Eat up with spikes this year!
 

We have a pile of spikes this year. That is actually fine with me as I primarily meat hunt. However, my neighbor started complaining to me about killing young deer... saying that I am killing future trophy deer! It has always been my practice to cull anything 3 points or less for a first year rack. What are the facts?

there are none some spikes grow up to be less then trophies, some spikes have grown to be monsters, its all about nutrition amongst other things

On my WV farm...we went 5 or 6 years shooting every spike we saw (legally). Then we went about the same time frame not shooting any spikes. It seemed that when we didn't shoot any spikes, we saw more "shooter" bucks.

In central WV, a shooter buck to us is anything at about 100" or better...but we still saw more of them.

Not a scientific study, just my results.

There are many documented cases where "spikes" have grown to B&C proportion.

As a deer grows from birth, his body is developing. His primary biological response is to get large enough to store enough reserves to survive through the winter, it will be his toughest one. He also needs to build bone structure for his body. His antlers are an afterthought for the first 3 years or so. After his bone structrue is in place, he will begin to use all the excess minerals he intakes for antler development.

In areas where there is abundant food and mineral in the soil, you will often see very impressive yearlings sporting very nice racks. This is why we are now looking at body size and antler width etc., to judge deer based on their age, not how many points they have.

As deer develop antlers at maturity, they take the calcium from their bone structure, to build their antlers. It then needs replacement in to the bone structure. This is why it's a good idea to provide extra mineral supplements year round, but especially during and right after the antler growing season.

Let's not forget momma, if she has a tough year food wise, the young inside her will suffer too. Deer density plays a large part in how much food and nutrients each deer gets. The more deer there are, the less likelihood of them getting enough nutrition.

"The Antlers Are In The Soil" (Leopold?)

http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/bowh...l-antlers.html

One thing is certain, if you kill young spikes you will never know their future potential. IMO the first year is too early to tell what will happen.

Deer and Deer hunting had an article on this several years ago. I'm sure you could find it if you look for it. As for the topic at hand I nor anyone I know would make an asumption on what a buck will be at 1 1/2 yrs of age. More than not they will grow into something you would like to shoot later. If you want meat shoot does but don't shoot a buck that young cuz alot of them will become nice deer.

The problem in our area...we have so many does, many get bred late. Therefore the fawns are dropped later, giving the young buck a late start. By the time he grows his first rack, typically it won't be much because he's still developing his body as well. Nutrition certainly has to do with it. If you have alot of great food, you probably have better antler development as a rule. Bottom line, as mentioned....there have definitely been studies showing spikes can grow into trophies, but there is 100% chance they won't if you shoot them.

The only difference I see since Pennsylvania started the antler restriction laws is now we see almost no spikes on public land. I don't know why because we are still killing legal bucks.

I noticed a lot less spikes too. Maybe it has more to do with herd size and dynamics? More first year bucks with branched antlers maybe. And the spikes that are around get displaced so there aren't as many in any given area.

This is all a guess, of course.