Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Opinion on spikes

WOW!

They could be brothers!

Fooled me!

Me too, unless they are injured and killing them is the humane thing to do.

In Nebraska bucks with antlers less than 6" long are considered to be antlerless and are legal to take with antlerless-only tags.

Early season I will shoot an older spike but never a young one or during rut.

There are VERY FEW mature spikes... therefore, most spikes are fawns or 1 1/2 year old bucks. If you want to, have at it... they will never get to be big and mature if you shoot all the babies.

Leave them be. The odds you’re seeing a deer older than 1year that’s a spike is pretty rare…. Few deer don’t go downhill so far with old age they revert to being spike….


If you’re happy with 30lbs of meat and wasting a young buck I guess go ahead… it’s your tag you paid for it

But to infer there are older spikes or younger spikes???? They are all within a month or so in age. If you can tell a 16 month old deer from a 18 month old deer I applaud you..


Hell the kids I take hunting won’t even shoot spikes anymore..

It depends. Most places spikes are basically babies and should be left alone. I've seen a couple of pockets of screwed up genetics where there were a large number of very big bucks with spikes. I think those should be wiped out. Those big, mature spikes will out compete the babies. If we kill only the big branched antler bucks leaving only the large spikes and baby spikes to get the breeding done, we're going to reinforce the screwed up genes that lead to those concentrations of big spikes.

The remaining question is will the average hunter, given a chance to "kill a spike" wait for those big ones or poke the first baby the comes by? So possibly we need some parameters on the spikes allowed .. spikes longer than the ears perhaps. Or it needs to be handled either as a cull hunt under direct supervision of the F&G biologists or via something like Oregon's now-defunct master hunter program which was very nearly the same thing. It can help, I think, if these "big spike" tags are additional tags rather than "instead of" tags.

Age and size. IMO an adult buck with spikes should be removed from the gene pool so that he doesn't pass on his inferior genetic traits.

You very seldom see a buck that isn't a yearling with spikes in eastern Nebraska, as the weather is mild and quality food is abundant.

In Nebraska a whitetail is "antlerless" if the spikes are less than 6" long, so I suppose that there are a few tagged every year by people with antlerless tags.

I's shoot a doe before I'd shoot an immature spike buck.

I shoot several does every year. I also try to kill the bucks I’ve watched for a couple of years with messed up racks. Like a spike on one side for a second or third year in a row. Couldn’t tell you the last time I shot a spike. Where I live we can kill basically as many deer as we want so often I’ll kill 6-10 does a year. I let the young bucks walk but I’ve got a neighbor that kills a couple young bucks or spikes every year then complains that he never sees a bruiser buck….. well no $hit……

If it's legal, in the freezer it goes. That said, in 56 years of whitetail hunting I've only taken two.

My thoughts exactly. I ha e shot small buttons and dies, but only one spike ino er 50 years, all thd test have been about 4x4 or more
Not that t matters , as long as it's legal.
Does with fawns get a pass for obvious reasons though
Cat

You’re not doing those fawns any favors. By fall/winter they are on browse and just hanging around with the adult doe. In areas where winters can be harsh and food in short supply, mama will run them off to keep what’s available for herself. Late season, an adult doe with a buck fawn hanging around, I will shoot the doe every time if I have an appropriate tag.

an adult doe will make it thru a tuff winter a fawn won`t neither will a big old buck . late fall fawns taste very good too compared to any other deer too.

There's no real reason to shoot spikes, you can't cull enough spikes to ever see a difference....... unless it's less bucks in the future. I also don't like shooting fawns - yearlings, you never know when one might be a button buck. Deer are good eating if you kill them at the right time.

Killing tomorrows trophy’s today…

I got bigger fish to fry leave spikes alone

Spikes are good eating.

I'm an American, so I believe people should shoot whatever makes them happy.

This will be the third season I've seen this guy.

Last year the left antler was pressed against his jaw.

I let him walk.





If I see him this year, he is going to die!

Ya!

GWB

It’s probably time for that one to go. You have a good history on him.

Biologists say that unless you have total control of a big area with good forage year ‘round and your neighbors take the same approach, culling spikes is a waste of time. If the buck to doe ratio is off and your does are bred late and as a consequence, the buck fawns are born late in the year, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to only grow spikes. Some spikes catch up, some don’t but if you shoot a spike this year he surely won’t be on his way to catch up next year. The ones to protect are the yearlings with small six or eight point racks.

Lots of folks don’t realize that the doe’s genetics are part the problem as well.