Read a pretty good article regarding spikes and their growth, genetics, and whether or not you should cull them or not. For those who would like to read it, check it out. https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/2012/11/13/should-you-shoot-spikes/
Interesting article. I agree with some of it and disagree with some of it. At any rate, I'm not going to and never have, culled young deer. What I agree with is the premise that a spike is not as likely to have as good a chance of having as much potential as a non-spike. The catch is I think that difference is very marginal. I disagree with the concept that hunters cannot have any impact on genetics in a wild deer population. Every time you kill a deer, you have some kind of an impact on the deer herd's genetics. Saying otherwise is kind of like driving across a young wheat field and saying you never left a track or damaged any wheat. The evidence may not be very noticeable but it will always be there to some degree. Depending on how many deer are taken out each year, that change may be like a drop of water in the ocean but it's still a drop of water. I don't think it's worth killing young deer over though. Now a club or group of farms working together, I believe they can absolutely impact the genetics of the wild deer if they follow the same management. I still think that taking out mature bucks with less than ideal antlers is a win win. I strongly disagree with killing does over "cull" bucks (cull as described in the previous sentence). I can agree with managing healthy populations in general but that's not the same thing as what I gathered from the QDMA guy in the article.
they say most yearlings are 6 pointers.... i rarely see that either lol. It's either small spikes are little 4 points... at least from what I have seen on cameras at least. maybe it is different for others.
I have so many things to say about that article my head physically hurts. I disagree wholeheartedly with almost everything in it, with the exception of the statement that genetics can't be improved. I don't even know where to begin...First and foremost, a genetic code is not something that can be manipulated or changed, period. If you live in an area with poor or marginal genetics, you will never see big deer, period. Now, aside from that, there are a great number of things a person can do to improve the quality and size of the bucks in an area, but that is a different matter entirely. It has long been noted that in many areas of the whitetail range, bucks do not realize their maximum genetic potential due to poor nutrition, herd stress, or other factors. In areas of the country where spikes and small mature bucks are common, I do not know of a single documented case where the problem could not be traced to multiple issues unrelated to genetics. For example, in much of the SE, spikes are very common, and even mature bucks in some areas may not be over 120." Those same areas usually have 2 things in common; unbalanced herd ratio, and inadequate nutrition. How do those contribute to spikes? Well when you have a doe/buck ratio of 10 or 20 to 1, coupled with mild temperatures, as is common in the south, the rut is very sporadic and drawn out. Does may be bred any time from August-February. Think about those late born buck fawns. they are at a disadvantage form the start. They are younger than some of the same fawn crop by as much as 5 months! So it's not surprising that most will have spike antlers. Their whole life will be spent playing catch up. Now add the nutrition issue. When a buck fawns mother is pregnant and does not have access to adequate nutrition, how do you think the fetus is affected? The doe's body isn't going to starve itself first. the fawn gets leftover nutrients from what the doe eats. if there isn't much extra nutrients, then the fawn will have a lower birth weight. that puts the fawn at a further disadvantage. The fawn has to work to regain skeletal mass it didn't get while a fetus, so once again, antler growth will be adversely affected. Mississippi State University deer lab did a 10 year study on this, with wild deer from different geographic regions in Alabama. Deer born in areas of poor herd structure and nutrition were taken and put in an enclosure with deer taken from an agricultural area with a balanced herd structure. Both sets of deer were fed the exact same food. Over a 10 year period, some interesting things happened. The deer from poorer areas were noticeably smaller both in antler size and body weight, even when they matured they never quite caught up to the deer from agricultural area. The second generation (fawns born to each set of deer in controlled environment) were still smaller for the first 2 years, and then the deer whos parents were from poor areas seemed to almost catch up by year 3. with The third generation, there was no noticeable difference between the two sets of deer. So it wasn't that the genetics were worse, but generations of late born fawns due to herd imbalance, and poor nutrition had adversely affected the long term potential of the herd, because every fawn was stunted from birth. When everything was made equal, the true "genetics" were seen and the scales were leveled. Then there is the issue of removing "cull bucks" to improve antler size in a herd. I'm sorry, but that is hogwash. 60% of antler genetics come from the mother. And even bigger than that IMO, is something nobody seems to refer to. Bucks travel during the rut...a lot! Yearling bucks also usually disperse from the area where they are born and set up a home range several miles away. that means that a high percentage of does on your hunting property were likely bred by bucks that live miles away most of the year. It also means that shooting spikes on your hunting property will do nothing to affect future antler growth potential because many of the yearling bucks you see weren't born in your area but dispersed and moved in. so you could shoot every one and next year there will be a new crop of young bucks with the genetics from wherever they came from. And the ones that have good genetics on your land may not even matter because there is a good chance they will move away and set up their range somewhere far away. a genetic pool in a deer herd is like a bell curve. most of the deer (talking antler size) will fall into an average range (top of the bell curve) with a few deer above average, and a few deer below. that will always be the case. What a deer manager CAN do, through providing nutrition and shooting does to provide a balanced her ratio, is shift that bell curve to where a higher percentage of deer in your area end up towards the above average side because they have realized more of their potential. Reducing herd stress is number one in doing this. case in point...Mark Drury talks about EHD a lot because it has hit his farms pretty badly over the years. He mentioned a silver lining to EHD. In 2002 his farm had a massive die off and took out over half of the deer. In 2003 and 2004 he saw fewer deer, but the size of the bucks that he saw was impressive. he killed his then 2 biggest bucks (194", 195") on 03 and 04, directly following EHD years. Then his herd rebounded to very high numbers again. he said while this was good overall, the number of super big top end deer declined. Overall quality declined. he thought maybe it was coincidence. then in 2012 and 2013 his farms got hit again, taking out up to 70% of the herd. As devastating as that was, he noticed a bizarre phenomenon. The few mature bucks that remained all blew up! in 2015 and 2016 he killed a 213", 218", and 2 190" bucks on the same farm. He attributed this to the fact that due to EHD, the herd stress was drastically reduced, and the deer that survived absolutely flourished. So the genetics never changed during the 10 years between ehd outbreaks, but bucks weren't realizing potential because of too many deer in the herd. We can't control genetics, but we can do other things that will affect the numbers of big bucks on our land
Without extensive genetic testing, there's no realistic way to prove that genetics didn't change in that situation. If a lot of inferior bucks died off and thinned the breeding pool then it's actually a little hard to conceive that it would NOT have an effect on the herd genetics overall. It would be easy to argue that the EHD did the culling. Without the testing to prove one way or another it's just speculation.
Boon, awesome post, it makes me happy and sad at the same time. Sad because i hunt an area with poor herd quality but happy because i still occasionally see older deer Sent from my SM-G930P using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
