Culling bucks is a much less exact science than culling does and for that reason I will usually opt to cull does versus a buck to support the population control theory. As opposed to breeding livestock, I never know what doe produces what buck and for that matter, how much input the doe had in the genetic makeup of an outstanding buck that she produced. That is one reason it is much easier to pull the trigger in culling does. In regard to culling bucks, sometimes I can make the argument that if he had had protein at the right time or more rain or etc. I usually go back to the argument that a crappy buck is more likely to develop into a good buck than a doe is.

shooting 1.5 year old bucks (spikes), makes about as much sense as drafting NFL players in a kindergarten classroom.

And so does making it a legal second buck.

Kerr showed if a fat guy keeps breeding his offspring...they produce fatter people by a percentage then if he ventured away from his family tree

Let's all skip qdm and jump right into tdm..because we all know we all have the resources and budget to keep all lf ranches in tx under cc....

Lets shot the biggest racked trophy we can find and then shot the biggest cull we can get away with calling a cull..then shot a doe for meat...


Let's keep arguing tdm when we are going to truely skipp everything else and go straight for the buck tag filling....

Let's keep argueing studies that focus on the last stage of a management plan when 99 percent of us already just skipped the other steps...because we all know we have such great ratios already going for us here in tx..

Just saying......

Again I agree with you on this. To me the important part about culling a doe is the number 1 she have a fawn at here side and the bucks doing the breeding in the past have been those bucks I like. With a fawn at her side at least the genetics in that fawn are from the bucks I like and if the doe was a great genetic doe (which we can not tell from looking) then her offspring has half her genetics and half the bucks she was bred to the year before. Same goes on the opposite side also if she was not the best genetics then I want to rely on her being bred to a great buck. Still a crap shoot either way. With bucks it takes a few more questions for me and when the reasons to keep him outway the reasons to cull him then there is the answer. I also try to have knowledge of what he was the years previous to that year. If he is not much better then if ways heavy in my decision also. What factors in here also is what type of operation you have and what the value of that animal is in it. If you are outfitting some hunts to pay the bills then that cull has monetary value. If not then his value is diminished and he may become a liabilty. You are correct in saying that a crappy buck is more likely to develop into good one than a doe is but that crappy buck is eating a lot more feed and still breeding that same look for the next year.

He didn't just accidentally support one of your arguments, did he? Keep on preachin' brother!

From my management point of view............if you have paid the state of Texas for a license to hunt a deer and you see one you want to kill......kill it. Some want horns, some just want something for the table. This management thing has gotten WAY out of hand to the point of ruining deer hunting.

Ever considered just leaving everything alone and seeing how many buck fawns those does can produce, then have a mass slaughter of does?

hopefully they'll get bred and help out with the buck numbers. They have to compete too much for food and they break off from the wanches hogging the feeders and go elsewhere.

Maybe, but you are forgetting that the mortality rate for bucks is something on the order of 60%. Very few bucks survive to 6.5 and it isn't hunters that kill the majority of them.

Ah I see, Pyramid Management