We have 12 hunters. Each can take one trophy, one management and all the culls you see. (We do not see many culls or spikes). We are mld. Our owner runs very controlled management hunts which Takes some of the load off Lease members. On average we take 3-4 trophies per season. Trophies are minimum of 6.5 years old and usually 170-200 range.

Depending on fawn survival and range conditions we also take does. This year our goal is 70-80 does. We have taken as few as 10 does some seasons and over 100 in other seasons.

Another key IMO is we have water available year round via water pilas. We also have histories of our bucks via camera pictures and videos and keep detailed info over the years. This provides us a pretty reliable way to age bucks over the years.

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Sometimes I think that you just have to be too stupid and stubborn to quit on a thing. I'm guessing that strategies are different for 40 acres than they are for 3000 acres.

I hunt on small acreage, anywhere from 40 to 120 acres. When the neighbors have a "If it's brown, it's down" attitude, culling seems pointless. Weather events seem to have the biggest impact on the deer harvest from my experience. It will be interesting to see what the massive acorn crop this fall and winter will have on deer quality next year. My guess is that the fall of 2020 is when you want to be in the woods. This is my first year hunting TX in over 15 years, so my experience here is limited, however the tone and tenor of many comments on this forum seem to be that this year is unusual and that kill numbers are down.

I predict that this year will be unprecedented in keeping shooter bucks alive one more year, given the long gun season. Now if it will only rain...

It comes down to carrying capacity, age and sex distribution. In drought years our ranch struggles to provide and shooting young deer may be necessary. It’s a balancing act between filling the freezer and allowing bucks with potentials to pass. The one thing I have learned is they won’t get any older or bigger if you poke a hole through them.

Yeah it is funny but not once have I ever seen a dead deer's horns get bigger!

tlk what size is the ranch you hunt on?

16,000 acres - we have 9000 of it

Culling absolutely works...if you PROPERLY define the goal of culling!!!!

If the goal is to change the genetics of the "local" deer herd while hunting a small (<1000 acres), then it will never work...see discussion above. BUT, if the goal is to improve your enjoyment of hunting...it works EXTREMELY well. I have hunted a 100 acre parcel in Stephens County Texas for the past nine years along with one other hunter and the occasional guest. We run two feeders with cameras and have some nearby hunting pressure but nothing excessive. We identify the best deer every year...and with only 2 exceptions to the 20ish deer harvested...we have known the deer we shot prior to shooting them. We have taken FIVE 4.5+ year old bucks...one over 150 inches and the rest between 130-140 inches. We REALLY enjoy hunting for our known oldest bucks and always appreciate the rare surprises that the rut brings. We have also focused on late season culling of our "deficient" 3.5 year old deer. While i would never argue that shooting the 110 inch 7 point is as much fun as the 150 inch bruiser....it is in fact an enjoyable aspect of hunting.

We work very hard to identify ALL of our deer and if we have 4 or 5 3.5 year old bucks and one is obviously "less" than bucks of a similar age...he moves up on the list. We have shot deer with no or very short brows....missing G3s....or barely 13 inches wide (AR county). Around mid-December...we start searching hard for a cull...if one exists. Picking the right stand...the right wind....morning vs. evening to find the 3.5 year old with 1/2 inch brow tines is great fun and great practice. We don't have any illusions that we are improving the genetics....but we have a couple of examples where we know that we shot the "smallest" legal 3.5 year old in an age class and the largest 3.5 year old survived to become the 4.5 year old that was harvested the next...or next...year.

The only benefit "culling" has is numbers in a LF environment.

The great places that claim it works aren't giving credit to what they have really done, which is get their nutrition and age structures maximized for trophy potential. We have "culls" but we know shooting them isn't giving us better genetics or bigger deer but is taking them off the feed bill and creating less competition to those with trophy potential. This is on 8K acres

You could let those bucks keep living until they die of old age and never negatively impact 99.99% of places.