More than what were. That I can guarantee you.

Most of the time you will never know unless they are maker in some way !

I shall now call spikes celebrities

Hercules hercules hercules

Spikes are extra bucks in antler restriction counties.

I've done a lot of hunting in states where it's illegal to shoot a spike of any age. Which to me totally defeats the purpose of deer management. A spike that is 2-3 years old has bad genetics. IMO you should shoot any and every spike that antlers reach past his ears. Chances are he's never going to amount to a hill of beans.

Looks like we can all agree to disagree to some extent on this issue. To each his own. Death to spikes on my end!

If it weren't for spikes you wouldn't get to take a deer in some east Texas counties.

Shoot all the spikes and then wonder why you can't find a mature buck to shoot by the end of the season. Lots of other things to prioritize before shooting off yearling spikes, but do as you wish in order to justify another dead buck.

I'm n a one buck county, so they stay

Spikes are the tender meat.

Once a spike, always a spike!!!

That second buck was killed on the kilam i scored him at the muy grande! They had something going around were the deer we're losing there horns and growing them again as spikes! i've seen a buck tagged from a tnt pen as a spike killed 5 years later scored 273 1/8!!

its like it was said before on here already....its a numbers game. if you're really doing deer management, then you are really paying attention to your deer numbers and carrying capacity. if your density indicates that you need to remove some bucks....then after you're shot the mature animals that you wanted to take you start shooting everything else that is "expendable" until you get to the target density of bucks you want to keep. its not as simple as shoot a spike or don't shoot him. and its not really about guessing what he may or may not turn into. there's plenty studies out there that show they can mature into very nice deer. its simply numbers.

for instance...on our ranch...we pay a lot of attention to our density and numbers. last year our density studies came out very high. so we had a number of does that we shot, but also needed to shoot a number of bucks.

the decision rolls out like this....you need to shoot 10 bucks lets say...and maybe one or two of those bucks is nice mature age bucks that you know you are ready to take. but the rest aren't....they're younger. you still need to shoot 8 more bucks though....what do you do? shoot the middle aged 8-10pts? or shoot the spikes? we shoot the spikes. they are mostly young deer, 1st or 2nd year tops, but they are expendable, and good eating.

in a year where our densities are good and we don't need to remove so many deer. we will hunt for only the higher quality bucks and will not shoot the spikes.

if you're shooting spikes without regard to deer density or any other form of management plan, killing them only because you think the act of killing them has improved the deer herd, you're probably wrong.

if you're managing, or if you're killing them because they are a legal and good eating deer...then more power to you.

these ranches that manage by shooting 8ptrs....its not that they are bad deer. in most instances they are trophies in the eyes of your avg hunter. they are shooting them because they have 10,000ac high fence, and need to remove buck density. and they have enough 10pt or higher deer on the ranch that these 8pt and small are "expendable"....what a situation to be in.

I don't have a picture but I killed a 2.5 year old spike in 1977 on Ft Hood. The total length of antler, was about an inch and a half, hard and polished. It was aged by a biologist.

I passed on shooting two spikes two years ago I will Never, Ever do that again. Now they are worthless 5 pointers that will stay under the AR protection and breed more worthless deer's unless they die mysteriously