I want to know STX thoughts on the subject

I have seen a few born real late, but not as late as Rusty mentioned. He has HF and LF ranches, so he surely is more in tune with what he has going on around him. I have 2 fawns that still have a few spots on the rear quarters and probably 10-15% smaller than fawns I saw early on. My uncles always called the late fawns "tricle rut fawns", fawns that where bred to does who didn't get "done" during the main rut, so they would be bred last.

If a spike looks like a yearling, I always pass, if it appears 2-1/2yoa-BOOOM

A strugling young buck may just be needing some better food. I'd focus on nutrition for the herd first versus killin the young herd. You may not have a herd left to hunt. If the buck makes it to 3 and has spike antlers then you have a real issue. Either too many mouths at the table, a junk buck, real poor nutrition, and or just plain old bad genetics. I've seen the older junk bucks with bad genes put out some horrible identicle junky frame genes in the herd. One spot inpaticular has a gene with one beam good and one beam almost slick or completely slick past the g2 in an area with other outstanding genes. Gotta kill that junky gene out for sure. Remember real real old bucks in decline put out some gangly horns too. Lucky to even see one. So? He is a trophy in my mind for sure. We have both been skirting the woods together for several years.

I shoot them because I don't know no better. And to top that off I use a 223.

It makes no sense to shoot a young deer

Reduction in herd numbers
Older deer past his prime
Food on the table
Young deer that is genetically inferior

There's four perfectly valid reasons.

They taste better than an older buck or doe. Taste even better ifin they still have milk on their lips, vealison is good stuff.

Nothing wrong with killing any legal deer a person wants to.

Camp meat next Saturday.

I have had fawns born in Sept. Oct. and Nov. the past several years and my neighbor had one born in late Dec. last year. Has nothing to do with buck:doe ratio. I don't claim to know what causes it, I just know it happens. This is in Mountain Home. On a ranch I owned in Val Verde co. in the early 2000's I had fawns born in Sept and Oct each year. So it's not regional or genetic.

And if you haven't seen fresh scrapes in late March early April then you haven't hunted near me in the hill country or west Texas. Also, mature bucks keep hard horned into mid to late april at times. I've been told that they keep horns as long as does are still coming in heat.

Couldn't agree more with the highlighted statement. However, the OP indicated they were interested in managing for antlers.

We do not shoot Spikes here unless their older.

Not picking nits or messin with ya.
The OP never mentioned ' managing for antlers ' or any other management reasoning for killing or letting spikes walk.

Wait for it.....

And I never said he "mentioned" managing for antlers. I said he "indicated" he did. I could be wrong in the assumption that "I normally don't shoot young deer" means he is interested in managing for decent antlers. If I'm wrong he can certainly correct me.

I want to see pictures of all these mythical 2.5 year old spikes.

Ain't that the truth! Or older. We have folks on here that think post mature bucks are spikes. I've NEVER seen one.

I did kill a 2 1/2 year old forkhorn one time.

i'm assuming he was a spike as a yearling.


I've personally never seen a spike that wasn't a yearling, not saying they don't exist

There's nothing wrong with shooting a spike. There's probably as many reason to shoot one as there are to not shoot one. Low fence high fence who cares. It's one deer. The vast majority of hunters don't hunt on properties LF that are large enough to matter or on properly managed HF ranches so it really makes little difference in the deer herd. Most of the time all you're doing is taking a buck away from your one of neighbors...it's called dispersion and it happens usually after they're a 1.5 old.

That said, would I shoot a spike 99.9% of the time....no. Mostly for the same reason pro sports teams don't draft junior high athletes. But I also don't hunt on a HF ranch with some of the parameters mentioned above...if I did, I probably would.

The majority of the Kerr study is junk science and does not follow the scientific method. It also disproves its own findings on spikes if you'll read the portion on feeding different % of protein. Two of the Bucks that survived the study were spikes when it started and one turned out to be one of the two biggest bucks and the other spike was in the top 20-25% in antler characteristics.

So shootem, don't shootem it will likely make little difference in your herd especially small parcel LF properties.

If you hunt TPW GDA Hunts, you will be encouraged to take spikes aka one antler has no forks longer than 1"? and the other antler has no forks other than knobs, as I recall.

The last spike I killed was at Lake Mineral Wells SP on a GDA Hunt. His antlers meaured a tad over 9's tall with mebbe a 1/2" fork about midway up, and the other side measured about 8 3/4's tall with several knarly thick spots that had not sprouted any measurable antler material . The SP Rangers were more than pleased to have that critter removed out of the gene pool, and made him at 4-5 years old & and around 100 lbs field dressed.

I killed another really weird looking spike years ago in Erath County. He had a turned antler about as thick as my middle finger, that was bent in almost a circle and was dug into the side of his head just ahead of the base of his ear, surrounded by a starburst of 8-9 triangular shaped & taperd to a point antler growths coming out of the pedicil. Several of these were also penetrating his skin in a downward angle, while the other side was a fairly thick normal 3 pt antler with no brow tine. The Landowner was hyper pleased and surprised that I was willing to burn a buck tag on him, but he was as big my partners 6pt'er, also without brow tines, at about 135/140 lbs live weight, minus a lot of blood from the 270 150gr er's exit wound.

I've seen the TPW Bio guys praise folks who take the little pencil spikes like in the pic just ahead of this post many times, but then they are simply trying to reduce the number of mouths eating the winter browse, and I've always passed on them to take my tag's full limit instead of bigger couple year old does.

FWIW I get a kick out of eliminating the really wierdo bucks as my contribution toward cleaning up the gene pool, and used to have a row of them hanging in my garage, with the weirder the better...but no lil pencil spikes ever...not big enough to bloody up a knife IMO.

The TPW Hunt Mgr at Garner got really PO'd at me when I wouldn't kill the lil scrawny 40-50 lb'er pencil spikes other folks were bringing in...oh well. It'll be a "cold day...." before I hunt Garner again anyway over that and some other issues I saw and was advised that I had to obey.
JMHO & YMMV
Ron

East Texas Eleven point? Whaaatt? Kerr study, aww heck who is that. Yall dont get stuck on the number of points on one antler meaning its only 1. Theres 2 yr old 120 lb. Spikes runnin all over the piney woods. The 1 yr. Olds look like a baby with twiggys on its head. Hey, a 2 yr. Old spike would make a nice bow target.

I guess I could compare bone structure. 1 yr. Old's skull and a 2 yr. Old's shed.

Calling others a "fool" over their management plans really shows your level of intelligence and experience in the matter.

Tongue in cheek buttercup. My bad. I thought we could take a little light ribbing.