I would also base my decision on the body size of the spike. We see alot of small bodied spikes where we hunt and will let them walk. Our thinking is that these are fairly young bucks with good potential in a year or two. We do try to cull out large bodied spikes feeling that these lack the genetics of developing a respectable rack. I could be wrong but after 3 years of doing it this way we are starting to see some nicer bucks.