Dont shoot spikes!! Sorry couldn't resist. Normally speaking a yearling spike will grow several more points the following year. Of couse this depends on nutrition. A deer uses it's food supply first for maintaining a healthy body if there are any nutirients left they go to antler production. So adding a food plot will only help your deer heard. Give it a shot, you having nothin to lose and lots to gain!!

Another thing to keep in mind is that the antler growing season is roughly 200 dyas long. Deer need 15%+ protein in their diet to reach their potential antler growth. If you're planting next year you will find that better then 100 days of the antler growing season will have elapsed before your plots are producing the amount of forage needed to produce exceptional antlers. This means it may be two years before you see real results unless you can supliment their diet early in the year with a high protein produce like 30.06w/ protien or something of the like. It'll also take the deer time to fins your plots and start feeding their regularly if there are other food sources to be had.

Okee Dokee but he wondered what happened to them. I was just giving what I've seen and noted what I do as a sidebar. Decision is always up to the shooter.

Used to hunt with a guy that shot the first 4 deer he would see. He was finished one opening morning in about 30 minutes. Whatever floats yer boat.

Well the spikes I have been seeing aren't weighing much over 100 pounds. I will and have shot a lot of Cow Horn spikes. If a buck has spikes over 8 or 9 inches, I will look real close to see if he is an older deer. The past 3 or 4 seasons I have shot these deer. And even though there are a few deer bigger, its been really hard to find them. I'm just trying to put the percentages in my favor to see bigger deer. I've hunted this place hard this year and only seen one deer with more than 2 points. Something has to change and thats what I'm doing this year.

Chad

Wonder if you had shot nothing the last few years, if you'd see bucks with more points? Just a thought. There is definitely no way they'll be larger than a spike if they are dead.

I do see many more spikes in dry years or seasons. And the more mature deer are also worse off antler wise. Then you get to good wet years, they all grow better, but then there is so much forage they are all hard to see.

So many different thought trains. Who knows if any of us are wrong or right.

I do know that after effecting the management program we decided on that we went from a few 10-12 inch 8 points and a bunch of 4-6 point deer, that after 6 years we rarely saw a spike, sans the dry years, and saw a few 3-7 point deer but a bunch of 8-10 point deer, more bucks, larger body size etc..... Largest deer shot first year was 12 inch 8 point. By the 4-7th years we had a number of 17-18 inch deer, a few at about 20 that we could not get shots at, and most were definitely multi point. And go from hunting a long time to see a deer to seeing multiple bucks each time out. Funny the dang results sound just like a few studies.

I"m sure results in other parts of the country could be way different.

Jeff

What state do you live in DHC? What kind of habitat do you have and what do your neighbors have for habitat? Do you have good thickets for browse and cover? On only 80 acres if you don't have the cover to hold an older buck,when the guns start blazin, chances are not too many will make it past 1.5 years old.
Just a few thoughts.

The 80 acres is part Hardwood swamp bottom and a hill with standing pines with thickets underneath the pines. The neighbors on two sides is 4 yr. cutover. And the other sides is swamp and pasture. Early in the year we have a lot of deer in the hardwoods. After rain and freeze the deer seem to move more to the pines and thickets. The last two or three years I've only killed one or two bucks and one or two does each year. I believe my neighbors are killing most of the deer. Although I've seen a lot of deer this year, I haven't seen any racks only spikes.

Chad

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

I can post some information on aging deer by tooth wear/eruption if such is needed. It's fairly simple and you don't need to be a biologist to do it though it does help.

wow 200 lb spikes ummm ok maybe one i would believe but two and they only had less than 3" spikes nope cant go with that one.