The first question I have for you is this. When you see a spike do you try to age the deer? A lot of first and second year bucks will be spikes. There is an article in a resent Texas Trophy Hunters mag, which addresses this very question. There has been a multi-year study (10yrs+ I think) in which the spike populations were monitered to see how they woule develop. From what I remember, the deer were allowed to develop in an open range enviroment. The study concludes that even a spike can grow into an outstanding deer if allowed to grow. What I personally do and I recomend that EVERYONE should try to learn to do is AGE the deer before you shoot. If the spike has 2-3" antlers and looks to be 2.5-3yrs old, I will let him pass. On the other hand if the deer looks to be 4+ yrs old I will take him out of the herd. There will allways be different opinions as to what you should do, so this question is one that you will have to address. The bottom line is simply to learn to age your deer before you pull the trigger, and as with ALL DEER that have the chance to make a real trophy, the thing you, me and all other hunters who want to manage their deer is some times hard to do for some hunters. This is what you must do--(1) age the deer, and (2) MOST IMPORTANTLY-----LET HIM GROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People need to quit worrying about shooting spikes...period.

If you have alot of spikes in your 1 1/2 year old age class (and especially if you have them older than that), then there are things you need to address before you ever consider shooting one.

What is your carrying capacity?  What is your population?  What is your average recruitment rate?  How about your buck:doe ratio?  Tell me about the age structure of your deer herd?  How good is your native food supply?  What are you doing to supplement that native food supply?

Until you can do this, you can't know enough about your deer herd to make decisions on spikes.   And if you take care of all of these things and get them in order, you won't need to worry about spikes.

It's not that they'll go away.  Even on controlled, well fed populations, when drought hits, the 1 1/2 year old age class will sometimes produce high numbers of spikes.

Get your other issues in order and then if you want to start "culling", do so at 3 1/2 years old or older. 

I've told this several times, but I'll do it again here.  We've never had a large number of spikes in our 1.5 age class.  Matter of fact, never over 10%...until 2006.  We had a severe drought and for the first time we didn't have year round food plots and had a large number of deer on the ranch competing for a limited food supply in the form of protein pellets.  As a result, the 1.5 age class that year sported over 70% spikes.  But there was NO difference in my genetics.  Just in the balance of population to food supply. 

The following year, we had a great rain year and saw 1 spike in over 40 1.5 year old bucks.  Again, did my genetics just get better?  No. 

Now, an argument could be made for taking that one spike in a banner year.  He was the worst of the worst.  But why would I worry about him?  There are other factors that may have played in:  was he born late? Did he get sick, injured?  If my age structure is in order, I can give him time to prove himself.

Hardy, you have just hit the nail hard on the head ol' friend. Reguardless of your deer herd and food supply and rain, the one most important factor to the management of your deer herd is to just learn to age your bucks and "LET THEM GROW". As you stated on another subject, " IF YOU SHOOT HIM NOW, HE WILL HAVE "O" CHANCE TO REACH HIS BEST". So the bottom line is to age your deer before you shoot and if he is not at least 4.5-5.5 yrs old---let him walk.

Thanks alot guys!

wish i had the picture of'' big boy'' this young spike wondered into my uncles property with 2 axis does in ingram, texas.. they came in from the road and entered the gate then managed to enter the high fenced area through the open gate while we were mowing.. this spike we figured to be about 1.5 yrs.. today he is about 5 yrs and is a huge 10 point with massive antler radius at his base and gets bigger each year..  he is one of nine large whitetail bucks in our controled herd..due to the proper food and nutrients it goes to show you how deer can thrive  with a properly managed herd...

You are very correct. POINT MADE AND TAKEN-----LET THEM GROW PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If he is a spike still after 2 1/2 then there is a problem that's if  the nutrition is there. I am absolutley not an advocate of spikes untill you can age a deer properly. There are alot of spike contests out there where the majority brought in are 1 1/2. I see it all the time. A drought year really shows it or over population. In the panhandle we rarely ever see a spike buck but our deer per acer is low. Go figure, We have not seen or shot one in 4 years. I ran a ranch in San Angelo for 12 years, where we did see spikes and an age rule was in effect.  They were most numerous in dry years.

I'd shoot a 2 year old spike (if I ever saw one)... but I haven't killed a yearling spike in 9 years...