As stated in an earlier post, it depends on the individual and location. I understand the concept on very large hunting ranches of 200,000 acres or more, (can't speak to fenced hunting, never done it and don't plan to) for the individuals that are in the business of selling the hunts. "Deer and Deer Hunter", had a great episode on this topic. It discussed how a mature whitetail follows his nose during the fall so unless you have 100,000 or more cared for personal hunting acres, the chances of you seeing the same 2 1/2 year old buck as a 3 1/2 the next year are slim. Nature rather than hunters usually takes care of this. That 2 1/2 year buck will want to breed and if there are larger more agreesive bucks in his area, he will keep moving till he believes he has a chance to breed. This may be miles and miles away from where you saw him as a 2 1/2 year old. I hunt up north where the deer/acre is tons less than down in the states. I have found that if you can pattern a big buck (getting on him in the first place is another thing), usually your chances of killing him are better the following year (as long as he survives, hunting season, winter, nature, etc.). Now I'm speaking to hunting public land of a 30-40 sq. mile area (only saw 4 hunters up there this year and 2 were real old guys that were just sitting in their truck waiting to see if something would cross an old logging road). No farmland, no food plots, no grazing fields, just solid boreal forest. You don't see many deer but they are big, they have to be to survive. I've got 4 chances a year at one of the monsters (archery, ML, rifle, second deer lic.). But it is, as always with me, it is freezer first. I'm not going to pass an a doe or small buck waiting for that buck of a lifetime. I am simply a guy, hunting a large area, being a predator (no different than the large pack of wolves that also live in this same area). Trying to "cull" in this situation would be silly.