Brutual Attack, are you saying that a 2.5 year old deer that is only a spike may become a deer with say a 6 point rack during the next season? Where I am from most of the 1.5 year old deer are spikes, if we shot them with out giving them a chance to grow we would be defeating the purpose! We do shoot the bigger and older spikes that will not develop bigger racks.

But, on the other hand if we give them more time to grow, and they don't develop anything more than a spike rack we don't want those deer breeding the does and possibly passing on that trait. Read my original post about the old spike that became nothing more than that. We also have the bad drought and non-existent acorn crop to consider. If we had good years for acorns and rain we would see better racks.

Genetics will be passed on whether the deer is breeding at 2.5 years old or 10.5 years old. Genes are genes and will remain the same no matter the age of the animal.

We are shooting the mature deer;because, that is what we want. We used to shoot anything legal. And, we rarely saw a deer bigger than a six pointer. Since QDM we see several mature deer with racks that are six points or better. We have improved the quality and the numbers of mature deer. Simple as that!