OK, I'll give you that. About nine or ten years ago, with the uptick in logging activity and falling hunter numbers in the ANF, there were some nicer bucks taken there, and I did notice that occasionally. That span of time is a blip however, in my time of thirty years of hunting the ANF.

The reasoning behind the prevalence of spikes before AR is because the B/D ratio was about 20/1, and the does were being bred late, resulting in late births, resulting in delayed first year antler growth. Spikes are not caused by genetics, and a "mature" spike is an anomoly and nothing more.