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.

David,

I'm not about to compare something like Elective military service to what we're discussing here. don't see where you're going with it, but you're on your own.

If you read my quote correctly, I was asking these questions due to the fact that the previous post was looking for concessions from landowners. My questions were to ask Why landowners? In other words, give me reasons that one side should make them over another. I am not saying that people should get all they can, I was asking why one end should give most or all of the concessions? What are the advantages if the other end gives nothing?

Again, if you've read my posts, I've never stated that I am "grabbing what I can" and absolutely don't promote that way of thinking. That being said, when it comes to the future of hunting resting with landowners and you look at a property like ours that offered 2 or less hunting opportunities when we purchased it compared to potentially over 50 now (several of which are FREE), then I think we Are doing something right.

So, if the majority of responsibility is on us, here's my contribution as a landowner: I take friends, family, friends' friends and family, vendors and their families, people I meet and their kids...all hunting on our property and for these individuals I'm talking about, don't charge for the deer. I've taken many first deer with kids (and even adults). I'm under no obligation to do so, I just love hunting and get a bigger thrill seeing others take a deer and get excited than I get myself. That's why I guide.

I think hunters should share in this responsibility as well. Work out on a lease that you get to bring a kid hunting...doesn't have to be yours. Something like that. I'd like to start hearing some ideas like this if from the lessee/hunter side if we're going to start talking about future of hunting and what we all need to do.

If EVERY hunter I had this fall asked me if they could bring a kid to take a doe or cull buck to get them involved in hunting, my answer would be a resounding YES! Bring it on! When you start talking about the future of hunting and what people have done for it, I think we could ALL do and should do more.

Ron,

You're absolutely correct.  You can't balance a herd or control a population with your male segment getting pounded on neighboring properties.   Therefore, it is one of the primary reasons to high fence. 

Poor harvest guidelines also create a skewed buck/doe ratio on their property and effects yours with recruitment to your food sources.

One thing I find humorous, is that most people look at a 1:1 buck/doe ratio behind a high fence as artificial or altered, when the opposite is true.  It's the 1:4 or 1:10 ratio that they're used to hunting over that's been altered and isn't "natural".