The Perils of Culling From the "Bottom"

We shoot a few 2-3 year old culls each year. This deer was a 6 point with a little fishook off his main beam his first yr. (2015) No tine length at all. Last year his frame appeared to almost double in size, he added one tine and his drop was about 2 inches. But still didn't have a tine over 4 inches. He scored about 100. This year, when I saw the below August photo of him in velvet, I put him on our hit list figuring he would never be much. No one has seen him since, but we just got some photos of him from the past couple weeks. Holy cow was I wrong on this one! Note: this deer is 3 1/2 so don't ever base your age decisions solely on a Roman nose.

Holy moly! That's a helluva deer! Cool pics. Thanks for sharing that!

Holy cow he's half Elk...

Great sequence! He's a cool character, glad you were wrong on him.

That's why we don't cull until they reach maturity. But we don't have any carrying capacity issues where we hunt, so alot depends on where your hunting and habitat numbers I'm sure. Thanks for sharing.

He’s got an old man’s face and a young man’s body.

thats legit!!

For those of you still hunting, our bucks are all showing up in their core areas. Lots of deer we haven't seen all season are right back where they were in Sept/Oct.

Nice Buck fouzman, I have also noticed the Big Bucks are out and about now!

Sooooo......don't shoot spikes......

Wow! I need to show this to my group for sure.

Great pics where's the ones of it on the ground?

In other words, he had two branched antlers his first year and did not qualify as a spike, correct?

Correct, Dan.

Those won't come for at least another 3 years.

Incredible buck! Would never in a million years judge him to be 3.5 yo.

Wow, great looking buck. I'm not saying your wrong, but pics 2-5 just don't compute as a 3 year old to me.

Not to me either, red. But I know without a doubt the deer is 3 1/2. Looks like he may have broken his nose fighting, but had he walked in on me when I was hunting a couple weeks ago, I'm sure I would have called him at least four. We have some really large bodied deer on our place. The deer I killed 12/30 probably weighed 235-240 lbs before the rut. He weighed 185 when I killed him.

Great looking buck. I don't see 3yo based off the neck size into the brisket in those last pics. If he is definitely 3 it is amazing the body differences in different areas or natural browse vs protein deer body wise.

In the August pic his points are still very round, which usually suggests his antlers may still be growing. I wouldn't say this is a thread about culling so much as it is a thread about when to construct your hit list (maybe wait for hard-antler?).

Also, that is one helluva 3 yr old. I know you have your data, but I'm with the others that those pics sure would have fooled us.

Would have fooled me, too! I'll find his year one and two photos and post them this evening if I can. I may have to wait until I get back down to the ranch as all of our photo history on different bucks is down there.

Great pics and info fouz. Without any history on him I too would have called him at least a 4 or maybe even a rutted down 5 yr. old. Some or our bucks are showing back up in their home areas as well but also still seeing some strangers passing through that we don't have any camera pics of. If history holds true our bucks (and most deer) will become almost non-existent toward the end of January and through February as far as seeing them feeding on corned roads. A person would tend to believe they would flock to feed to rebuild following the rut but that has not been the case the last 8-10 years.

Great post fouz!!! Really like threads like this, they challenge what we think we know. Aging deer is not a science, it's an educated GUESS for EVERYONE without concrete data through pics and knowing "your" deer.

Great buck!!

if you are "culling" mature deer you're not really culling, you're just shooting mature deer that score what they score....

.....this buck was a 6pt w/ a drop his first year..... not exactly roll of the dice keeping him around, even w/ the small tine length

ANY branching of the antlers during the second year, however small, seems to be the key indication of a 1-1/2 year old buck that should be allowed to walk.

No question, the ability to share photos and discuss them has made a significant impact on what we are learning about buck development. It has also given us the opportunity to validate the accuracy of what biologists have been preaching to us.

Wow, awesome to see that progression. Good share and GREAT buck

Beautiful buck. This is exactly why waiting until a buck reaches maturity is usually the best practice. There is no substitute for age.

While true... there is also no substitute for genetics... this deer just happens to be a really nice looking buck that is on a property that I'm assuming kills culls before maturity. If I was HF I would be more interested in culling, but even now readily identifiable inferior deer are shot.

I find it odd that many who say let deer mature, don't shoot spikes are in favor of shooting no brow deer.

From a genetics standpoint waiting until culls are mature makes no sense. Culling for numbers and CC is a little different but even then I'm still after the inferior deer first.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that point to the likelihood of a successful end, are common in all walks of life. Branched antlers in young bucks appears to be a good and valid KPI.

If a deer has no brows his 2nd or 3rd set of antlers, it is extremely likely that he will never have them (or they will be very small). Culling this trait is very common. I don't think anybody is talking about culling yearling bucks that have no brows.

We culled a two year old 5 point with only one brow tine back in November. He has 3 and 4 yr old relatives with the same genetic trait. I want to kill both of them but haven't been able to locate either. Amazing how hard it is to find a specific deer on 1,800 high-fenced acres with very heavy cover. What's even more amazing to me is we run as many as 24 cameras and may only get a couple photos of a buck each year. Just like the three year old above. We had that one photo from August and never saw him this season until these most recent trailcam photos. Fortunately, we have until the end of February to get it done. In fact, we still have 3 or 4 culls we need to kill, if we can just see them. But this three year old isn't going to be one of them!

We've killed six bucks so far. Five culls and one trophy. We have one 7.5 yr old trophy we're still trying to kill plus 3 or 4 culls to put our total buck harvest at 10. Doe harvest will be 20, so that we can keep our buck/doe ratio above 1:1, on the buck side.

You guys that say let a deer mature before culling, is there no fear of him turning out to be cull in the end and the has fathered several deer of same genetics during those years he walked? I'm just asking as I'm trying to figure this out myself. And are you saying let them reach 4.5-5.5 years of age?

I dare not stir the controversy of what characteristics should be used for culling but the sooner a cull can be identified and removed from the herd the better. Culls not only produce other bucks with inferior genetics but also produce does with those genetics and you can't distinguish them from good does.

In my opinion, no 1.5 year old buck should EVER be killed, regardless of antler development (or lack thereof). There are simply too many variables that can cause a good buck to grow a crappy first set of antlers. If you have a healthy buck:doe ratio they won't be breeding anyway....let them get to 2.5 before making the decision to cull.

I sure like seeing pictures of them south Texas giants. That's some special land down there.

I don’t think anyone would “cull” a 1 1/2 year old 6 point with a drop/fishhook.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

The belief that mature big bucks do the breeding is total BS.

RedChevy - While I don’t disagree entirely, if you have a 1:1 doe to buck ratio, very very few 18month old deer will have the opportunity to breed. Also, while I would strongly recommend culling as early as possible, including at 1.5yrs old, culling at 1.5yrs is much more important when buck numbers are low.

ElandSlayer - If you need to remove X number of deer to keep your herd from going over capacity, and you need Y number of those deer to be bucks to keep your ratio in check, then it comes down to which ones have to go. If you protect the entire 1.5yr old age class, then all of those bucks that have to be eliminated come from the older deer. It actually lowers your average age and reduces the number of mature bucks. You end up killing a great deer that needed one more year, instead of a deer that needs four more years and may never be good anyway. You can choose which age deer to eliminate in variety of ways. Eliminating the bottom half of the yearling population is not a bad way at all to maintain both a high average age and very good genetics. Another simple method is to identify all of the mature bucks that definitely need to go, a trophy or two that may not make it to next year or may decline, and then use the rest on the bottom of your yearling crop. Holding out on a subpar yearling in hopes that he’ll be good one day is very inefficient and results in a 3.5-4.5yr old cull far more times than it results in a surprise trophy. Remember, we’re managing population and sex ratio as well as antlers. One of those bucks has to go. I’ll take a lagging yearling anytime. Are there plenty of reasons that a deer might be lagging at 18months besides genetics? Sure, but how does he compare to his peers? Other than date of birth, his peers experienced the same conditions.

OP- most places don’t have 6pt yearlings in the bottom half of they yearling crop. If you do, then that deer is probably still lagging behind his peers that had better racks at 18months.

UPDATE: Looks like I was doubly wrong on the deer above. Just learned that the buck, I was so certain was the one we called "fishhook", was killed last year by a "guest". At 2 1/2. The man was hunting for a specific buck. A 6 1/2 yr old trophy that was unmistakeable. And ONLY that one deer.

His "story" is that the trophy and "fishhook" came in together, he decided the trophy was too big, and shot the smaller buck, instead. Yeah, right. Only reason I found out is because I was so insistent the deer above was "fishhook". Below is the deer he was supposed to kill, and then "fishhook" at 2.5. I now feel like a dumbarse, on several levels. Bottom line, our fault. He should have been guided.

While Fishhook would be a great deer on some places, on your place, he was a definite cull. No harm done unless you just needed someone to pay up and harvest the trophy before he entered decline.

Apparently,Y’all love you some browless deer then with those blanket statements

I would have certainly allowed fishhook at least a couple more years for evaluation on our lease.
We've got plenty 2 years olds that are not that good that are still among the living.

Concur, although it’s nice to be at a point CC wise you can afford to gamble on a few also, so I could see the allure

CC is a very important thing and it's not just about removing does.

Nice

For me, this is a 5 1/2 year old. I don't see anything that could indicate less. All characteristics that I see are 5 1/2 yr.s old. However, I certainly could be wrong as I have been in the past. But I do see four things that do indicate a 5 1/2.