GMMAT

I call the one in MY area...."Rob/PA's Buck"!

He's a 4x1 and I'm saving him for Rob!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Jeff

_Dan

Right on BigJ. There is a huge difference between QDM and QAM/TDM. I think exactly what you said is why QDM gets a bad rap. To me, there is no such thing as a cull buck. You can't control the genes by taking certain deer out, IMO. Its just like people, my brothers and I come in all different shapes and sizes, yet we all have the same genes. Same with deer.

Any mature deer is a trophy, regardless of the rack size or if it even has a rack.

huntingson

In my opinion a cull buck is nothing more than a buck someone shot, had major ground shrinkage, and then had to come up with some macho explanation as to why they shot a little one. Any 4.5 year old buck is impressive whether he is a 5X2 or a 6X6. Unless, of course, the only reason you want to shoot a buck is to put it in a record book. Then someone needs to cull you from the hunting herd.

il coyote

A mature deer shouldn't be considerded 'less' just because it has a less then perfect rack. Just because a 4.5 year old deer doesn't score real high doesn't make it more dumb than one that does. It's all about trying to have more big racks running around, regardless of age.I've found that a lot of these high horse trophy hunters aren't in it for the chase of old smart deer, having a lot of bone on it's head is what makes it magestic.

I'd be more proud of shooting a 5.5 yr olddeer with ascrewed uprack than a 2.5 yr. that barely makes P&Y.

buckeye

This is what crossed my mind when I read Rybo's post. I am willing to bet most deer people tag as "cull" bucks are sporting an antler deformity due to an injury, not inferior genes.

An antler deformity due to an injury is not passed onto offspring.

Ishot a deer some may consider a "cull" buck. He was a 3 1/2 year old 5X3 sporting a normal 5 point side on his leftand a main beam, brow tine and a drop tine on the right. His deformity was caused by an injury, not genetics.


[/align]

quiksilver

Good post buckeye - 100% true.

The truth about hunters is (and I don't mean to offend anybody by this), they have no idea how old the deer are that they're shooting, and they don't understand the etiology of an antler deformity. They see a small rack, they just presume that it's an old buck with "bad genes." Newsflash: All yearlings aren't spikes, and just because he's a spike doesn't mean that he's "genetically inferior." They see a 4x1, and presume that he needs to be eliminated because he's "genetically inferior." They have no idea that he probably just has a bad hoof on the good side, or that he's only a yearling. He may have gotten smacked by a car orsplit ahoof.

Sorry, but the gene pool within a free rangingherd is essentially the same. They are all 99.999% identical. Shooting every deer with a scrub rack isn't going to change the genetics of your herd. You're probably just shooting all your youngsters. Honestly, if you want to introduce new genes, you'd have to buy deer from Saskatchewan or some remote area, and have them shipped into your area and released. A physical injury to a deer will not alter its genetic makeup.

I would argue that there is no such thing as a "cull" deer. In my opinion, deer are either mature or not mature.

It's like this: Imagine an early dropped buck fawn - survives his first winter and is well-fed.At 1.5 he's got a great potential, sporting a thin 4x4 rack - 14" outside- good food, good muscle tone. Joe Hunter Asays to himself "that's a1.5 year oldbuck thathas monster potential." Joe Hunter B says "That's a runt 2.5 year old, gotta cull him. He fires and misses. Over the winter,our bucksplinters his lower left front leg in a rocky crevasse. Now the next fall, he's sporting a nice, heavy4 point left antler, with a gangly fork on the right. Now, Joe Hunter A says "that's a cull buck with bad genetics - gotta shoot him before he reproduces." He kills him and never even notices the partially-mended fracture in the lowleft leg. He tells his buddies that he culled a 3.5 year old4x2 and did the herd a favor. The truth is that this is a perfectly normal2.5 year old deer that never reached maturity due to guys incorrectly field-judging him as a "cull" deer.

Maybe I'm crazy.

All that might as well be talk about the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, because around here, if a deer lives to see his third birthday, he should be awarded a Nobel Prize or Lifetime Achievement Award.

GMMAT

Guys I was just making a joke. I won't call the deer I mention a "cull" deer, at all. Fact is....he's as mature as any I've seen in my woods. I had him @ 6 yds for 10 minues one day...and HONESTLY didn't pick the bow up, though. I wanted a set of antlers for my wall.....and he didn't fit the bill. That's the truth.

If he were 1-1/2.....NOBODY would have the green light (nobody that hunted with me) to take him. In my opinion, though......if you can get a shot at this guy.....have at it. I never said it was gonna be easy. I've seen him 3 times all season.....and only once had him in bow range.

He's a trophy, nonetheless. He's a mature deer in the woods I hunt. that, in and of itself, makes him an anomaly. I questioned my thought process when I passed on him......but everything worked out for the best.

And Rob has a deer down here with his name on it....lol.

Jeff

BigJ71

I'm with you Dan, I would much rather shoot something Mother Nature made and not me. There are some real nice deer running around one of the properties I hunt and all of them are a product of their natural surroundings. I was lucky to get a good look at a monster of a non typical not too long ago. Iwonder what he looked like when he was 1 1/5 to 21/2 somebody would have probably coined him as a "cull Buck" back then too[&o].

I do my best to keep the herd healthy and in my case it's taking out some does. Ihavealready killed 3 does to the one buck I killed, the rest I leave up toMother Nature. I find it much more rewarding to hunt a buck that grew naturally witha natural selection ofgeneticsand a natural selection of habitat.

TNBowHuntr

How about these deer? These deer are absolutely cull deer, unless you just want to constantly see ugly scrub bucks year after year. I don't know about anyone else but I dont want anything like this knocking up my does. I would MUCH rather see one of these deer die than a 60"-110" 1.5 - 2.5 year old deer. If its just as much of a trophy, why not eliminate these deer and allow your bucks with better genetics grow up and spread more seed? Most hunters placed in a position to shoot these deer,or a 1.5 yr old 90" pencil horned 8 pointer, would shoot the 8. My question is why if its the same trophy to you?? Why not take out bad genetics, which is certainly what it is in a lot of cases.

rybohunter

I'll give you MAYBE the 2nd pic, but the other 2 bucks are not cull bucks at all.