the arm chair biologists kids i went to school with were swapping pics with each other with the caption "Coal buck, agua dolce, 2006"

HAHA!!

I'm sure you'll agree....the deer management "scene" can be quite a scary place. lol

This is a cull.


last year.


This year

That is a 5%'r

Or now it is a 4%'r ? Since their last data scrubbing.

these are culls also:

If you're not sure, the best thing is to just not shoot them, unless of course you're just after meat and then any deer will do. If you do decide you need to shoot a spike, but you're unsure how old it is, compare it's body size to the grown does. If he's 2.5 or older, he'll be a lot bigger than any of the does. If he's about the same size as the does, 99.99% of the time he'll be a young deer with his first set of antlers. Shooting him probably won't accomplish much (other than getting some nice backstrap), and it may in fact be detrimental in the long run.