We wait till a buck is 4.5 to remove straight 8s. It depends on what they have done from the past. We have a 3.5 year old 6 on the hit list this year. It a buck is missing brows at 2.5, they will be put on the list. We pass on all spikes.

Here are some from the past. Sorry, I only have so many pics in my photobucket acct.

Shooter 8 under feeder from this year


Another shooter for this year


Shooter 7 outside the fence


Shooter buck from last year(forum member)


Shooter 8 from last year


Shooter from several years ago


Another from many years ago


Shooter from 2005

I can see all of those going but the second one. Am I miss aging him?

Another question: what tells you that you are at the max or below carrying capacity? Can't be based on the region, because it varies too much. Hell, it varies between the pastures.

Pencil horned and didn't change much from last year. He has a nice frame but no mass. This is him from last year

Guess the velvet through me off. Looked like a young deer with a nice frame.

Like I said earlier, we let them get a little age and if they don't put on g4s or don't change much. They get put on the list. Having several years of history helps in decisions. You mentioned " different caliber of deer" earlier .... All the bucks are native to eastland cty. We did bring in some TTT native does from south Texas in 2001 and 2008. Never really saw a difference in any of the genetics. Most jumped the fence, got through water gaps or died.

Some deer show ther age and some don't. Here is a 8.5 year old

He too is on the shoot list. We have hunts for sale

txshntr I have seen the 8 point process work however they used cameras at multiple locations and would not harvest one without a prior photo appraisal.

Earlier you mentioned deer counts. There is a growing trend if copter counts are not feasable to utilize game cameras. You place them in equal spacing and corn an area very heavily. Wait a couple of days or untill they have found it, put more corn out and canera. I had a full copy of the process I will try finding if you are intrested

What makes sense is once you have reached the ratio you and the carrying capacity then you have to remove some deer every year. Your survey will tell you what amount of new fawns you have coming in and that will tell you what number of deer you need to remove to keep things the same. So call it management or culling it is the same result. The ranch will only handle so many deer before it starts to manage itself after the deer have taken the habitat way down, if you are not feeding/planting food plots. So removing deer from the herd is up to what you deem needs to be removed that does not fit your goals.
Hill Country is different in many aspects. Most places you face numbers issues from the get go. Due to this some of the deer there do not look like much till they hit 5,6 or 7 yrs old. I have seen bucks be an 8 point at 4, turn into a 5x5 at 5, 6x5 at 6 and main frame 6x7 at 7. Seen many bucks that would not get 10 points till reaching maturity. You have to learn your deer herd and spend time watching them. You have to learn that some deer just have a look about them and keep deer based on a hunch or a look about them. You still have to cull numbers out to keep your foot on the numbers control. Your biggest hurdle there is numbers control. They always raise high fawn crops in good years and even in bad years still have good numbers. I tried a 5 yr plan on culling at 2.5 yrs and up that had less than 8 points. We had raised deer into the 180's by the 5th year with native genetics. I kept good records and then was going to do a 5 yr plan of shooting spikes and culling the same after 2.5 as before. I left that ranch after the first year of culling spikes so I do not know what would have happened with that 5 yr plan on the numbers or if they kept it going.

If all it took was age, we should have some monsters on our place. I haven't been able to wrap my head around that concept. I understand that they have to reach maturity to reach full potential, but what does it take to add the extra 15-20% to the antlers?

I don't see the Eastland County deer being that much bigger than ours without help.

Fawn numbers tell you that.

I would be interested in the article if you come across it. Seems an odd way to count and get an idea of the ratio. I would like to see the study behind it, because the bucks highly over populate the doe on our feeders and corn spots.

Can you explain that further?

Start getting lots of twins...higher recuitment better health.

Their not. Like I have always said, our deer top out at around 145-150". That is all the genetics will give us. We killed 2-150"s and 1-155" last year. It has taken alot of time to get age on the right bucks. You can figure about 1 great deer for every 640 acres or so. Remember that it takes 7 years to have a 6 year old buck. If you cull out 1 four year old buck, it will take 5 years to replace him. That's why we usually wait till 4-5 y.o.a to determine if he is a true shooter or not. Or does he need another year. Big things have happened between 4.5-5.5 and 5.5-6.5. It's just hard to wait till that age depending on the size of the place and pressure. I'm still trying to figure out how to add that 25% ... We have fed protein for 13 years or so and still haven't found the magic bullet.

STX...your post is too long to quote, but from what I gather culling (or managing ) deer that are 8 points or less from 2.5 and older worked? Granted ratio and numbers have to be in check, and you have to know your deer.

We are learning as we go and after 17 years, I feel that we have a pretty good idea of our deer. The hardest part for us is identifying them from year to year. I study the videos and game pics, but they tend to travel alot in our area and some are just dang hard to identify.

If that is the case, we have a healthy herd. Twins is very common and triplets doesn't surprise us, except this year. We are trying to take any doe without fawns early this year due to the drought.

When your numbers of fawns run between 45%-60% you have a healthy breeding age population and a young doe herd. It makes for a easier population management. You are killing enough does to keep them under control and keep them at carrying capacity numbers. To high a numbers you have an aging doe herd that is capable of spitting out twins. I like to see single fawns and that indicates younger age does for the most part. To few a fawns it indicates to young of a herd or serious numbers issues and forage issues.

Again...not quoting you because the length of the post...(dang iPhone)

I understand the surveys and hated to miss this year

We keep the records to look back and compare to what we are seeing this year. That is why they stay on the ranch.

Not sure I agree with the population statement. From surveys and field reports on the stand, the data shows population has dropped dramatically over the last ten years. We don't take many bucks, but we do harvest alot of does. Maybe we need to look closer, either at the population or the survey method.

To be honest, we aren't usually selective of the does we take. Our rule has always been, if it stands still...shoot it. The actual advice the biologist gave us was "shoot 100 does, and then shoot everyone that stands still." They don't stand still very much anymore.

I was culling or shooting bucks at 2.5 and older back then that did not have 8 typical points. Then they had to meet the score minimums by 2.5 age class and up to stay in the herd no matter what the point count was also. Once you reach you deer numbers and ratio goals you have new deer coming in and they have to have room made for them unless you still are wanting to grow numbers. But yes this program I describe on how I culled the numbers worked well for the Hill Country based on a late blooming genetics under HF on 4,000+ acres. The deer will teach what you need to know if you pay attention to them and study them. Study your harvest data. There are keys in all data. Trail cams are priceless management tools these days. You can count all the bucks on them and then if you know your survey/incedental ratios you can get very close on total deer population.

Change a survey route, run it backwards and compare data. Your numbers of deer might be growing by buck numbers alone if you are having 60 buck fawns every year and only taking out 25 bucks per year. Mature does raising lots of fawns get you in trouble very quickly because they know your hunting habitat better than you do. Mature bucks are not that easy to keep up with as they tend to move only when the rut is approaching.

You've killed all the dumb ones. What is left? The smart ones. I think Al Brothers said this about killing does, "shoot everyone you can then take 2 weeks off and then come back and kill all the rest you can find. You should be getting close". After 6 yrs of killing doe in the Hill Country in very high numbers I had to resort to letting protien feeders run out for a few days to corn sections of roads and dropping guys off to hide in the brush to shoot doe. We thought we did not have any doe over 5 yrs of age. We killed about 10 doe over 6.5 and some had no teeth left. Those were the smart doe.