" Culling" for herd mgt = good
"culling" believing you are impacting genetics = doesn't work
You might want to explain that a bit further for folks so that "Culling for mgt" does not become an excuse for shooting young bucks....
Take no offense, but how do you manage 300 acres? Do you have neighboring clubs that conform to your management system? How do you keep this herd on your acres? We had a picture of a unique horned deer that was killed over 2 miles away from our club.
Not counting your deer with less than 3pts/side, I calculated you have 48 deer/300ac=6.2 deer/acre. Do you have fertile land or feed year round?
The answer is "You don't". Unless you are close to controlling the home range of a buck, you are not going to manage for herd quality. Controlling the home range of a buck (say 1,000 acres as a nominal number) is probably on the ratty edge for being able to improve herd quality in measureable terms like antler size or body weight.
This does not mean you can't manage for hunting. One can make almost any size parcel much better for hunting with good management. It typically requires first analyzing 1,000 acres with your property centered and then the next 3 miles. Don't look at things from a herd management standpoint. Instead thinking about what bucks need and want during the hunting season in your area. Most guys think about food, but that is a much less important factor than security and sex. There may be some places where the surrounding area is so rich that there is little you can do on a small parcel, but that is not typical.
We “cull” bucks to some extent. My ground is at carrying capacity, so we feel like we need to shoot a few deer every year to keep the population from further increasing. On my my 300 acres last year, I had 24 different bucks with at least 3 pts on one side. We have a 1:1 buck:doe ratio. So, I feel like we need to harvest bucks and does in the same proportion most years. We might kill three or four mature bucks in a year - but we generally dont have the opportunity to kill three or four quality bucks in a year - so we select the bucks for harvest by what we consider inferior antler quality in a mature buck. If we have a mature (4.5 or older) buck with no eye guards, or very narrow spread or small general antler size - then that is a buck we would select. For example - I killed a seven pt, 5.5 yr old buck last year that would have gross scored about 110”. We dont kill them so much with the idea that we are improving the herd - as we are that some bucks need to be killed, we like to eat deer meat, and we dont want the inferior bucks doing the breeding. While culling for genetics in a wild herd may not help, If some deer need to be removed, I dont see how selecting inferior quality bucks is going to hurt.
Listen to the pod cast. It points out that there is no way to identify an "inferior" breeder externally. It is toward the end of the podcast when they get into "breeding value". It is about that point in the podcast where they get into how the unintended consequences of intense culling can be harmful. In your case, you are not killing nearly enough bucks to have any negative impact. As baker was pointing out above, shooting bucks to manage for sex ratio is fine. Don't delude yourself that shooting a buck with an antler configuration you might think of as "inferior" instead of shooting a buck that has an antler configuration you consider "superior" has any positive effect on the herd whatsoever.
Probably the biggest negative impact the culling myth has is that most of the deer shot under the guise of "culling" are small antlered deer and have small antlers because they are young. This leads to a bias in buck age structure in the herd. Many hunters want to shoot a buck but don't want the social pressure in the hunting community today of shooting a small or young buck. Rather than just saying I shot it because I wanted to, they try to justify it under the guise of "culling". So, say you have a couple hundred acres, not enough to really mange the herd. You might have neighbors with 50, 70, 400, 200, and 600 acres. While you are all independently making decisions about what deer to harvest, the myth of culling in the hunting community results in all of you shooting small or odd racked (often injured) bucks. In general, more young bucks are removed from the herd than older bucks and the result is that fewer bucks make it to maturity.
If you have experienced hunters on your place, you can identify older bucks by a combination of antlers and other body characteristics. Selecting older bucks (regardless of specific antler configuration) is a great way to have a positive impact on your herd, but it is not always easy to do in the field. Using this as a primary criteria will generally result in enough somewhat younger bucks being shot by mistake to keep a pretty good age structure. However, if neighbors are shooting young bucks given their range, it will be a challenge.
Where I live, 3.5 yr old bucks pretty much show their potential. 2.5 yr old bucks might really make a jump from one year to the next. But even if a 3.5 yr old buck doesnt show much - we typically dont try to kill one until they are 4.5/5.5. Our deer generally start going down at 6.5 - so we basically have a two year span to shoot them. Our average 4.5/5.5 yr old deer wont make 125”
We certainly have smaller bucks than the mid-west and many other areas. Our strategy is to target 3 1/2 year and older bucks. We pick this because it is relatively easy to differentiate between a 3 1/2 year old and younger in our area based on antlers alone. I think this is reasonably achievable by all but novice hunters. If we tried to limit ourselves to 4 1/2 and older most folks would never shoot a buck on our place. We put no antler restrictions on young and novice hunters. It has take us over 10 years, but we are slow seeing more larger antlered bucks on camera. It is rare to shoot one, but we know they are out there. While we have done a lot with food and cover, I attribute most of this to letting young bucks walk.
I personally think the most important class to protect in our area is 2 1/2 year old deer. They are hear to say. Unless you shoot mom, most bucks will disperse at 12 and 18 months. We just like to save those for our novice hunters.
Thanks,
Jack
