I don’t shoot them. I don’t get bent out of shape if some do. If I were shooting them though I would target the shortest spikes since they have the least amount of bone on their head. A quick story about what changed my mind:
We had a Snow White yearling spike. He was the only white deer on the 13,000 acre place any of us were aware of. We thought he was cool and all agreed not to kill him. At 6.5 years of age he was a 20 1/2” wide main frame 10 pt that scored in the mid 160’s. That told me you just don’t know till you know. We cull the really bad ones at three but most are given till four. We have strong age classes and a strong track record for producing more big deer on a per acre basis than almost all low fence properties in our region.

To the OP’s question: I judge the posted buck to be 1.5 years old. I would not shoot him unless he is much smaller than your average yearling. Ultimately it is your call. A trend we have seen with young bucks where I hunt is those that produce larger than average bodies early often also produce smaller antlers as a result of more bone going into growing a larger skeletal frame. Some but not all of these bucks really start to bloom at age 4. No way to know which ones it will be till it happens. Culling spikes is playing a game of odds. You will take out more that don’t have the genetics to get big but you will also kill some that have the potential to get to trophy size. Where I hunt it translates to culling a lot of 4 year old 8’s that top out in the 120’s and 130’s and they are a lot more fun to shoot than spikes. It depends on how much patience you and your group of hunters have. Deer are like people. Some are early bloomers and some are late bloomers. If you kill all the spikes, you only leave the early bloomers to hunt as mature deer. If you have enough trophy deer that you are not worried about killing some of the deer that will get big without knowing it then shoot them. If you want to identify all of them, cull at 4.

I don't kill yearling deer.......

To follow up on my opening post, I personally wouldn't shoot the deer I put a picture up of. I want to see a 3 year old deer before it gets shot, and if it doesn't show good qualities (tine length, number of points, etc.) then it will be taken out.

I posted this because I like to hear opinions and what others do. I'm very appreciative of some of the posts that folks have put up because they show just how different situations can be that produce different management plans. This would be a prime example:



I won't ever see that many deer in one spot where we hunt in central north Texas, so my management plan can't be like hooks.

Every saint has a past and every sinner a future...

Still time to take the right path