We don't protect the scrubs, but we do give the young 1.5 year old deer, mostly spikes, the chance to grow bigger antlers. If we shot all of the spikes we would have very few deer that would make it past 1.5 years old. That is the case in our national forests. We shoot the older, bigger deer that do not develop into anything bigger as far as rack size, and the eight pointers that are mature.

Here in our neck of the woods we don't see the kind of deer that are in other places. Most of our 1.5 year olds, approximately 80%, are spikes. They just don't get as big as deer do in other parts of the country. But, we are trying to provide them with the nutrition and age to get bigger. We know our herd well enough to know what they should weigh in a certain year class with reasonable accuracy. I watch these deer throughout the year and have for 15 years. If you don't judge the age by body weight then what have you got to judge them by? They won't let you age them by opening up their mouths while they are still alive. We killed those young bucks in the past; therefore, we have some background info. Most of the people practicing QDM judge the deer's age by their body weight and body features. A gray muzzle, thick chest, sagging belly, etc.

We kill the dominant bucks; because that is what we want to kill; otherwise we would be back to where we started. Killing only small bucks. It works for us; we are indeed killing bigger bucks.