How come I can't shoot out these funky beams?

Throughout the years, I have hunted areas in Texas that seemed to have a few deer with less desirable headgear that couldn't be culled out. Seems like whenever these bucks were culled out, somewhere down the line, another one would pop up. The bucks that I'm talking about are the 3yr old 6pts and bucks with a real weak side. No matter how hard we've tried to get these guys out of the herd, they just keep coming back. One season, I killed a 154" basic 6pt with 6 irregular tines coming off his beams. A friend of mine found a set of 6pt sheds from a buck that I was hunting that would easily gross 130. This 6pt genetic seems like it's pretty strong in the herd. On another lease, I have witnessed and killed some bucks that would have a real nice 5x side and the other side would have a G1 and G2 then a long slick beam. Several of this style deer have been killed on this place, and it's always on the same beam. If you have dealt with this, gimme a shout.

Never really seen much of straight 6 pt(3x3) gene that stayed in the herd after deer numbers were reduced and nutrition increased to remaining deer. Not saying it can't be a dominate antler trait just never seen stay when numbers management was started. The other bucks that were lopsided in antler (4x2 or 5x2 or 5x3) were more injury related IME. They either correct themselves over time or stay that way the rest of their lives.

You cannot significantly impact genetics by culling. How do you know which does are carrying that gene??

That's true, those does don't have head gear to give us a clue. Kind of like that time I was putting big female bass in a pond. My friend said I needed to put some big Florida males too. The gene thang goes for both of them. I have killed a few injured bucks that had some irregular growth on one side, but those slick beamers I mentioned have all been killed within a quarter of a mile. That big six I was hunting got killed a few years later, and if a six point can go down hill, he had lost a lot of mass and tine length. He was sway backed and pot bellyed. That means he got a lot of breading in errrrrr. I didn't spend a lot of time hunting him, but I should have. I kept thinking he got shot, but that ol dog kept making brief appearances with the locals.

X's 2, that is the "catchall", I think most don't consider.

X3 on the doe comments. Would think you would need to take out all of the older does and keep on taking any buck you see that has that trait as well. Not something you can correct In just a few years.

This is from a Genetics Symposium at Texas A&M back in 1998. It has some interesting studies and papers that were reported on. Scroll down to the "THE ROLE OF GENETICS IN WHITE-TAILED DEER MANAGEMENT" by JEREMY F. TAYLOR on pages 99-103(PDF pages 105-109). It was a very interesting presentation that changed my thoughts on culling and management of deer from that day forward. This is key to why I changed my culling and management practices-" These four things are: 1) heritability, 2) the amount of variation you have in the population, 3) the intensity with which you select individuals, and 4) the generation interval, which is primarily determined by the culling rate. A very important thing to note at this point is that heritability is not the only factor that dictates the rate at which you can change a population by selection" were covered in this presentation.
This is the second to the last paragraph in the presentation- "The more genetic progress you are making, the better are the younger individuals in the population. Even though these individuals have small antlers because they are young, genetically they have the potential to have much larger antlers when they are 4.5 years of age, than do the 4.5 year old males that are currently in the population. Consequently, hunting the existing 4.5 year old bucks in the population is desirable in the sense that it allows the genetically superior and younger males to breed the females. This strategy will help maximize the intensity of selection in males and therefore increase response to selection."

http://texnat.tamu.edu/files/2010/09/TheRoleofGeneticsinWhitetailedDeerManagement2ndEdition.pdf

So STX, quit chut'n spikes

And that exactly refutes the AR plan the state uses. It protects the bad genes, the 6 points (which biologists say is dominant), and the unknown. It allows you to only kill the good ones.

That's all a little confusing, but I do see a point. I'm the only person I know that passes up a 4.5 year old bucks in east Texas, but not always. If I'm in a situation where I think he will make it and he is not exactly what I'm looking for I will pass him if he looks like he is good for the herd or I feel like I can kill a bigger one. Sometimes I will pass up a 4.5 year old buck with potential to hunt an old cull buck that needs to be taken out. And it seems like when I pass them up 75% percent of the time they come up missing or somebody else kills them. On rare occasions I'm lucky enough to see the buck in the next season or two. I don't enjoy killing anything under the 4.5 age. That's normally when I take the kid, wife, or a friend that's just really happy to get a hunt in. And yes I do take a friend now and then to a big buck hole, but they rarely pull it of. Hey, what kind I say it takes time. Speaking of the dominate 6 point. I have a friend that shot an old bruiser 6 point. He went to the truck to get a good tracking light and when he found his buck laying on the ground there was a 150 inch ten point pronging the hell out of it, even though it was dead on the ground. Now you no that 6 point had to of been bullying every buck in the area for this to happen. It was the 10 points chance for some form of payback. He said there was dirt pushed all around the 6 where he had been moved by the 10. This culling can be tricky.

Been my experience on the mainframes as well.

My response was based on the fact that the OP is a low fence only hunter. I don't think there have been any low fence ranches that have proven to be "manageable" in terms of culling to significantly influence antler charactoristics.

In fact most large high fenced ranches using only culling to improve genetics are gonna take more than a human lifetime to acheive significant results.

Age and nutrition are his best bets for improvement.

I have one that's lost points with age and nutrition while everything else has gotten bigger. (I mean not hard to go from 8 as a young'un to 6pt the last 2 years with great growing seasons)


...and fully understand it's not the norm.

It's a low fence topic. That's all I've ever hunted. I can believe that It could be impossible to clear out the funky beamed bucks for good. There's no telling how long the herd has been there in the first place. Might be unbeatable.

No doubt there are exceptions to all rules. I have a buck that at 3 (I think because they are all native in Uvalde) was a perfect 4 on one side, but had an extra main beam tine (7") coming out of the inside beam and on the same side had a 4" dagger pointing down over his eye.

I know it's the same deer because he has perfect matching round white spots on his neck. He's now 7 yo and has never been more than an average symmetrical 8.

How many buck tags do you have? How much land are you hunting? What is the deer density? Are you able to kill all the does carrying that gene? How do you keep neighboring deer out of your hunting area? Do you always see the same bucks even during the rut?

When you answer those questions you'll understand the futility of trying to "cull to manage" a free range herd.

There is a LF ranch not to far from your ranch in South Texas that has made a tremendous difference in the over all herd quality with culling.

I know which deer I'm looking at from ears notching, cape & beams...I refuse to let stx have any satisfaction from knowing what deer it was from '12.

And I would argue that it's age structure and nutrition. And I believe current data supports my theory.

Back in '98 they thought butter was bad for ya!

They had age structure before they started a heavy culling program. Were not feeding protein or food plots.

I never notched an ear before, but one season I shot a real wide buck with some very long curled brow tines and his beams went almost straight out. It was the first and last time I used ballistic silver tip bullets. I feel like the bullets zipped right through him without expanding, and I lost him. Now I know this sounds impossible, but the next season I killed the same buck within 100 yrds of where I shot him the season before. His rack had the same identical traits as the previous season, but he took on some non typical points, and palmation. He was five when I killed him. I've killed bucks with broad heads, bullets, and bullet holes before, so I'm a believer in the tuff buck thang. He was an awesome east Texas buck at 167 inches.

I'd have to see the data. I don't believe there are any studies that prove that. Not saying they haven't seen improvement in desired antler characteristics.

But no way do I believe it was a genetic shift due to heavy culling.

Chaparossa Ranch. They will have the data and the deer in the "Book" to prove it from before to after culling. Those who have been on the ranch to see will know what it looked like before culling around '97 till today.

Agreed, problem we have is GETTING people to cull..SHOOT

Know all about the chap and don't believe anything about genetics has been changed. I don't think scientifically that can be proven either.

Not arguing with production at all. Just the cause.

Then you really do not know much about the Chaparossa. I know what the deer looked like before they started culling and the numbers of them. Day and night difference in the ranch and the deer in the last 17-18 yrs.

I don't doubt your experience and knowledge of the improvement of Chap bucks.

But, what you described is impossible to prove either is, or caused a genetic shift. All you're pointing to is a culling program that you think resulted in the improvement of those deer.

There are WAY too many variables impacting antler size and charactoristics for ME to assume that a culling effort actually changed the genetics of the free range herd.

I can point to first hand knowledge of neighboring high fenced properties following Murphy Ray's theoretical genetic improvement strategy, who have no better bucks than I do.

Suffice to say that we just disagree.

Here are some interesting passages from the link you provided. And we both know the latest study at the King Ranch didn't find anything to support the idea that you can improve genetics by culling free range deer.



One
buck that has produced 4 sons with record book
qualities (>170 gross Boone and Crockett score) was,
at 6 years of age, a very below average buck with 7
antler points and a gross Boone and Crockett score of
124. In a culling program, this animal would have most
certainly been on the “hit” list. Incidently, this buck
was a spike as a yearling.
Case Histories
The last consideration in culling as a management
strategy is simply this: does it work? I am personally
familiar with 2 high-fenced Texas ranches that have a
history of over 20 years of intensive deer management.
From the time of enclosure of the deer populations on
these ranches with high fences, the owners engaged in
intensive culling programs of spikes and mature bucks
with poor antler qualities. One of these ranches, the
Rondado ranch, was managed, from the beginning, by
famed biologist Al Brothers. When asked if there was
any difference in antler qualities of mature bucks
harvested early in the management program versus the
present day, Brother’s response was “there is no
significant difference.” Similarly, the Lochridge ranch
in East Texas, is an 11,000 acre high-fenced ranch that
engaged in an intensive culling program since the
inception of a high fence in 1976. In spite of a
documented much reduced deer population, agricultural
improvements, supplemental feeding, and the intensive
culling program, there is no noticeable improvement in
quality of bucks harvested or seen on Lochridge today
than 20 years ago. In fact, the best deer taken on
Lochridge were harvested or found dead on the ranch in
the first 5 years after fence construction.
Conclusion
Culling can have a place in deer management.
Managers can be selective in harvest to improve
average phenotypic quality of antler traits in a deer
population. If culling is to result in significant genetic
progress, the culling process would have to exert
selection for desired antler qualities as well as selection
against undesirable traits. In general, this would
require managers not harvest trophy class deer with
exceptional antler traits they desire and that these
animals have a better than average chance of producing
progeny.
Culling of yearling bucks can improve overall
average quality of younger age bucks remaining in a
population. However, the result cannot be expected to
provide improvement of genetic quality of a deer
population. Rather, culling of yearling bucks can be
expected to result in a reduction of the total numbers of
mature bucks produced with antler qualities that most
hunters would consider trophies. Culling of mature
deer can be expected to result in some genetic progress,
provided animals with highest antler qualities are
allowed to remain in the breeding population and do not
themselves receive selective harvest pressure.
Otherwise, the result is to produce the average. To be
realistic, culling should not be expected to result in
more than marginal genetic gains in free ranging deer
populations within the lifetime of the manager.

I got to say I've never believed in killing the yearling bucks. After all it is the bucks first set. How can we judge an animals potential when it is just a baby. An old man down the road had a free range pet deer for thirteen years. It would sleep under a window unit hanging off the side of his house. When it felt the urge to leave the yard it would just jump out of the 4 ft fence. The buck grew 13 sets of antlers with some of them grossing in the high 170s with a mostly typical rack with no protein pellets just what ever he could find. His first set where spikes, that's a 2 point or an east tx 11 point. This buck story tells me that they all of them need to walk past their first and when they hit 2, then maybe we can see something in them.

Ha. Don't tell that to our buddy stx. IIRC he still operates under the antiquated Murphy Ray theory that all spikes must die. I watched my neighbors kill 47 spikes in 2010 following that MO. Virtually their entire buck fawn crop in that drought year. AFTER they'd spent six years with Murphy's kill all spikes and all 9's or less above 2 yo. MO. Reducing the pop to a deer to 20 acres as well. They finally booted MR and just now are seeing improvement to near before MR's disaster.

Hopefully you read the last sentence RK. Don't expect to see a change in your lifetime.

And we'll always be able to take different views of culling, because so much of the data is based on opinion, and so little is based on hard science.

To quote someone on here "Ha".

I think you know it's all in fun. You have a wealth of knowledge I respect. You're just FOS on this...

Interesting that after killing all the spikes for 6 yrs they are now seeing improvement Wanna bet when a lot of those bucks were born?
Management and culling is not a one year and done deal. Those deer that were left after killing all those spikes matured, and now started breeding to produce more deer that looked like they did. Without following the same management routine they started with it will revert back to what they had before. You never stop culling if you are at CC, something is being born that needs a place in the herd. If you are managing/culling correctly, what is being born should be better than the adult breeding age deer. I managed a ranch where they shot every 5 point or less from the first fawn crop. They did that till the ranch sold. The quality of bucks improved every couple of years. The top scoring bucks got bigger over time. No mature buck on this ranch was ever a spike, as nothing with 5 points or less lived to age 2. When you start to cull at the yearling age, it will look really bad for 5-7 yrs with few buck remaining. But when those few bucks start to breed they are producing that same look. Most forget about the doe side of this and only think that culling bucks will improve the deer. That is why many do not see improvements. Turning a doe herd over every 3-4 yrs allows for the antler qualities you selectively culled for to be passed on. The younger the doe herd the better off you will be. If you have great looking 1.5 yr old bucks(8+ pts) then all the 1.5 yr does will too.
People who keep changing their management plan often will never see much improvement in over all quality. It takes about 8 yrs IMO to if what you are doing is working. Records can show why it did or did not. You can not make 6-7 yr old bucks out of a yearling in one year.

Sounds like a buck slayin. That's got to be painful on the herd.

It is never pretty to the eyes at first, but after a few years it is day and night difference. It is not managing for an occasional trophy but over-all herd quality...oldest to youngest.
You have to have enough tags to get it done. In any management plan what you kill is more important than what you let live. What age you kill that deer at is just as important IMO.

I probably wasn't clear enough. They started with MR in 2004. Killing all spikes and anything with 9 or less over 2. You'd think after 6 years they'd killed most of the spike genetics... They slaughtered deer for six years letting 10 points and above mature and breed. Killing tons of old does as well to get the pop to 1:20. Then, after all that (six years in) 80+% of their buck yearlings were spikes. Probably due to drought.

They are just now seeing "improvement" to NEARLY as good as it was BEFORE Murphy. They have a ways to go. But natural genetics produced up to 200" there before the spike and 8 point slaughter. It produced a 179 this year. And that's including deer that were born before 2009.

I'll let you know when they get back to as good as before they shot every spike and young 8/9. It'll take a while.

I guess I did not make myself clear either. How many of those spikes and culls that were killed from 2004-2010 bred after they were dead? What was doing the breeding during the time from 2004 till today? Deer that were left AFTER culling or deer bred by those deer left AFTER the culling. They are still seeing the benefits of removing those deer in the deer left that were allowed to breed. They should never have let off the gas pedal on the spikes IMO. Spikes will continue to show up in any culling program till after long term. Their numbers will then start to decrease. 6 years was not long enough to see the long term benefit on any culling or management plan. The ranch I posted about in this quote did not see a decrease in spike numbers till after 10 yrs of killing anything with 5 pts or less for that time frame. The numbers went down considerably at that time to down to less than 5 per yearling crop(out large numbers of yearling bucks 60+). Those same groups of yearling bucks were now showing 9pt and 10pt typical frames on the top end as yearling. 8 point frames were the norm in those years after the spike numbers dropped.

I think we can both agree on one thing. The spikes that were shot, were definitely not breeding later.

And the point I was making was that in all the years of killing spikes, they never saw a decrease in spikes (actually an increase), OR a corresponding statistically significant improvement in antler charactoristics. Even though only "better" bucks were allowed to breed, and older does were culled HARD.

My point is, IMO the GROSS reduction in herd size is responsible for the reduction in big bucks. And the increase in herd size over the past few years has allowed a numbers thing to improve overall big buck production (that still hasn't improved to pre-culling levels).

And there we are, it's my opinion versus yours. Lets arm wrassle over it!!!

By deer with funky beams is this what you're talking about?



or something like this?

Ya those are some funky beams. Judging by the body mass of the top one it looks like he has been around for a while. His back looks like its stiill straight and his neck and shoulders are nicely built. I bet he was 4 or 5 years old in that picture. Would be a good buck to take out. Now this bottom buck looks like he has some miles on him. Its hard for me to judge his age at that angle. His cape looks really ruff. He looks like an old prize fighter that has seen some better days. Judging by the month of the photo and the almost old man looking posture I would say he is over the hill for sure and that rack has some real issues. The biggest buck I ever saw was a solid gross scoring booner. I hunted the buck the next season real hard and killed a down hill buck that was 7 or 8 years old in the same spot. I feel confident that he was the booner I saw the year before. He was a 145 inch 9 point now. Ever looked a buck in the eye and new that he had better years than his last. Ive killed real old bucks that have down right funky beams. Some of them you couldnt even fathem. I may post some pics of some funky beams.

Here's a 5yr old buck that had a basic 6pt frame with some extra pts that I killed a few years ago. Unfortunately this one got to do some breeding. He was chasing a doe when I killed him. East Texas buck.

That's looking like velvet injury on both sides.