My hunting club is going to make some changes to our rules before next season. We are wanting to be more strict with the bucks we kill. The current rule is that if the buck has a 14” spread or greater he is considered legal but most of our members only shoot mature bucks and let young ones walk regardless of spread. A few will shoot anything close to the minimum requirements regardless of age though. We are all friends, so we aren’t wanting to kick anyone out but we are wanting to change the rules to cut down on the number of 2.5 and 3.5 yr old deer that are killed.

Let me hear your suggestions.

I never could count points, or measure spread, from a treestand.
I'm not in a club, so it's really irrelevant to me, but I would suggest a simple rule.
Just say "outside the ears", for example.
On our land, we have two rules.
1. Have fun
2. Be safe

I am interested in seeing the responses as well. The club I am in is wanting to impose fines on anyone who shoots a buck that is younger than 3-1/2 with the exception of a kid's first buck. They are also wanting to limit the areas that hogs can be shot to hog only zones (not sure I am for this one or not). And finally they are considering limiting the places and times that does may be harvested.

Point and spread rules suck & won't save your young bucks imo. And until your "few friends" stop killing bucks just because they make the cut regardless of age, any rule change y'all make probably won't have an impact...

I've often thought that if you have to impose more rules to make people pass more deer you need to look at the folks, not the deer. Life's a lot easier when everyone is on the same page.

It’s not that difficult to age deer on the hoof. Why not just make the rule “4 1/2 years or older “? I was in a club with that rule and it worked fine

I've been saying this for years. The problem he is going to have is, deer hunting will come between friends. Sounds like he has trigger happy buddies that are fine with killing young bucks.

Basically this. Our club has been together over 17 years and we've gone through all the "rules"....minimum spread, minimum points, minimum age...but there are always buck shot that someone questions being legit. I think it comes down to the members educating themselves more to recognize mature deer in the field and having more patience and will power not to pull the trigger at the sight of horns. Most places have plenty of does to shoot if a hunter wants to fill the freezer. If your hunters are saying the shot a young buck for the meat, if your land has enough does, maybe you should consider requiring a member to shoot a doe before they can shoot a buck.

15 inch spread or 18 inch main beam. Must have one of the two.

When friends disagree on club rules, they shouldn't have to be kicked out when they're outnumbered. They should just move on and find a club with interests more like theirs and still be friends. I've done it, so I know it can be done.

I'm not in a club, but our private property has one rule: if you shoot it, you mount it.

This^^^^^

Our club goes off age and weight. 4 years old or older. A mature buck in our area is 185lbs or better. It's 5 members on 875 acres and We all are on the same page so things run smooth.

I setup 15 inch spread or 20 inch main beam or 3.5 yr old.
Only 1 of the 3 must be met.

We used previously gathered data to reach the measurement requirements.

People still had issues with it, as mentioned earlier. It’s best to find a small number of people that agree.

Generally I like this rule, BUT...how do ya'll handle a known oldashail buck with smaller antlers. I've killed a bunch of 7-8 year old bucks with less that dersireable antlers and skull mounted them.

Guys, where we hunt we don't see a lot of 4.5 y/o deer. It's thick woods and we only see mature bucks during the rut. We don't 5 minutes to age a deer. A lot of times all we here is running and grunting and there he is. We look for 3 points, with some mass, up on both sides. Sometimes we only see him for a few seconds and you really can't see much of his body. It's not easy hunting, but we've been hunting this property since the early 90's and have killed some 130-140" bucks but they're not common. We don't get that many on camera.

16" spread, 20" main beam, 180 lbs. or better, 4" bases... We have done this for 3 years now and it seems to work pretty well.

I'm a big fan of the "3 of 5" rule. This is going to protect most of your 2.5 and a good
Many 3.5 year olds. You can set the parameters however strict you want but I've seen the following work well.


15" spread
18" beam
180 lbs
4.5 years old
8 points

Buck has to meet at least 3 of the 5 above.

We have a 2 buck limit. You can shoot 1 6pt and the next has to be 8pt or better. If you kill a buck early in the year you will hold out for a trophy because your season is over after your second buck.

we are a bow club ( real bows, as defined by the pope and young ) and we go by the state laws , if a child wants to hunt with his father he/she can use a gun ,and hunt according to the state regs.