I know all about the Kerr study....and parts of it are absolutely absurd, and totally unscientific.

In regards to your second question, I will say this....

If given the choice between a government funded organization and a privately funded individual, I will go with the private individual nearly every time.

Do you seriously believe everything Texas Parks & Wildlife tells you simply because they are a government organization? Lord I hope not...

I disagree. I think it has become a bunch of wannna be managers that take credit for herds on established ranches and claim to be experts because they read one paper.

Insults can go both ways, but they establish nothing. Most people don't resort to them unless they have no further argument

KCCO

Seems like the more we learn about deer management, the less we know....

If I shoot every other spike I see, am I still right?

It's a toss up

And do you not know that that study sucks, and is a terrible paper? Go look at the Caesar-Kleberg articles like I've asked you to, and you'll see that Kroll is a quack.

Yep Kroll is after the $$$

If he goes along with something that has already been said he doesn't capitalize on the $$.

Dr. Kroll is far from being a "quack....but please give me a link to the Caesar-Kleberg articles, I would like to read them.

I could have written that up for Kroll without any of the info.

Wonder how many folks who praise ARs and a sudden slight increase in buck sightings actively look for something to cull....

I did not own the Zapata ranch the owner is a family friend. I was on the ranch the day they bought it Sept 1992. My uncle implemented the program after the first hunting season. It was a shot out POS, 6 mature buck counted in the first Helo survey February 93'. That same spring after buying it the HF went up. we did not shoot any bucks for aprox. 3 years after that all spikes were shoot on sight and as we started getting the age classes balanced, year 7 on we started shooting management bucks based on inches and age. 2010 9 trophies were harvested all scoring 150" or better with the biggest being 190". We saw several 200" deer over the years but never were lucky enough to harvest one. one buck was a typical 18 pt. which we had several sheds. This property was used only for family and friends. No supplemental feed, NO "breeder/ introduced" deer, No BS strait native home grown. We ran an adult deer to 40 acres.

I use the term owner of our Brackett ranch loosely because its my wife's.... but I run the hunting side. I collect all data confer with my uncle and implement.... we are 4 years in. Its a different scenario obviously, as we are low fence and we have 28 lease hunters. our range is different and the deer are different. at this point we bringing our deer to 1:25 acres from 1:15 acres. With regular hunter turn over its challenging keeping them off 3&4 year olds and the last biologist had crappy goals and didn't enforce his crappy plan anyway.

as I pointed out before that data is grossly incomplete and potentially misleading

Listen up, guys.

You should all shoot spikes and eat them. They're delicious.

If its down is all I care about

that's SOOOK true. Yet when I have a genetically altered/superior spike that was like...150" the. I'd wait

I have a friend with a high fence place 10 miles from our lease in the Panhandle. For the last 2 years both our lease as well as his place that he owns has had 60% of his 1.5 year old bucks being spikes. The previous 4 years he had less than 10 percent of 1.5 year olds as spikes...what's changed????

We are in a drought and the deer are stressed and don't have the nutrition to exhibit their true genetic potential.

IMHO, if you are at carrying capacity, then shoot more does and let the bucks grow up...

Read until your blue. Very well done research, with the best researchers out there. All of their studies take 10 years. The Caesar-Kleberg research institute is pretty awesome, and you can learn a lot
http://www.ckwri.tamuk.edu/?id=56

And that is the dirty little secret nobody citing the study ever wants to discuss.

Regarding the question as to the tags staying in the deer's ear for 5 years, the answer is yes. I hunted and helped with the capture part of the study being done on one of the south Texas ranches from 2001-2003. Bucks that were caught that had previously been tagged, simply had data taken and then released. Sometimes the tags did come out but for the most part they did stay with the buck until he died.

Great question. I spent a number of yrs around those directly responsible for managing a LF deer herd and now Im 7 yrs into doing it myself and I feel like Im still learning something new every year.

I guess he isnt going to speak about the tag in the does ear. lol. Probably another joke they call research being conducted on her.

I dabble around with a cpl places, but wouldn't say I'm managing for antler size. I'm managing on a shot out, former type 2 place, just to try to get the age classes stacked from 1-6. Have had rules set since 2005, both sides of the place now hunted instead of being rotated and the guys are starting to see some 150s on cams and a bunch of younguns where you used to not see much of squat.

The size of the head and ears when shown as a spike is not the size of any 1.5 year-old deer that I've ever seen. In fact, it appears to be virtually the same size in all the images. Several other characteristics of the spike photo just don't appear "characteristic" of a 1.5 year old deer as well.

So what are you insinuating?