This topic is spin from one of the AR topics that has switched from an AR topic to a management discussion. The discussion evolved into the effectiveness of taking culls and some other management practices. It got me thinking about what I have seen on our ranch, so I would like to get some feedback and see if there is somewhere that we can improve our herd.

Little back info: I hunt on a 10k acre ranch, lease out 6500 and the neighbors 1k acres. Remaining 3500 acres are not hunted. This ranch is East of San Angelo. Our buck to doe ratio is 1:1 or 1:2 and the population on our place is below average for the area. I have been on this ranch for 17 years and have seen an increase in antler size around 15% in the last 10 years that I contribute to better management practices.

It should be noted that we have attempted to keep this lease as a family oriented hunting group and allow many things that more strictly managed ranches would not. Basically, we allow dove hunting, driving around, four wheelers during the day, fishing at the tanks, and just about any activity that does not interfere with "normal hunting times."

Does: Our thoughts on doe are that we should as many as possible. We don't have a quota that we try to fill, but every year we take around 50-80. Our reasoning is because on LF, it is difficult to keep deer from the neighbors (especially the other 3500 acres of the ranch) from entering our property. It seems to be an ongoing battle and doe have become very difficult to kill at feeders. If you tried to only look at our game camera to check the ratio, you would assume we had an 8:1 ratio of bucks to doe.

Culls: We are pretty relaxed on spikes. We pretty much leave them open. Most will not take one and we usually end up with maybe 2 killed a year.

We take every crab claw that we see from 2.5 years old and up. This trait is very prevalent and 10-12 years ago it wasn't uncommon to have 3-4 deer with short G3's in one sitting.

If the deer doesn't have brow tines, we take him out from 2.5 years old and up. This trait is not common and we don't want it to be.

Management bucks. Means something different to everyone, but our definition is a mature buck with mediocre to small horns. Usually an 8 point.

Restrictions for Bucks: We are allowed one buck. If your buck meets the restrictions, then you can hunt for the second buck. 8 pointers have to make 120, 9 pointers have to make 125 and 10 pointers have to make 130. This is not a catch all by no means, but it helps to make people think before they shoot. For our area, most the deer in these ranges will be mature before they grow to those scores.

On average, we have between 6-9 bucks taken a year that fall into this catagory and we video many that will make the restrictions that never get shot.

I understand the adage "let them get old" but we let mature deer go every year and some deer will never get better or grow into "monster deer." I would like to have a better idea of the average age of natural death for our area and this is one thing that we are working on.

Long post with alot of info in it, but any advice is greatly appreciated.

age is the most important thing.

9/10 times when a hunter complains that they don't have any quality bucks its because they are shooting them at 3 1/2 and 4 1/2.

that said, you have to really crack the whip on genetics that you don't want.


i wold say that unhunted, in the wild bucks in the western edwards plateau bite the dust around 7 years of age/max, with the best antlers reached at 5 1/2 & 6 1/2 Feed them protein and they can live longer. nutrition plays a major factor, just like with people

in certain areas deer live quite a bit longer, one of my buddy hunts in jim hogg county and routinely kills bucks that are 9,10 and 11 years old.

I agree on the age, but take the 3500 acres that isn't hunted. If age was the major determining factor, is it safe to say that by scouting that area, you should be able to tell what the best potential the ranch has to offer based on the fact that the bucks over there will only die of old age?

Food,Water,Age you can have old deer with small horns if you don't have the right food or water you are done.

Everything your doing sound spot on...i would bump up the 2.5 culls to at least 3.5..IMO..but other than that i dnt see anything you could really do better in that area..Protein is a huge factor in big ranches around here...not gona say it fixes everyones problems but the big ranches i see feed protein durin the right time of the year just have overall better deer than the ones that dont in this area.....leon county is a long way from San Angelo though. Have yall tried anything like that?

We fed protein for four years and gave it up. Didn't see a difference in numbers, body conditions or antlers.

There is a Co-op that is also 7500 acres to our north that feeds it heavily and is under MLD. They are alot stricter with the hunters as far as limiting driving around, dove hunting, fishing, limiting stalking, etc. Very good program, but in the last five years of data that we looked over, their kills aren't any different than ours as far as number of 140's, 130's, and 120's. Some years, they have had some better deer on game pics, but we also have alot of video of deer that we let go in the 130-140 range.

At this point, it didn't seem that we would be getting a great increase in herd condition or antler growth compared to the money it would cost. This thought is based only on the 4 year effort and comparing it to the MLD co-op to our north.

Then i agree fully..payin for somethin that cost that much and not gettin results just aint worth it...how many bucks do yall take a year? are yall able to manage the 3000 or just choose not to?

We average around 6-9 bucks that are taking for a trophy. The culls very but I would guess the average is around 10-15 taken a year. Last year, I think we took 16 combined.

The 3500 acres is not managed at all. My college roomate is the foreman on the entire 10k acres and that side is not hunted so the owner's can use it. It has been hunted a few years in the past, but caused some problems. He has four feeders that he keeps going and puts some cameras to see the deer that are coming in. Not much difference between our stands and his as far as quality. I would say that due to the lack of pressure, mature deer will be more frequent on that side during day light hours than ours.

It is interesting to hunt over there (I will go over there with him sometimes) just to see what it would be like if deer were not hunted and to have something to compare our herd against.

Boy do I wish I could find a group of people that went by your guidelines...

Would be so nice letting the young bucks with potential walk. Just can't get the point across to the others though.

I would say that any mature deer that doesn't reach the level of a trophy is therefore a management or cull and should be targeted immediately. Either by the paid hunter, his wife or kids or guests (if allowed).

My last lease was covered up with crappy 8's and 10's that we allowed guests to shoot 'em. It was easier since we were MLD but it certainly made more room at the table for better bucks. We also killed gobs of does.

Like your own little sanctuary! Have yall ever tryed takin around 20 to 30 bucks? I was on a ranch one time that was around 3 1/2 doe to 1 buck and we had to keep on the bucks hard...took around 50 doe and almost 30 bucks every year...needed to be more doe takin but owner wouldnt let us. it was on 4,000 acers

There are always a few that make mistakes, but overall the group is pretty good and at least try. The young tens that are 2.5 to 3.5 and score mid to upper 120's are the ones that will get you in trouble the fastest.





I agree on the mature deer and we are pretty relaxed with the 8 pointers. 3.5 and older, we don't care what you take but we still don't let the guest shoot them. Guest can only shoot the defined culls due to problems in the past.

If it was up to me, we would spend 3 years only shooting 8's and culls and leave the 10's alone. Basically, let everyone fill their tags on them. I would be curious to see what impact it would have on the herd.





It is a nice sanctuary, just wish it was in the middle of the ranch rather than beside it.

In the 90's, our ratio was closer to 4:1 or 5:1. We were killing about 80-100 doe a year and about 15 bucks. Took a few years to get it right and the drought around 2000 helped to lower the population to better carrying capacity. We have attempted to keep the numbers low, but actually the sanctuary makes it difficult.

The greatest impact you are going to make on an overshot herd is to let them grow up a little bit...

The greatest impact you are going to make on an undershot herd is to get them to a point where they can get full benefit of nutrition in a good year and can survive in a bad one by taking excess deer. (no matter what you do, you cannot get your density low enough to make your deer herd have great antlers in a bad year... there are no forbes in a bad year... and that causes a major jump in antler production)

On a low fence place... once you have accomplished those two goals... you are one of the 5% of places that ever do.

Many people attribute the GREAT changes in average antler size that these practices help to achieve to the relatively minimal or negligible impacts of the practice of "culling" to improve genetics.

"Culling" to improve genetics should be changed to "Culling to improve Aesthetics"

So, to make sure that I read you correctly...shooting culls does nothing to change the genetics of the future generations, but only reduces the herd size so the deer have better access to the natural forage?


Just want to clarify before I argue

that does suck and things could be workin just fine for you but since weve been gettin bad drouts latly maybe you havnt been able to see the full progress youve actually made..? but do they call it a drought there? or just another year in San Angelo haha

I would say we are in drought conditions...even for San Angelo. Believe it or not, we were not as effected as bad this year as we were in the other drought around 2000. Figure it had something to do with having a lower deer density than we did then, but the deer are healthy this year and have stored fat, only the antler growth seems to have been effected.

I can see this....you cannot improve gentics of A deer.

I just see culling as a way to take a deer that hasnot showed the same progress as better deer in his age group around 3 1/2 and up. to make room for these that are at the top of there class and in the younger age groups. If you are right at your carrying capacity...

Shooting culls in a wild setting (low fence or high fence with no hands on) does nothing to impact the genetics enough in a deer herd for a human to see it in their lifetime.

I can't seem to follow this train of thought...

Say I have 5 deer that are crab claws.

Scenario #1: I let them all live to a ripe old age. They breed for 3-4 years and you probably have a better estimate as the number of does they bred. Even though they only make half the genetic code that will be passed on, the trait is still there.

Scenario #2: I kill them and reduce the number of doe they can breed, thereby at least making a small dent in the number of deer that have a 50/50 shot at having the same trait.

Hypothetical: Say I start with 10 deer with crab claws ranging from 2.5 to 5.5 in my herd and I spend 15 years killing everything I see that doesn't have them. Will they be more prevailant in my herd or less?

So it is by chance or nature that we see less crab clawed 8's on our place now than we saw 10-15 years ago and the garage full of antlers with this trait didn't have anything to do with it?

If anyone would know it would be AC. I'd take what he says about deer to the bank.

No doubt. This argument is like David vs Goliath, but I have no rock.

I like discussing things with folks that know more than I do, makes me feel dumber at first but maybe I will be smarter when I walk away

Who?

Do you have the same number if deer? Could it be that 15 years ago you were new to select this trait as inferior, so you were shooting them out of every age class and now you pretty much just shooting them out of the younger age class 1 year at a time?

Have you improves nutrition at all with your management plan? Are you having less fawns born every year because you have lowered doe numbers?

If you have fewer buck fawns being born because you have less does.... You could still be shooting the same % of crabbies out of the population... There might just be fewer bucks...