a number of years ago, likely 10+/- ... I hadn't taken much of anything, maybe a doe all season when we hit the extended doe/spike season, I stopped by the processor I had used for years (knew him & wife from HS) on my way out to hunt and told him that if he had any unclaimed deer, I would pay the processing fee as I was very short on meat in the freezer. He said he had a buddy on an MLD place near Brownwood that would be coming in later that day with a load of culls. After my hunt, I swung back by to find a 16' trailer with 30-40 field dressed does his friend brought in, he asked how many you want processed? All clean head/neck shot.

the point to the story, you might swing by some of the local processors and ask if they have anybody wanting to cover the processing fee for the meat. Also might ask if they know a needy family that could use the meat, maybe offer to split processing costs ...

I'm sure you can find someone(s) on here that would love to go on a cull/doe hunt for the meat ... or would pay the processing fee for the meat, some of those new hunters that have all the questions about how to get started, might make for a prime learning opportunity for some of those as well.

^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^

Also, if you set up weekends where your group lines up a bunch of does/culls in the crosshairs you can put the word out in the nearest towns as places like the feed stores and let them know you will be bringing a bunch of field dressed deer in to give away at a certain time. We did this on one ranch and gave away 50-60 deer at the local feed store in a matter of about an hour.
Just make sure to provide whoever is taking the deer with the proper documentation https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdforms/media/pwd_980_l2000_wildlife_resource_document.pdf

Lots of really valuable info on here about what to do with extra deer. Great if someone could start a new thread just about that.

....

why does everyone get so uptight about short brow tines? I've seen this alot.. kill all short brow deer. people will let a 12 point with 17" beams and 6" 2's and 3's live until he's 9, but kill anything with short brows at 2-3.

why not kill all short G2 bucks? that's a common trait with STX deer to have 2/s half the length of 3's, but no one culls them.

meh

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Because very few are actually being honest about what they can actually achieve, and are soley just shooting another buck disguised under the cull methodology.

I’m right there with you, thus why most intense management plans are score, Age Class rank, frame, etc...combination of characteristics. They are managing for exceptions in age classes

Now again, not everyone, but if we took a poll of those that intensely manage with criteria set forth by those that actually intensely manage.... it’s going to be a minute percentage

Shoot the ugly and only the pretty is left

Kyle, I generally agree with your logic. Although, I dont think many want to cull "short" brow bucks but many want to cull "no" brow bucks. The logic would be that everyone would hold out thinking that ANY point will get longer with age but a buck without a brow has a good chance of NEVER growing a brow. In my situation if we cull at all it is based on BC score as compared to his age group and our overall expectations of what our group wants. Myself and others on this thread have stated that to cull at all likely does little if anything to change the future genetics of the herd. Instead, culling should be thought of more as a way of thinning out the numbers of mouths per the available food and should only be used in certain situations where an EFFECTIVE overall management plan is in place.
I had already commented in so much detail earlier in this thread I hesitated to post again but there has been so little activity in the Deer Hunting section on here that I wanted to keep something alive and going.
-edit to concur with Bobo(we typed at same time).

ONLY if you shoot ALL the ugly... EVERY year

yep, sounds like our place out SW of Ozona ... when I first got out there, reviewed game cam pictures from the previous couple of years with the biologist, her comment was "you need to kill all these with ugly horns and no brow tines", as there were a bunch of freaks (1x5, 2x5, 2x6, all weak on the same side like it was passed down). That is basically what we have done going on 8 years and they seem to be thinning a little bit and getting better and more mature other bucks, still not really trophy caliber but better than when we started. The previous hunters only killed "trophys" but the problem was those were 2.5 to 4.5 year old 10 points, maybe 110 b/c at the top, pencil horned minimal mass but with nice form. We have passed on several 9-10 point 130-140+ since they were 4.5 years old and keep on thinning the freaks and no brow tine 3.5+ y/o, while keeping the ratio with does under close check. It takes a lot of time and not fixing the problem within a few years. I fully suspect we will start having some decent quality (if they survived Anthrax) within a few more years.

Well done. I've heard it takes 10 years of hard culling to really see results. 'Hope they made it through the Anthrax. Good hunting.

BOBO is spot on. As long as there uglies to breed there will be uglies.

If you are serious about management and have the resources to shoot them then don't discriminate against the "genetically challenged" deer.....

This has been a great thread so I guess now would be an ok time to gently bend it a little. PMK mentioned 1x5's and similar. Im no expert but I feel strongly that a deer with just a spike on one side and a normal looking 4 or 5 points on the other is not a product of genetics. It is some type of injury and normally it would be caused by not cleanly shedding that side in a prior year. Ive heard it called "dirty shedding" where a part of the antler is left and the regrowth is not allowed to grow normally. I have seen these go on for years and I have seen them grow back normal in the future. I had an Age/Score thread just a few weeks ago on here of a buck that was normal for years and then he was a 1x5 at 4yr and then a normal 6x6(146) the next year. The guy that killed the 6x6 was real glad we protected him as a 1x5 instead of culling him. im not saying you should shoot em or not but just offering some first hand knowledge.

I am not one to cull a buck that I think has had antler damage or freaky looking antlers without knowing past history on them...unless the one good side is bad enough alone to warrant a bullet. I have seen so many different antler damaged bucks or freaking horned bucks that I had history on that got a pass due that that history. Some bucks only stay like that one year, some it takes two years if the pedicle was/is damaged, some never return to normal but still get a pass if that had been above average in their age class. I have heard so many guys talk about killing freaky antler genetics off a place when 99.9% of the time those are velvet or rut antler damaged bucks. Throw in a deer not fatally wounded or hoof rot and you will see a lot of freaky looking deer. The tighter the buck to doe ratio the more "freaky horn" deer will show up. Trail cams have really changed how often we see deer without ever seeing many of them in person. Those cams have saved a lot of deer from being shot when you have years of history of them.

I saw this buck one morning and texted a pic(off my camera) to the ranch manager/biologist to inquire about him since he had not told me about any bucks that were on the save list. I could tell he was very old and could have been a buck they may be saving due to his age. He told me that buck had been estimated to have scored between 200"-210" gross the year before and went downhill for some unknown reason..so don't shoot him. The buck being blind in one eye was the way they had him identified. They wanted to watch him for another year to see if he went back to the way he looked in the past.



This buck was one they new about and had him on TC but rarely seen him in person. I was able to take pics of him 3 yrs before this in the same area I found him when I took these pics. He was the same way a huge framed buck that showed up with damaged antler on one side. It never went back to normal and he had the white/blind eye for years. They called him "Moonshine". They kept him off the shoot list hoping he would go back to a normal rack.


Neither of these bucks had any leg or injuries I could see. Both had matching sides in the past but turned freaky or went downhill due to injury not from genetics. History is what kept them from being shot.

As long as uglies are alive you will SEE uglies.

You are simply eliminating them out of an age class until there are no more in the upper age classes to see, once you stop, Then the frequency will return and every year they will creep back into the age classes as they age

Only way you change genetics is swamping the entire doe herd with a certain buck for years while having an extremely heavy hand on the unglies. In wild it’s hard to gene swamp when most bucks don’t breed more then a die or two.


Atleast that’s my opinion,

You can not do it by simply shooting all those types bucks off every year...you have to have a plan on what to do and how to do it with your doe side of the equation. You can do a lot by just culling the right does....then throw in an aggressive buck program and you will see results. Still a long term commitment that most are not willing to commit to.

Ok here is one to ponder. Saw him for three years. Started out with the same horns but much smaller. We let him ride because we figured he was injured and may recover. We took him the year this picture was taken. Truthfully our concern was he would injure some of our really good bucks if he was to fight them so we shot him. Never recovered him so did not get the opportunity to look him over closely to see if there were injuries. Mother Nature is a funny lady at times

She's no lady.

I agree 100%, doe harvest is baseline in my opinion and every thing is built up from there, including habitat work.

The ones I saw like this that we were able to take almost always ended up having a badly damaged skull/pedicle area. The ones I saw during the season when they injured it would be missing the whole antler on that side after the rut. The next year it grew looking like the one in your photo. I have seen them with just a long spike or mainbeam with a fork on it from the same type of injury during the rut. Then year after year they would break that bad side off from fighting during the rut. Sometimes they would have a great side on one side then not much at all on the other. Seen some that grew a really huge nontypical side with a similar type injury.

For the vast majority of folks managing property (leased or owned) doe management is going to be the best yield due to just reducing mouths.
I am glad you guys touched on the doe side of “ugly bucks” since you just don’t know.

"ONLY if you shoot ALL the ugly... EVERY year" Why wouldn't you? Shouldn't this be a goal? Maybe even a mantra?

Prior to getting on MLD and with limited tags, Klappenbach and myself have done nothing but try to shoot the easiest to identify cull deer and not the trophy "management" ones. Although there are typically one or two easy to ID culls each year, the remainder are getting better and better making the decisions on which pones to live and which to die harder and harder. It's a good thing.