![]() That might not equal out though, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time, energy and permits to cull the inferior yearlings, and your neighbors have not. Of course, via this dispersal your property will be losing some yearling bucks, but those from the neighbors down the road will disperse to your property. In more forested areas, five miles is more common. In open farm country, the dispersal distance of yearling bucks can be as much as 12 miles. We know that yearling bucks disperse in the fall, with as many as 70 percent moving five or more miles. Hellickson felt that the main reason culling did not work in larger, unfenced areas was dispersal. You would think that after doing such removal of management bucks for eight years, antler size would have improved in the culled area. He culled all yearling bucks with less than six points and all older bucks with less than nine points. Mickey Hellickson, who I’ve quoted several times in this column because he does outstanding research, culled inferior bucks for eight years on one large Texas study area, but did not cull on another similar site. But that might not be true, and here’s why.ĭr. Some use this data to extrapolate to larger, unfenced tracts, believing that if it works in a small, controlled herd, it will work on larger areas. In smaller fenced areas (probably 3,000 acres or less), over time you can improve your antler quality by removing management bucks. Before we look at them in detail, let’s consider what we do know. However, in recent years, several Texas studies have provided some answers. There are no easy answers, and even in Texas there is a divergence of opinion on whether to cull or not to cull. The concept of culling bucks is controversial and complex. The people making the television shows can’t afford to pay the $10,000 fees that monster bucks bring, but the ranches are happy to get the publicity via television by letting the hunters take a “management” buck, some of which look pretty big to the average deer hunters from the North. ![]() The reason you see so many shows where “management” bucks are shot is because really big Texas bucks are worth a lot of money to those private ranches. Almost all of those shows were filmed in Texas. The best thing to do is shoot them, right? Second, there are a ton of television hunting shows feature the culling of “management” bucks. First, for years and years hunters have heard that yearling spike bucks are genetically inferior and will pass those poor genes on to their male progeny. Why do hunters think that shooting such “inferior” bucks will help their herds? ![]() If your deer herd doesn’t have good habitat and nutrition, survival is going to be difficult, as will antler growth.As bow seasons get under way, those who hunt farms or leases debate whether to use one of their buck tags to remove inferior-looking, poorly antlered bucks. ![]() Habitat and nutrition fall into the same category for me. It would be a poor decision to harvest a spike during this time. Poor habitat and/or nutrition is going to lead to poor antler growth and more spikes. The high rainfall creates a domino effect of good habitat and nutrition, which will lead to buck growth and less population attrition. If you have an encouraging amount of rainfall, shooting spikes could be beneficial. You’re going to want the spikes to mature into older age classes to see what they become. If your land is experiencing a drought, it would be a poor decision to take a spike.ĭepending on the severity of the drought, the deer herd population could decrease naturally and throw your age structure and sex ratio into shambles. Rainfall ties every other factor together. To me, the most influential ingredient in spike development (or lack thereof) is rainfall. Find out when that whitetail fawn was conceived with this calculator ![]()
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