Genetics are an underlying factor to antler growth no doubt, however maturity level is the main factor in determining his potential. Other factors such as food, water, stress, late births, etc all have impacts on year to year growth. I have seen some pretty small 2 years old grow some decent headgear in a year or 2. If at 3-4 they are still lagging then you should think about harvesting them. If your worried about immature or inferior bucks breeding you have a choice, that is harvest more does. If you bring the doe to buck ratio in line it will allow more mature bucks to do the lion share, thus eliminating your worry. QDM is more than allowing trophies to sprout it is to also create balance on all sides.

At some point you have to draw a line and say a buck should be x by this age/weight...

Let me give you an example. Back in the mid 80's I was in camp that practiced QDM. We were not killing the type of deer we wanted, so the biologist suggested we stop killing bucks for 2 years and only kill spikes. We killed every spike we could find, and we wiped them out. The following 5-6 years were unbelievable. We killed some monster bucks and a bunch of them, and not just bucks that were allowed to age during those 2 years of spike killing. We were 3 1/2 olds 150 class bucks, which had never been done before. Around that time game biologists changed their minds on killing spikes and we stopped. The hunting slowly got worse and eventually we were right back to where we started, with fully mature bucks maxing out at 120-130.

When I say spike, I don not mean buttons, we let all button bucks grow. I am talking 1 1/2 year old spikes and older. IMO there is a correlation between spikes and future antler size, just based on my in the field observations. There is no doubt that some spikes do reach trophy pontential, but I believe far more do not.

With that said, what would make the most sense, just wing it and hope they reach potential. Or should you cull the older spikes to open up more food and breeding for mature bucks.

And yes, these small(cull) bucks will breed does, I've seen it with my own eyes. In a perfect world, the most dominate buck in the area will show up to breed when she is ready, but that does not happen in many areas. In fact, most of breeding that I have seen are not large mature bucks, and we do have them. Our doe numbers are in check, according to biologists.

I would say let the spikes reach 2&1/2, and then if they are not up to par, consider taking them. But the 1& 1/2 year olds, it is just too early to tell.IMO.

2002 - we must have seen 5 different spikes. But our b/d ratio is way out of whack so we let them all go. We took 10 does & 1 buck in 2002. The neighbors with 400acres took 15 does and 3 bucks in 2002.

2003 - we saw 1 spike. On our game cam we ID'd the same little spiker BUT now we have 9 different bucks on game cam AFTER the season. We took only 4 does this year. The neighbors took 14 does. We took 2 bucks one 120, one 140 class. Good bucks.

All of our bucks on the game cams are 6 pointers or better. No monsters but just thinking about that nice 8 pointer next year makes me drool!

If we had take out all of the spikes in 2002 would we have any nice 6-8 pointers this year? NOPE. I belive that your b/d ratio will impact the antler growth also. As we saw this year with the lack of spikes & more small 6 pointers.

I would not go so far as to "remove" bucks from the gene pool just because they are a little inferior thier first year. There are just toooo many variables as to why they may have poor growth.

My 1st wife use to breed horses. You would think that an awsome stallion would produce awsome colts. not always true. While it was likely, the combination of mare and stallion was the key. I belive that really big bucks need does that are also big buck producers. I acctually had a stud/mare combo that produced awsome colts but terrible fillys? Neither of the two parrents were anything special. Just a good combo.

I've always thought that unless you know the buck is more than a 1 1/2 spike...you almost have to let him go. Even if that yearling spike doesn't grow up to be something special...you would have never known if you shot him early on.

If he's only 1.5, let him walk, give him a chance to grow. By 2.5 and 3.5 you should have a decent indication if he is gonna produce head gear that are up to your expectations.

Case in point, this last fall, I have one spot that I hunt that had a big bodied bruiser of a buck working an area. He had short short tines for a 5x5 and was later aged at 3.5 after he was harvested and I estimated him to be this age before he was harvested. This is on public land but the last thing I wanted him doing was breeding any more does in my hunting area. I rattle him in for my father in law and he took him, he was tickled to have the meat and he could care less about the rack so it worked out good for both of us.

Shed

What are you trying to say?

WELL HERE'S HOW THE GENETICS GOES IN MY AREA. I HARVESTED THIS 6 POINTER IN 2002. HE WAS AGED AT 1 1/2 HE FIELD DRESSED AT 175 LBS.

AND HERE'S THE DEER I HARVESTED OFF THE SAME PROPERTY IN 2003. HE'S A 2 1/2 YEAR OLD 9 POINTER AND FIELD DRESSED AT 185.

I DO BELIEVE THAT IF THESE TWO DEER HAD BEEN LEFT ALONE AND NOT HARVESTED THAT THEY PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SCORED P&Y IF NOT B&C.