my cousin neal recently harvested amature spike (about 11 inches and 5 1/2 yrs old). im not sure if hes made offspring, but im prepared to take them out. i also shot a 6 pt. last yr about 6 yrs old and 210 lbs. his brow tines were shorter than an inch! but his main beams and T1 tines are enormous. his spread is barely outside each ear. my guess is not genes, i think its because of malnutrition.

Are you really serious?

Ifit is asmaller deer that has spikes, chances are thatit is a yearling. If it is a larger deer; terrible genetics.

Go by body size when you see a spike. Last year I shot a cull spike that was bigger than my dads basket-racked seven that he shot the next dy, just to give you an idea.

yes, im serious. this spike was a good 190 lbs., and his teeth tremendously worn.

I believe modern whitetail science has consistently shown us that spikes do NOT need to be "culled". As mentioned by many of the educated sportsman above, the vast majority of spikes are simply yearling bucks and , like ANY yearling buck, they simply should NOT be shot. I have never seen a "mature" spike in my life!

Believe it or not but it sometime does happen even in moose another member of the deer family.. Sometimes because of genes and sometimes because of food. A friend had found a spike drop from a moose a couple of years ago that was clearly from an adult moose. The spikes were both around 3 feet long. Another one was shot that was around 800lbs dressed that had long spikes, the same thing with deer! It can and does happen from time to time... Though the majority are just young bucks..

Amen.

The jury is out, however there are some studies that show that even a yearling spike has bad genetics and may need to be culled.

MOST yearling bucks will actually be 6 pointers and genetically will generally grow to have larger antlers than a yearling spike will over the rest of their lifetime. (Based on actual studies, not antectodal observations).

Here's a quote from a study. (I added the bold emphasis)
Here's a summary of one of the studies - http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/land/wildlife_management/deer/spikes_not_inferior/

Nothing wrong with taking a spike every now and then. I promise it won't destroy your deer herd.

I see your point.That is a big yearling! It is like a whole different species comparing northern deer to southern. Our hunting season starts in 5 weeks and there will be plenty of25 lb.spotted fawnsrunning around then. Our buck/doe ratio got so out of whack that we're having late summer births and there is no winter kill here. A good bit of our state has 8 to 10 either sex days with two antlerless deer allowed each day and the option to buy 4 antlerless permits to use anytime after Sept. 15. The DNR is now looking into reinstating a buck limit as now there isNO limit on private land for bucks with 3" spikes minimum! There have always been those competitive types who want to see who can kill the most deer every season and taking 30 to 40 a year being common, with most of those being 1 to 2 year old bucks. Not good for the herd ratio.