You're already seeing bucks chasing does?

I can't believe we're still having this discussion in 2009. This was my response to the same question a while back on the board.  I'll just copy and paste here.

"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."

I hope this helps.  There is NO reason in anything other than an incredibly intensively managed herd to shoot spikes...NONE!  The only reason that I would do it would be if my population model required me to shoot a certain number of bucks to reach my goals and I didn't feel like there was anything else in the middle-upper age classes that I was comfortable taking.  Even then, I would hate doing it.  People more times than not are just looking for an excuse to shoot a deer...shoot a doe or an older cull buck.

Matt,

My two cents...

More is better in terms of acreage.  And I'd rather have a few large plots that several small ones.

Protection is the key for any of your summer legumes including lab-lab (and I think lab-lab is the way to go).  Without protecting it early grazing will kill or severely stunt growth on your plants and then your food plot will be a waste of time and money.  But done correctly it can certainly benefit your deer herd.

We have 10% of our acreage in summer plots.   Anything from 5 and up should be alright depending on deer density.  The higher your density, the more acreage you'll need for the animals to truly benefit (and I mean grow significantly larger antlers) from it,

We are in our 9th ninth year of food plots here in south Texas.  Even in this dry climate where drought is very common we have been successful with our summer plots in 8 of 9 seasons or dry land farming and our deer are pretty darned good as a result.

For your winter plots, it's important to mix in some clovers, maybe a chicory a winter pea and/or vetch with your grains.  Remember grains are great for early year energy and attraction, but do very little in terms of getting your bucks back in shape after the rut.  When our winter plots do well I think they are the key to having great antler years in south Texas.  When a buck can drop his antlers and go right into regrowing them and not into recovering from the rut, it HAS to be a tremendous advantage.  Feb. and March clovers, etc. will allow your deer to do this.

Get a soil sample, and "farm for wildlife".  We are as serious about our food plots as a farmer is about his crops. 

Nice bucks and story! 

Been blowing and going here since just before Christmas.  Matter of fact, I'd say we're in the late stages. 

Fights and broken tines/antlers are on the rise (another sign that the number of available females is dwindling), and the mature bucks are starting to show up in the food plots that we opened the other day.  Still plenty of chasing, but when most of the big boys come out, they have eating on the brain.