Thoughts on culling bucks with poor genetic potential.

Free range whitetail antler genetics?

And I didn’t intend to be abrasive or offensive. I reread it and it didn’t come across as I meant.
Haha. Not an expert at that.

Seeing drug companies and insurance companies cause pain and suffering for profit. I know that
 
Omi your missing the point here. Kids should only be allowed to shoot does and should be made to learn to shoot doe fawns. Shooting doe fawns is the BEST animal to remove from the herd. I make no bones about it I am totally against the youth hunt period.
I agree with that. All of it. (Joke).

Watching my sons hunt is one of my greatest joys.
 
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This is spindley. He will be 6 1/2 next year. We have let him walk every year. His body has gotten bigger but only 3 inches max wider in 3 years. His dad had the exact same frame and was a bit wider. We keep him to breed. Curious on everyone's thoughts
At my place, That buck is on the hit list at age 4 if he looked anything like that
 
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Omi your missing the point here. Kids should only be allowed to shoot does and should be made to learn to shoot doe fawns. Shooting doe fawns is the BEST animal to remove from the herd. I make no bones about it I am totally against the youth hunt period.
That is an assumption that I see from many folks on this forum. Not everywhere needs their does killed. A two year old six pt killed this year will likely be replaced by another buck next year. Yes, you may have killed a future giant, but At my place, does are the lifeblood of the herd. My deer are not going to go away if I shoot a few bucks. I have seen the day they almost went away from shooting a few does.
 
Omi your missing the point here. Kids should only be allowed to shoot does and should be made to learn to shoot doe fawns. Shooting doe fawns is the BEST animal to remove from the herd. I make no bones about it I am totally against the youth hunt period.

I agree with that. All of it.
I really hope you guys are joking. "Hey kids come learn to hunt, you can shoot the doe especially if they are really small, but only the adult men get to shoot the ones with antlers"
 
Omi your missing the point here. Kids should only be allowed to shoot does and should be made to learn to shoot doe fawns. Shooting doe fawns is the BEST animal to remove from the herd. I make no bones about it I am totally against the youth hunt period.
Only if there is good deer density.
Low deer density that is the last thing I want to do.
I'm not a fan of the youth seasons either, for deer or waterfowl.
 
Hey Farris and Mort I am NOT kidding. It's time to end the youth hunt once and for all. They can wait till their 12 to bow n 14 to gun hunt like I did and do it by myself. When anyone tries to tell me youth should have rights above senior citizens and wounded vets you truly see how self absorbed society has become and I laugh at anyone who supports this bs.
 
My son does a lot of habitat work and he shot the buck of his dreams during the real season. I could possibly enter the debate on the merits of a youth season. No one in my family has ever hunted one second of a youth season because we are too busy working and paying the taxes on the land where he shot his buck. He's 11. He's ready to shoot a doe after Christmas but our reality is that the dnr snipers will do their thing for 2.5 months across the fence from us starting in mid January, so we need to assess things before we hunt does.

Pertaining to every thread on this site, it can't be stated enough, every area is different!!!
 
Hey swampcat. Just remember when you shoot a 4.5 year old you have to wait 4.5 years to get it back. Are you that self absorbed that in two more years and don't understand the best is yet to bloom in your herd. Going backwards to say you shot it I'm not impressed. Maybe I should show you a picture of a buck i let go 4 5 5.5 and 6.5 and was takin at 7 5. That buck dwarfed spindley.
 
Mort that is awesome to hear about your son. I hope he enjoys habitat improvements. I wish I would learned all this way back when. Please dm I would like to hear about the improvements. Their is so much great information now. I here ya about the snipers. We face our share as well. The biggest 4 landowners on our mile shot 1 doe this year that's it.
 
Hey Farris and Mort I am NOT kidding. It's time to end the youth hunt once and for all. They can wait till their 12 to bow n 14 to gun hunt like I did and do it by myself. When anyone tries to tell me youth should have rights above senior citizens and wounded vets you truly see how self absorbed society has become and I laugh at anyone who supports this bs.
This conversation was about culling bucks not youth seasons until your ignorant blanket statement that kids should not be allowed to shoot bucks.
 
Haha. I was 11 when my dad walked me thru a dark woods I didn't know well and scooted me up a wooden ladder onto a bare tree limb. I sat there til I froze and then he came and got me. Looking back at the stuff we used to do makes me think my parents didn't really like me! Right or wrong I've decided to make things just a tad easier on my kids. No doubt their stories someday will resonate just the same.
 
A moderator calling me ignorant. Classic.
 
Hey mort I will be meeting with someone next week that maybe a huge help for habitat improvements and I will share later if it's OKd.
 
I really hope you guys are joking. "Hey kids come learn to hunt, you can shoot the doe especially if they are really small, but only the adult men get to shoot the ones with antlers"
I'd be curious to know how many of the people with his mindset have kids that hunt with them when their adults.

Hey son, I'm going to keep you in the nursery until you're 18 and able to have a full time job, then throw you out there and have you go function.

That might be the dumbest thing I've ever read from a hunting tradition sense and from a parenting perspective. And I live around people who think essential oils will cure cancer.

If a big buck is worth losing that quality time with your kids in the woods and not helping them taste some success early in their hunting career, then I'd argue you've missed the entire point and are so selfish with your hunting that you cannot see what's important. I'd rather have a relationship with my kids than a 5 year old buck.
My sons have killed a couple smaller bucks, and they've been some of the best hours I've ever had in the woods in my life. Feel sorry for you if you haven't experienced enjoying someone else's success. Must be a lonely life. Hope a bunch of dead antlers fulfills you.
 
I think I need to start being more obvious when joking. Tongue in cheek doesn’t come across well online. Ha

The reason I have my farm is for my kids to grow up hunting and outdoors.
 
I think I need to start being more obvious when joking. Tongue in cheek doesn’t come across well online. Ha

The reason I have my farm is for my kids to grow up hunting and outdoors.
i'm not sure the guy on the other side of the conversation is in the same camp as you.
 
Hey swampcat. Just remember when you shoot a 4.5 year old you have to wait 4.5 years to get it back. Are you that self absorbed that in two more years and don't understand the best is yet to bloom in your herd. Going backwards to say you shot it I'm not impressed. Maybe I should show you a picture of a buck i let go 4 5 5.5 and 6.5 and was takin at 7 5. That buck dwarfed spindley.
Not sure where you hunt, but probably not the pine thickets of West Gulf Coastal Plain of south AR. Look at that chart below for my area and you will see bucks in my area typically start going down hill after they reach 4.5. Combine that with the fact I have 15 adjacent landowners and it is a chore to get a buck to 4.5 - let alone 7.5. Also, consider after 20 years on my land with ten to twenty game cams going year round, I have only had one buck add considerable inches after 4 years old - and he was already a good shooter at 4. I dont hold antler inches over the health of the herd. My does and fawns come first. I have seen it both ways. It did not work here when we killed does at the expense of the bucks. We like to kill four deer a year spread out among the six hunters. Some years we dont do that if the does did not have a good fawn crop. The pic below is a prime 7.5 yr old on my place. Remember - each property manages differently. I have properties 6 air miles apart in the same river bottoms and they manage nothing alike

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Sometimes there are conversations on this forum that I am just totally ignorant about...mid-west DNR issues, regional issues, wolves, CRP talk,. But I like learning.

Not understanding the implications of the youth hunt. How does it affect you guys that don't want it? Trying to figure out how the age of the hunter pulling the trigger has any impact on what you do as a deer hunter? I assume I must be missing something about specific management implications of a youth hunt where they are allowed and why there is some angst about them.
 
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