I am follicaly challenged. I would think there are very few people out there that can age deer on the hoof. They have enough trouble teething them to try to guess their age. To me deer are like people. Some look good at 70 and some look like hell at 45.

That has been one of the most common discussions I have had with other folks and still struggle with it constantly.

the only good way to age deer is to watch them grow up any other way (tooth wear and replacement, cementum annuli or aging on the hoof) is just an educated guess, well sometimes educated

Neither what you are doing or tpwd is doing is a true management plan...its a blanket. its a "better then nothing approach"

if you don't know your cc or density you really just trying to justify using your buck tags by shooting spikes.

You can't call your deer geneticly challenged width wise if you taking deer that have never been able to express themselves...again by doing so you once again are shooting spikes just to say you shot a buck.

I know of very few ranches that have the historical harvest data to say their mature bucks via % wise are width challenged... The ones that have have adapted there management plan by ways to opt out of ar's


Your money your land you can do what ever you want...but you can't agrue it as a management plan if its truly not a full force data backed management

Forest Lake has the historical data, but they ran on the same mgmt as Boggy.

You can't leave the definition of a cull up to the discretion of the paying hunter. If you do, then the paying hunter will find a way to incorporate that definition into shooting a decent buck. Cull definition would have to be different for each and every ranch. What I cull may be your trophy.

Ya that's one I was thinking about when I wrote what I did

That is the nature of most hunters to want the biggest or best he can find or get. If he hunting for a deer up to 145 then he wants a 144 7/8. Most hunters who shoot management bucks shoot the biggest one they can find. For the management program the smallest oldest ones need to go first.

Boom

I think of a cull as something you dont want to see more of. If you need to take deer out of the herd to get your number down to CC, then take the right # of does, shoot your obviouse culls to me mature 8's and less and when you are left with stuff that all looks good and you still neeed to shoot more then shoot the bottom(antler wise) of the age class.

Deer hunting and management do not always go hand in hand. A lot of what I hear is like you have all your deer in a pen and you can go into it and separate what you want to keep and get rid of. It doesn't work like that in the real world. You may see a deer one day and then never again until the season is over.

I think that may have been where some of the culling at the younger ages came into play. Much easier to find a 2.5 yo than a 4 or 5 yo. Years of experience and data should be able to tell you the typical outcome of certain traits and you cull based on the average, not the exception.

We run trail cameras year round on feeders both corn and protein, on the tank, on water troughs, and random areas throughout our place, we have a pretty good idea of what is running around and typicaly have a "hit list" of deer to get shot on site. There are alway s a couple new deer that show up during the rut, but it seems to work pretty well for us.

I would also asume being Hi-fence helps, but have no experience with that as we are low fence.

matt

I think that most of those who are into removing all the deer that they call inferior are private landowners who do not have any desire to sell hunts. They mangage their way on their land since they can. Most hunters are limited by tags on their license that they can use and guidelines to manage by on a lease.

Friends, family and kids like to shoot culls too....

Yes they do but if you have a lease then you have to have a really good landowner that understands what you are wanting accomplish with removing all those deer annually. Most are limited to one/two bucks per spot only.

True. We have a smart Ranch Foreman In our area, the population can get out of control quick, but we have only managed to take 100 does one year since we started managing.

X2..

You need that new Matthews Fully Auto Helim they have out. It is the Thwackem and Stackem in the Helim line.

When are you going to get yours? I have a feeling you are going to be needing some new management strategies.

ranch I was on a few weeks ago is in MLD and biologist wants them to take 170 does per year, not sure about the buck take. They have signed up for TYHP hunts this year to try to spread out the doe harvest and get help with getting does harvested.
Ranch employees will be over the TYHP hunts.

I just impressed he know what Mathews is since they don't make long bows

I went and shot a new Helim in April. Had not shot my bow in 8 yrs now I guess so I did not know what to expect from a setup off the rack for me to shoot. I was actually very impressed with the bow and how well I shot it that day. Even the shop owner was since it was not set for me.

When we still leased in kendal Co. we were not alowed to bring guests and we didnt have mld. My brother and I filled our 5 tags each a year with does for probably 5-6 years before we got close to seeing what we wanted to. Just that made a difference in the bucks we saw. Its hard hunting a place when you dont have the tags to do what you want and the place had had literaly nothing but bucks shot for the past 80 years or more.

Very nice!!