Wow-- you must have a high deer density to be able to shoot up to 4 deer a year off of 80 acres. Where I'm at I'd only consider shooting a deer every other year on 100 acres. I"m not sure our exact count lately.

When we hunted where the deer density was much higher it was still suggested to take 1 mature buck and a few does off of 200 acres. It was implied you needed 150 acres per mature buck per year. We actually would shoot something like 10-14 deer a year off of 200 acres and could tell we were thinning the deer out a bit.

I'm wondering if you aren't overharvesting for your patch of the woods. I"m just thinking here you are taking a max of 1 deer per 20 acres of land. What is the suggested harvest rate in your area from the biologist? And if your neighbors are doing the same, you may never see more than a spike hardly as nothing will ever reach past 1.5 years old before it dies.

Another thought is the PH level in the pines. Maybe your food plots will need to be limed to have a palatble taste to the deer?? I"m no expert on this but I"m trying to learn on the palatibilty. After all you can have the best food plots but if the neighbors is sweeter.....

BTW for a learning experience cut out the jaw of each deer you shoot, tag it as to what it is, then take to the biologist to actually age them. You may well find that length of spikes doesn't always indicate anything about age.

Jeff