dbl-lung, heres the scoop. You cannot judge a bucks potential the first year it has horns unless you have a real close buck/doe ratio. heres why; In a poor buck/doe ratio area adult does do not usually let the young bucks breed them, instead they will wait until her next cycle and thats 28 days. this will go on for 3 months possibly if there is a lack of mature bucks. Those does that get bred in Jan. instead of oct or nov will have a fawn later in the spring. Now you need to consider the fact that a 1 1/2 year old buck is putting a lot of nutrition into growing, not antler developing so a buck thats 3 months younger will not have a 8 pt rack the first year like the bucks that were born early in the spring. by the time they are 2 1/2 yrs old they kind of catch up as far as body and antler size because the percentage of age difference from the 3 mo older buck gets smaller each year. So based on this you should not shoot spikes, unless he seems unusually huge, and may be an actual 2 1/2 yr old or older crap buck. Yes sometimes a spike means its a poor genetic buck but studies shows that it is usually because he is a few months older than the 6 or 8 pt 1 1/2 year old buck. Lets put it this way, look at the difference in nubbin buck nubs are because of a couple months!
The other comment that made me cringe was the 6pt, or even 8pt rule. If you are shooting 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 old 8 pts then for sure you are killing your best stock of bigger bucks for seasons to come and possibly damaging your genetics in your area. You need to get educated about what a mature buck should look like in your geographic area, and face the fact that you may loose a few shots at deer because you didnt have enough time to check him over good enough to shoot.
The 6pt rule is not QDM and is not reconized as one of their policies to follow. One other thing to consider is to shoot does to get a better buck/doe ratio. This will help all the does to get bred early in the season resulting in a older fawn come the first winter, and thats important in the north.
Having a closer B/D ratio make sthe hunting better too, you will see FAR MORE buck activity due to competition. you will see less total deer but who cares if every other deer is a buck!