To Cull or Not To Cull - That is the Question....

[holdem]

Man oh man talk about a can of worms Davec. I know a hunter who loves big forkhorns with no brow tines. He puts them over ranch gates and barn doors calling them cowboy deer, he thinks they're meaner and tougher than standard bucks. If you ask him he'll tell you let them grow to 5 1/2.
As for me, on my land, if a buck doesn't have brow tines when he's 2 1/2 he will likely end up in the freezer.

[tuthdoc]

If I KNOW he's 2 1/2 and not a yearling and he's a slick buck, then I kill him. If he's 3 1/2, he dies if he's slick and probably dies if they are an inch or less. the problem lies in KNOWING that he's 2 1/2 or older.

[JW]

2.5 plus. No brows, AXE. Killed a 17 inch 8 the other day as a cull. I did not want him breeding and he was ULTRA DOMONANT. He had a total of 3-3/8 inch of G-3 total from both sides and was 4.5. I took em out, period. Next mourning Landrover took a 3.5 yo 6 point with no brows. Both off these are know were near what we want om our place so they had to go...Especially when our 3.5's are sporting bigger racks that that 4.5 I took out...

[q2xlman]

Josh, I used to believe in culling for improvement in the deer herd. Maybe with lots of land, lots of time, and very dedicated hunters it is possible, but how long would that take and would it be a significant change? I think it's easier to build a fence, kill everything inside and only bring in the kind of deer that you want to effectively "manage" your genetics. I am leaning more toward age and supplement feeding as the main ingredients for larger bucks these days. There are a lot of theories, but few have documented proof of altering their genetics without bringing in different genetics via bred does or high scoring bucks. Even then, after many years, I'm not sure what you'd have.... I still love to read about the stuff though.

[JW]

True, but alot of us do not want to high fence so we have to go this route...

[SaltwaterSlick]

I help manage a lease that we have had for 21 years. It's 10,000 acres, and low fenced. We had a biologist helping us for the first several years, but now we pretty much do the management decisions ourselves. We started out taking any deer that was not a yearling and no brow tines, then moved to the same only missing one brow, then we went to anything less than 8 points even with 2 brow tines, then we went to mature 8 points. To us mature is 5 1/2 years old. We are now regularly taking 150 and bigger bucks, and some of them are management bucks. Last weekend I got a 9 point cull that scored 122+. He was a cull because he had only 1 brow tine. I can tell you for sure, culling sure has helped us out. We are seeing more and bigger bucks every year. We have been truly blessed with a great group of hunters that are pretty much of one accord. Most of us video all our hunts, then instead of sitting around the campfire, we sit around the TV and group judge the various bucks people see. If someone shoots a buck that is not a cull and is less than 5 1/2 years old, it costs the hunter a "seed buck" fee. It is a graduated scale that starts at $250. and goes up as the size of the buck goes up. Just about all of us at one time or other have had to pay a seed buck fee, but we're getting pretty good at judging them on the hoof after all these years. We have a great database that has the date, weight, measurements and location of kill of all the bucks taken over the past 15 years. It is truly a wonderful place to hunt, and culling a balanced herd has been very successful for us.

[Joshua Flournoy]

comments....

Lots of interesting comments here. Sounds like lots of folks are in favor of "culling", but it also sounds like maybe it only has a chance to benefit you if you have a place for 20 years and are very consistent with your culling.

Me personally, I don't shoot "cull" bucks. Any "mature" buck is a trophy to me, no matter how many points he has. I know a lot of ranches cull anything that is 8-point or less, and frankly, I'd rather take a really big 8-point than anything else.

Question for those of you who are serious about culling: Do you make a concerted effort to kill your "cull" bucks as early in the season as possible, well before the rut kicks in? And for those of you who wait until they are at least 2.5 y/o before "culling", does it bother you that the deer you're culling more than likely spread his seed around some last year before you had a chance to determine whether or not he was a "cull"? After all, his genetics were the same last year as they are this year, regardless of his age, right?

And, where do does fit into the equation. I've heard the stat that does contribute 50% of the genes. Has that been verified somehow? What if the doe has genes to produce a buck that will never have more than 8-points, and she is bred by a 10 or 12-point buck. Whose genes win out? I guess my point is, can you ever control the situation enough to really and truly have an effect on a wild deer population?

Joshua

p.s. Ragin, my buck was taken here in Ohio.

[Joey~AP]

A smart man once told me about lettin a young fork horn critter live to get bigger, but I'll be ****ed ifin I can remember what he said....so they get a free pass from me.

[Bily Lovec]

[QUOTE=Joshua Flournoy;72192....
Me personally, I don't shoot "cull" bucks. Any "mature" buck is a trophy to me, no matter how many points he has. I know a lot of ranches cull anything that is 8-point or less, and frankly, I'd rather take a really big 8-point than anything else. ...
Joshua

[/QUOTE]

that is a very refreshing statement, Joshua.

I feel the same way...

[Seemore]

I hunt Deer eat Them, all mature dear are culls to us. Horns do not tast very good.

[tuthdoc]

Whether to call it a "cull" or not is semantics. Every deer I kill is special to me at the time, whether "cull", "trophy", "management" or whatever term you want to call them. Taking out your worst deer so that there's fewer mouths to feed and thus giving the better deer more groceries and a better chance to excel is the number one reason to "cull". If I could look into the future and tell which yearlings were going to be lower end bucks, then I'd take them out of the herd at 1 1/2 years old. However, no one can. So, you go with the knowledge that in a balanced herd with plenty of 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 yo deer, that the yearlings won't get much chance to breed, no matter how poor their genetics. We don't even cull 2 1/2 year old deer so that we don't make mistakes, or aren't as likely to make mistakes, and kill good yearling deer. At 3 1/2, they better show something or they get "culled".

You can't tell which does have the best bucks. So, it's like the wind. If I can't control it, I don't worry about it. We leave the does that have multiple buttons, the does that have triplets, and we kill the does that lose their fawns or don't have fawns, for whatever reason.

We kill culls when we see them. If it's early, then it gets culled. If it shows up later in the year, it gets culled. This buck ate my protein all year. He wasn't anything and never would be anything. I made a concerted effort to kill him and did so in October. The spout that he was using can be used by someone else now.

As far as the 50:50 contribution, like I said, you can't tell which does have the best bucks, but one thing for sure, the offspring of the worst doe on the ranch bred by the best buck certainly has a better genetic make-up than that same doe bred by that 7 point I killed. Eventually the better bucks left for breeding will improve the herd. The question is how long, but you have to start somewhere.

[tuthdoc]

There's that phrase again. Barf.

[q2xlman]

I agree Ragin. I don't want high fences either, I just think that may be the only way to truely alter the genetics in a short period of time.

[BIG D]

On our lease, in a two buck county without antler restrictions, we are allowed 1 buck of our choice. Our land owner doesnt want to tell anybody that it has to have 8 points or 5 1/2 years old because he sees the fact that some folks are tickled over a buck others wont luck twice at. What this does is makes us either shoot a really good mature deer or a deer that we, ourselves, see as inferior. We do however shoot a lot of does. We shoot 20 between us 5 hunters and then our land owner brings in doe hunters one week in December and the two weeks of extended doe and spike season. I guess on average there are around 40 doe shot on our 500 acres every year. We have a lot of deer and are trying to get the buck to doe right before we even think about shooting "culls" as an extra buck. This practiced with a lot of protein is making a big difference that I can see after only 5 years.

[Tuffbroadhead]

Culling bucks is a waste of time when you have TO MANY DOE!!!!!LOL!!

Cull the doe first!!!