Spikes - Stay or Go?

Interesting article with time line photos........


"The process of getting a whitetail from the button buck stage to the Boone and Crockett category is a mystical journey that includes a complex assortment of variables. It takes four basic ingredients to produce a buck with a 170-inch rack: genetics, habitat, herd management and age.

Too often hunters feel they can tell a buck’s potential by the kind of antlers it grows as a yearling. "




Spike to Booner

little teaser




from




to

photos of one deer's progress is very little empirical evidence for either side of the argument..... be that as it may I say the spike goes in the freezer, and I never give it a second thought of what he might have become.

kt

which brings about another question. If you're shooting spikes do you shoot yearling spikes or do you wait til the next year?

From that one deer, all those managed ranches are pissing in the wind shooting the 8's. They turn into 9's, 11's, 10's and whatever else. Just goes to show, no one knows anything about deer

I think there is more to what your saying than we realize, joke or not. I do think there is a law of averages that has been somewhat concluded though. I will let a yearling spike walk, older ones get a dirt nap.

If you need more bucks then stay... if you have more deer than your C.C then they go..... if your sitting well off on both ends then its your choice and I wont argue with either

I was only half kidding and think there is a lot of truth to it. Different management tactics work but not because of one philosophy, but because of the overall. One ranch can not shoot any spikes and a neighboring ranch can shoot every spike. They can both be successful either because of or despite, but success will not rest solely on that decision.

On my place any 8 point or less starting @ 2.5 goes. Law of averages where I hunt, no fences, no protein, just age, genetics and with the right weather, great range conditions for growing very big white tail bucks. I am sure this does not work for everyone and I am MLD, so that helps too.

Agreed. You will surely find those that will "fight to the death" on both sides of that issue too.

I remember in the early 80's, you couldn't find an LO in Central Texas hardly that would allow a doe to be shot, same arguments about that issue back then. There are still signs of over CC on some ranches down there.

I shoot all spikes pretty much on sight this year, next year, the year after...... that's the thing if you are going to shoot them, do so with out prejudice.

I'll go out on a limb and say that, > 1.5 old spikes are about as common as the pictures of the 169" spike buck you started this thread with....

We shoot every spike we see which isn't many maybe 1-2 per year. I don't need a surplus of deer and I'm not into playing the deer lottery hoping and wishing a spike will end up catching up with its multi point yearlings.

Haha...Yep

I don't think it matters one bit for 99% of hunting properties. You won't make any difference in the long run. Since I have a hard enough time keeping the buck to doe ratio where I want it, I don't hinder that by shooting any young bucks.

I think Nav is on the right track with his thoughts.

He still was not a booner Love these articles with pics of just one buck that made it to a nice buck from a spike. Why don't the post up pics of all the ones that turned into a mature buck with a whole lot less headgear?
Take two ranches had the exact same herds of deer to start and one did not do any culling till 4yr old + and the other shot every spike every year. IMO they both would have the same top end bucks in the end. The one killing spikes would just have less bucks to cull from than the one culling at 4+. The difference in some ranches is they are selling deer for money, so killing bucks at 4+ makes them more money. Nothing wrong with that. Killing spikes is not a one year and done process or for small acreages, it needs to be a long term commitment for a large scale area. Like Nav posted if you need more bucks then keep them if you have to many deer/bucks then shoot them (13" IR bucks make this difficult). If you just like looking at bucks then keep all the bucks till they mature. In the end they are a mouth and the vast majority will be shot at 4+ as lessor quality deer IME. The problem with culling at later ages is finding those older age class bucks no matter what their headgear looks like. Older bucks are just harder to find than when they are younger.

Sound managements says you should kill 98% of your yearling crop every year, until the only ones left are yearling 22pts

I like your way of thinking

Probably ok if you only want to shoot one trophy per year. Might fit someones plan.

attention to detail.......

I've gone back and forth on the issue and we simply aren't recruiting enough bucks to 4+ to warrant culling yearling spikes. YMMV

We do this......



Picky picky picky....

I've never seen a two year old spike...

Not saying they don't exist. Just think they are more of a rarity than a spikes growing into booners

No, no, no you don't get to shoot any trophies, you're to busy culling and you can't shoot your top seeders

I'm in sign me up coach

I mean he's a respectable 140

Even if it took him 6yrs to get there

Respectable yes. Making the "book" as a booner, no

They get shot before then?

Trying to make 2 look like 3?? Lol

Think those are three different ones

Hmmm could be... There are 6 different pics right?

Those are more likely the exceptions, that is rare.
I just might have mounted that one too.
We had one that made it to 3 years, he was about 14". We were actually disappointed when it was shot. We never saw another spike on that property.

No doubt there are some out there (spikes 2 and older). I've just never seen one in all my years hunting.

prime example of poor management practice at the highest level

My rule of thumb is that if it looks older than 1.5 then it will go but there are some that may need another year in some real rare cases , with that said we have a lot of young spikes on our place and some not all of them you can tell that they have started to fork a little very little and this is where i see letting them go for one more year . The thing we need to do at our place is get MDL tags and have some family come down to take some of those out but most of the fam dont hunt so this is where we kind of have a tough time keeping up with what needs to be taken and still be able to try and get a good one but this place is still new to us so it will just take time .

I never have either, just pictures on google

We have killed a few very old deer that had a spike on one side, but can't say I have ever seen a 2.5yo spike on both sides.

I don't personally shoot my spikes because I save my buck tags since I hunt in 3 different counties all close together I have the potential to kill 3 big bucks per year, plus I have lots of friends who have kids who want to hunt and my girls aren't old enough to shoot a gun yet and I like to let them burn their tags on spikes that are true spikes I believe there is a difference in a true spike and a baby buck. So I guess if a buck is over 2 years old and is a spike he needs to go if he is a yearling he is probably just that and could grow into a good buck but that is still out for debate.

Those had to do as much to poor management as the brady buck had to do with great management

So you are suggesting to keep them another year

Replicate those and the brady buck

So you are saying they would have turned into a booner since every spike buck given a chance can do it?

No I posted wrong thread on bat thing.

I'm saying neither will be replicated. Brady buck or those spikes. They aren't a product of management they are products of the stars aligning

Spikes are now a product of the stars aligning...:SMDH: Can you post pics of all those spike yearlings that turned into something that is now in the Brady Buck league of quality?
There was only one Brady Buck but seems to me I can count 3 of those spikes above. So now which one has better odds of it replicating in the future. I am betting with a bit more digging one can find way more than 3 spikes of that age and quality.

Replicate it then. Show me how to grow a 24" 6.5 year old spike.

When we took over the management on our lease in Llano county we started our management process by culling out as many of the older spikes. Of the 13 we took the first year, the average age was 2.5 years old. The oldest was a true spike with 11.5" and 13.5" spikes and was aged at 3.5-4.5 years of age.
After two years of whittling down the spike population (along with the does) all we had left that were spikes were the youngest age group. We started letting those walk.
Fast forward 6 years and our 'average' 8 point or better went from a field dressed weight of 78 lbs to 110 lbs. The average buck sported 9-11 points and scored in the 130's to 140's. Largest we took in my time on that lease was a 150 class. All without supplemental feed or high fences.

Shorter version, you can have a property that has an over abundance of poor quality deer. Taking those out of the herd helped improve the quality of the herd. But, as our time on that lease went on, we saw fewer spikes in general and those we saw were fairly obviously yearling deer.

I'm same country and don't shoot spikes and we normally kill a 150 every year and don't feed either. Our weights are over 140.

We do it via does

Look at the post above. It has 3 of them in it. You could go to any contest website in South Texas and for years they had a 12" (on both sides) or better spike to win the contest.

Exactly how many of those 150's were spikes as yearlings?

How many were not?

More than what were. That I can guarantee you.

Most of the time you will never know unless they are maker in some way !

I shall now call spikes celebrities

Hercules hercules hercules

Spikes are extra bucks in antler restriction counties.

I've done a lot of hunting in states where it's illegal to shoot a spike of any age. Which to me totally defeats the purpose of deer management. A spike that is 2-3 years old has bad genetics. IMO you should shoot any and every spike that antlers reach past his ears. Chances are he's never going to amount to a hill of beans.

Looks like we can all agree to disagree to some extent on this issue. To each his own. Death to spikes on my end!

If it weren't for spikes you wouldn't get to take a deer in some east Texas counties.

Shoot all the spikes and then wonder why you can't find a mature buck to shoot by the end of the season. Lots of other things to prioritize before shooting off yearling spikes, but do as you wish in order to justify another dead buck.

I'm n a one buck county, so they stay

Spikes are the tender meat.

Once a spike, always a spike!!!

That second buck was killed on the kilam i scored him at the muy grande! They had something going around were the deer we're losing there horns and growing them again as spikes! i've seen a buck tagged from a tnt pen as a spike killed 5 years later scored 273 1/8!!

its like it was said before on here already....its a numbers game. if you're really doing deer management, then you are really paying attention to your deer numbers and carrying capacity. if your density indicates that you need to remove some bucks....then after you're shot the mature animals that you wanted to take you start shooting everything else that is "expendable" until you get to the target density of bucks you want to keep. its not as simple as shoot a spike or don't shoot him. and its not really about guessing what he may or may not turn into. there's plenty studies out there that show they can mature into very nice deer. its simply numbers.

for instance...on our ranch...we pay a lot of attention to our density and numbers. last year our density studies came out very high. so we had a number of does that we shot, but also needed to shoot a number of bucks.

the decision rolls out like this....you need to shoot 10 bucks lets say...and maybe one or two of those bucks is nice mature age bucks that you know you are ready to take. but the rest aren't....they're younger. you still need to shoot 8 more bucks though....what do you do? shoot the middle aged 8-10pts? or shoot the spikes? we shoot the spikes. they are mostly young deer, 1st or 2nd year tops, but they are expendable, and good eating.

in a year where our densities are good and we don't need to remove so many deer. we will hunt for only the higher quality bucks and will not shoot the spikes.

if you're shooting spikes without regard to deer density or any other form of management plan, killing them only because you think the act of killing them has improved the deer herd, you're probably wrong.

if you're managing, or if you're killing them because they are a legal and good eating deer...then more power to you.

these ranches that manage by shooting 8ptrs....its not that they are bad deer. in most instances they are trophies in the eyes of your avg hunter. they are shooting them because they have 10,000ac high fence, and need to remove buck density. and they have enough 10pt or higher deer on the ranch that these 8pt and small are "expendable"....what a situation to be in.

I don't have a picture but I killed a 2.5 year old spike in 1977 on Ft Hood. The total length of antler, was about an inch and a half, hard and polished. It was aged by a biologist.

I passed on shooting two spikes two years ago I will Never, Ever do that again. Now they are worthless 5 pointers that will stay under the AR protection and breed more worthless deer's unless they die mysteriously