There was an article in D&DH sometime over the past year or so and they talked about this topic and said that while there is much debate spikes do have the potential to grow into nicer bucks. I think the article was written by Alsheimer and he spoke of deer which he had observed year to year and found that they do mature into nicer bucks a lot of the time. A lot of a the problem with a spike only having spikes is his nutrition, herd and genetics. That being said, even with poor genetics it is highly unlikely that all he will ever amount to is a spike.,