This study seems to back up the 16 year study that concluded in 1993 by Dr. Harry Jacobson at Mississippi State. I had the pleasure of visiting the research facility when a student there in 1982 to 1985 and visit with the good Dr. One of the guys I hunted with was a grad student involved with that study.

The Kerr WMA study that the ARs are based off of and the current Texas biologists love to promote did not take into account the age of the deer early or late born fawns when they were 1.5 or maternal care from the does or other factors that can greatly influence antler development in 1.5 year old bucks, that Jacobson's study did. Now the bucks at the MSU facility are well cared for and documented but all had the same nutrition available and some of those spikes at 1.5 turned into very impressive bucks when mature.

Im talking about deer above....the green screen has one also same study...but its 4.5 years old

I think most people are not considering the carrying capacity of the land. There are a certain number of deer that need to be shot every year. If the doe population is in check, cull bucks are taken carefully, then that leaves spikes as the next best thing. Yes some of them will/would have been good deer but I am taking the known quantity/potential.

I am not going to shoot a yearling 8 point over a spike hoping he turns out to be a decent buck. It is not a zero sum game but I will stack the odds in my favor as best I can.

I agree with kmon1. Let the 1.5 year old spikes walk. Any spike age 2.5 or more needs to go. You can't judge them on their first set of antlers, but the 2nd set and 3rd set will tell you what you need to know.

You can meet your CC needs without ever shooting a yearling buck on the vast majority of properties. Usually it is the DOES that need to be whacked, but even on properties with properly balanced ratios.....you should make your culling decisions at age 2.5 and up, not as yearlings.

Problem is, by their 2'nd & 3'rd year some of them have already bred. That's why TP&W & many others will tell you to shoot all spikes regardless of age, if you are in a position to be serious about managing for horns.

ES,thanks I was looking but got nothing.

this is what that study tells me..... nothing and if that artical was the final submission.... It should get a F. Here are the flaws on what was published.

1. the debate about the Kerr study being in pens and this one being "real life" is out. As all but one was on HF ranches. Size according to all "you" HF haters never made a difference before, so that line of thinking should be applied here to be fair. Also he did not indicate if the ranches selected had or had no been under a previous mgmt plan that required spike killing or not. In the 90's S. TX most HF ranches had some sort of MGMT plan in place. The only reason I bring this up is because everyone, including, Dr Dip Stick, is saying how much more "real life" this studdy is over the Kerr study.

2. NAWT Magazine Kroll published " To date, we have obtained data on 1,132 yearlings, 277 2-year-old bucks, 131 3-year-old bucks, 62 4-year-old bucks, and 33 5-year-old bucks" were studied. I like the sample size but..........

This means what???? there is no reference to how many from the yearling class were less than 3pts and how many were greater than 3pts. Was it 50/50....... 60/40....70/30

3. Culling immature deer was a common practice on all the ranches, this one variable completly screws the hole study. No reference was made about what nuber of culls at each age class were origally "spike" or branched??? he just give a total or percentage. Again this practice and reporting as such invalidates the hole sudy.

I'd be willing to bet the most of the tagged spikes were culled out in year 2; a few more the next and so on.....essentially cherry picking a few spikes "the exception to the rule" and carring them to maturity and producing the elusive "150+" spike you guys are so hard up to find. You could not manipulate the results any worse than if you just made up the whole thing.

the debate about the kerr study isn't so much about the pens, it's about selective breeding which cannot be replicated in a natural environment. The same way you get stud bucks in a breeding program by matching up good pedigree, they were doing the same thing with trash pedigree in those pens to get to the conclusions they wanted.

I stopped reading the reply after point one....



There is a difference in a hf ranch and a pen...

Breeding is completely different. Infact you have not read the kerr study or you wouldn't of brought that up. The kerr study line breed the two bucks to only their very own offspring year after year. The two bucks werent even from the same geographicsl region

I know there there's a difference the comment is directed at those who don't
If you truly stopped reading after point then you lose all credibility in this debate

Same goes for many studies including the Kerr study. You can take statistics and select samples and make them say exactly what you want.

if you say so but then again your using a never been repeatable kerr study as your foundation. Then incorrectly comparing it.

Fact is no study is going to not have culls...mother nature alone will make sure of that.

I beleive the link is a synopsis not entire paper

I have no problem what your assesment of the Kerr study I've never quoted it as gospel

only one of the three points has to do with the Kerr study.

mother nature is her own variable, we are talking about selective killing ourselves and the dead ones, how ever it happens, is moot. we are talking about the one that make it till maturity and rescored

get me a data sheet with stating how many tagged yearling spikes started the study and how many finished and how many were culled along the way and we can have meaningful debate but if this Synopsis that everyone seem to be hang'n there hat on is all you got..... it thin ice at best.

I like the way most of the study was conducted just not the way the data was perhaps manipulated just to counter the Kerr study.

I would have liked to have seen 100 spikes tagged at 1.5 recaptured at 6.5 and scored then broken down into percentage of 120", 130" and so on

and the same for the branched bucks, this group could even have had subcatagories of what 4pt's will sore, 5pt's and so on.

but that was not the real goal of the study as I read it, it was all about how Kroll had a differen theory and his was going to be right.

thought this link was neat.

http://192.70.161.73/deercull

kind of cool, I averaged 137 on the keepers and 133 on the culls but I did cull the highest scoring buck.

You can meet your CC needs without ever shooting a yearling buck on the vast majority of properties. Usually it is the DOES that need to be whacked, but even on properties with properly balanced ratios.....you should make your culling decisions at age 2.5 and up, not as yearlings. [/quote

I don't agree. At some point you have to turn over the doe population and continue to do so. Therefore you need to maintain a certian amount of doe in each age group. Once you have established that ratio then your are no longer shooting every doe that comes to the feeder.

Nobody has said to shoot every yearling you see. What I am referring to would definately be the last part of implementing a management plan.

Just a thought....

How many people who are touting the Kerr study are landowners or been actively involved in managing deer for antler size over a number of years?

In other words, who has firsthand experience on managing a deer herd?

1993-2010 4K high fence Zapata Co. shot every spike
2008-current my place2200 LF and I lease my south neighbor 5K in Kinney Co. We are cleaning up a mess a "biologist"/ lease manager left us; not shooting spikes yet.......

both were gound up starting with trash and F'ed up CC and B:D ratios

here is a study that does this. And it very well supports that spikes are inferior to its branched buddy.

And that osier wad terrible. That entry was wrote to disprove the kerr, and that wad it, and it didn't do a good job of that.

I like the Kerr study, but don't tout it. I do tout the research by TAMUK, Cesar-kleberg

And Kroll's study is biased. He wants to disprove the spike theory. Well, that's not how research is done. You are supposed to conduct the research, and and then report the findings. You can't do that properly when you want to disprove something, because you have personal beliefs about something, which is called bias, which in turn means research that can't be trusted.