RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

I'd let him walk. If you have your buck to doe ratio in check, then maybe take him but if not, shoot a doe. Even if that's all he's going to sport....it would be pretty cool to take him next year or the year after if he had 12 inch spikes. LOL

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

Sorry to bring up an old topic but I was just reading through this and I see where some of you doubt my "aging methods".

any deer that is 1 1/2 yrs will have the "three cusp tooth" as the first tooth. When they get to 2 1/2 they loose that 3 cusp tooth and their mature 2 cusp tooth replaces it. Therefore it is almost imposible to mistake a 1 1/2 deer with a deer that is 2 1/2 or older. When they get beyond 2 1/2 then you go by wear on the teeth and amount of dentine exposed and all that and that's where it becomes tricky.

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

If it's obviously a 1.5 year old spike, I'd consider letting him walk. It depends on how my season has been going. I'd rather shoot a 1.5 year old spike or a mature doe than shoot a 1.5 year old buck with a "basket" rack. If he is 2.5 or older or he has over 6" spikes, he's going down.

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

On my ranch, and the ranches that I manage, I will not allow any 1 1/2 year old spikes to be shot. If we see a spike that we believe is older then 1 1/2, then we will shoot it.

Every year we kill anywhere from 3-7 spikes that are 2 1/2 or older, but we hunt on tens of thousands of acres of private land. A ranch down the road from one of ours killed a 6 1/2 year old spike this past season. He won the "Spike division" at several of the local deer contest with a combined total of over 40". Meaning that each spike was over 20" long.

My main reason for letting 1 1/2 year old spikes walk, is because they do very little breeding. It seems like the young spikes are normally the "outcast" of the herd. All the bucks and the mature does all seem to pick on and harass the spikes. So the fact that the 1 1/2 year old spikes dont normally breed, is the reason why I let them grow another year to see what they turn into.

Most of the time spike bucks will grow bigger antlers, they hardly ever stay a spike for the rest of there life. But a buck that had spikes as his first set of antlers, will never grow the same size of rack as a buck that is the same age, but who had a forked rack as his first. Meaning that a 1 1/2 year old spike will never grow the same size of rack as a 1 1/2 year old 8 pointer, even if they both reach there full potential at 6 1/2.

We normally harvest 50%-75% more "cull bucks" then we do "trophy bucks" each year. On the ranches that I manage, a cull buck is "defined" as:
2 1/2+ year old spike
4 1/2+ year old buck, that is 8 points or less
6 1/2+ year old buck, that scores less then 140"+

This method really seems to work for us. Any buck that does not fall into one of the above catagories, is allowed to mature. We will not shoot any buck until he is 5 1/2 years old, but we prefer to hold off until they are
6 1/2+ years old.


I know that alot of the above post have said that "it has been proved over and over again, that spike bucks will turn into "wallhangers" because of studies done on captive spikes". But it must be rememberd that most of these captive deer are put on high protein supplemental diets. Which means they have all the high protein feed that they could ever want, which is rarely the case for non captive bucks. These deer are also held in small enclosers either by their selve or with a few other deer. Which means that these deer do not have to compete or travel for there food. And bucks that are held in "solitude" in a captive enviroment, tend to gain alot more weight and horn size because they turn into "lazy couch potatoes" because they have nothing to do in life other then eat and sleep.

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

Forget genetics...any buck might become a trophy. Shoot the doe let the spikes walk.

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

the one place i hunt , you can only take a male unless you have a permit for a doe.....the hunts are usually 3 days.....i've let spikes walk and had no meat in my freezer and i have shot spikes and had meat....my first buck was 2.5 yrs. old, 10 in. spikes.....i wish we could harvest does there without a permit....it feels good to let one walk, but if'n he's the only deer i see, it's meat, i'm taking it if i have none...

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

If you want to take a deer for meat, and don't care about a trophy, shoot the spikes. However we only get one buck tag in Indiana.

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

I was hoping someone was going to bring this up before I had to go digging through all my old D&DH magazines to find that article. I believe Ozoga collected the research and photos, and then wrote the article.

As a small side note - we used to raise deer a few years back. We had a 1 1/2 year old but with 8" spikes. The very next year he grew a perfectly symmetrical 8 point rack with a 14" inside spread. Unfortunately he escaped from his pen that fall and was killed by a hunter shortly afterwards, but without any doubt in my mind by the time that buck was 3 1/2 years old he would've had a P&Y class rack.

In my opinion - let the spikes walk. The only time I believe you should harvest a buck because of his physical traits is if he has some sort of massive degenerative deformity in his rack, or some other injury that might be genetic or harmful to the herd if he breeds. As an example - I took a 2 1/2 year old buck a few years back with a gnarly 3 pt rack. One side had a 10" spike with a small kicker on the bottom and the other side was just about 2" long. He was also pretty small in body size compared to the rest of the deer in the area.

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

How do you get a deer to grin enough that you can see that "third cusp tooth" before you shoot him?:D

RE: Spikes....do you kill them or let them walk?
 

early in the season i would let them walk but if it was late i would take one.