Who believes in them? Multiple times daily on the Facebook hunting pages I see pics of yearlings and little messed up 2 year olds and the people that shoot them usually call them “culls”. They are also super defensive if anybody tells them it’s just a young deer. The way I look at it..... if you let em get to 5 years old and they still don’t have much headgear aren’t they still a trophy since it’s really difficult to kill 5 year olds year in and year out?
I just don’t see where there can be any such thing as a cull if he’s not in a fence. I’m not saying I think you should shoulder mount a 5 year old 4 point but that doesn’t make him any easier to kill than a 5 year old 160”er

Exactly

Peoples gona do what they want to do. The way that other fella thinks it aught to be done will likely be different than your way. So whos right?

"He's a cull" is just a BS excuse to shoot a deer. I think there are culls , but there are very , very few of them and very hard to identify if not impossible.

I follow you Brent, in the big picture there may not be a cull. A few years ago my son killed one aged at 7 YO. He's said he's never killed a 150" , I reminded him I bet there's more folks killed a 150 than a 7 YO. That old ugly thing is a trophy of different sorts.

The ones that actually know what their talking about and understand biology of whitetail deer.

A screwed up 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 year old buck is not a cull. Its just someones excuse to kill a young buck.

Trigger restraint is very hard. I havent killed a deer this year and Ive passed over 15 young bucks with one side messed up, broke off or that just had crappy antlers. They arent culls. Just young deer.

Ive also passed on around 5 young bucks with really nice racks. A couple that are 6 to 8 points and 3 years old, because I want to shoot them when they are MATURE.

Brent is right and a buck is not a cull under 4 years old at least. That screwed up racked 2 year old could be a 150 inch buck at 5 years old.

Their excuse about waiting until 5 years old is "yeah but they've been spreadin' them bad jeans around for too long."

All the while it could of been that nanny doe that was actually carrying the gene trait for whatever they are considering a cull.

I don't believe in culls in the world that we hunt in.

It's meat. I don't eat horns

We got a couple of guys in our group that calls every buck that doesn’t have perfect matching antlers “culls”. I tell them they are just young deer and most likely their first set of antlers. We are slowly getting them educated on the difference a few years can make thru the use of cameras. They are still real antsy but getting better.

Agree 100%

The biggest reason it's so hard to kill 5 YO bucks in most parts of Alabama is because they are shot as 2 YO deer.

Yep by the same people who say they dont ever see any good bucks .

There is no such thing as cull bucks. Any genetically Inferior bucks are killed at a young age by black panthers.

I think a lot of folks that shoot young deer are happy that they killed the deer but feel the need to justify their kill to the trophy hunting crowd. I personally get tired of reading and hearing folks tell other hunters that their deer “needed another year”.

Amen!

What about “cull” does. You know they supply half of the genes so shouldn’t you cull the inferior ones?

I agree 100% but if you just want to shoot small bucks, don’t join in the camp and agree to follow the rules on buck restrictions and then try to claim every 1-2 yr old buck is a cull.

For sure marshmud. I was thinking more about the keyboard warriors lol

A bunch of people who detest being told what to do telling people what they should do. Oh the irony.

I agree there really is no such thing as a 1-2 year old cull buck. But I would say by 4 if he is a big wide 4 point or something that is just really u impressive he more than likely is never gonna be. Seems like I read that most bucks have achived 80-90 percent of antler growth by age 4. If that is so there is really no reason not to shoot that 90" 4 year old. I wouldn't call him a cull, just a 4 year old that didn't have much in the antler department.

I agree but I don’t think you can look at pics from one year and determine that. Last year when I started running cameras on our place we had a bunch of really nice 3 year old deer that I had high hopes for and even the yearlings had some kind of little racks and not spikes. I thought wow this place has awesome genetics. Last year we had a wonderful wet summer and all the neighboring farmers planted soybeans. This year we had a drought and everybody planted corn and those pretty 3 year olds aren’t a bit bigger (some smaller) as 4 year olds. Looking at my pics from this year I’d think my place had just average or maybe even below average genetics. I guess I’m saying If you don’t know a deer’s history you can’t just look at a picture of him and call him a cull.... even if you are good at aging deer.