I assume that everyone culling these inferior bucks are letting their biggest and best walk? That is your stated objective after all.....

Well, I'm not one of those rocket surgeon deer biologist, but I know that what I did worked. And I have plenty of bucks on the property.

I think this is the one you're talking about. Yes, in summary, the majority of the SOOS deer studied could be attributed to injury if you make an allowance that previous studies have shown body injuries to result in odd antler development. Remember, this study only looked at the skull plate. The author states that an allowance has to be made for bodily injury which couldn't be seen on the skull plate. Factor those things together and it basically says that SOOS is not a genetic trait. As far as science is concerned there is high probability that all SOOS deer are due to injury.

https://www.qdma.com/spike-one-side-genetics-injury/

nope i not implying that at all

Back to Joe's original post, the definition of "cull" is unique to each hunter. As stated by others, if you think you're doing it to control free range genetics, you're pissing in the wind.

However, culling is a real world practice in trophy deer management. It's not necessarily to control the genetics as much as it is to remove the undesirables so they don't continue eat food that could be had by the true trophies. Culling in trophy management is a very difficult practice. That's why most trophy ranches will send a guide with you and tell you which deer can and can't be shot. They want to remove the 3 year old and older bucks that will never make true trophies. Determining a deer's age accurately and assessing whether he has trophy potential or not is not something the average hunter does well.

I meant to post early that there certainly is the component of removing another mouth that is competing for resources, but that certainly depends on the property.

YEP..I dont Cull deer...I only hunt for mature bucks that I would put on the wall hopefully.

Im older, and have shot a passel of good uns. We need 1 deer to eat a year now that my sons gone..and Id rather tag one good un...then 5 does and a cull anyday.

That said..to each his own. Im just particular these days.

Again..that said..I was lucky and harvested a few good uns this year between the 1 bow kill in Bama, my one gun kill in Bama and my one out of state hunt...Ive got my freezer stocked for the year..and fed a few families of my friends that dont hunt.

I just needed some good turkey ground now and Ill be happy

I shot a rare real 169 5/8 ths inch 14 pt buck in Bama.

He had a TOTAL of 4 inches in brow tines. Brow tines arent a big factor in BC score thats for sure.

Some places have lousy brows...but some have 4-6 inches each side. Wow.. 8 -12 inches total compared to 4 inches my buck had.

But I had MULTIPLE 8 1/2 to 7 inch MASS scores on my buck. Whats 2 lousy brow tines.. when you have 5 mass scores of 8 1/2 to 7 inches? Thats over 40 inches added to the other 3 mass scores.

Some deer just have lousy brows.. but brows are the SMALLEST of all antlers anyway!

and I dont even fully judge a deer until 4 -5 years old. They can BLOW UP after 3...but thats just IMHO.

If it works for yall..have at it! I just dont put much weight in brow tines score at all. Im ALL about MASS.

then again..Im a deer watcher. I just like LOOKIN at em.

In my opinion, buck dispersion is one of the main reasons it does little good to try and manage a gene off of your property. When last year’s buck fawns leave mama as a 1 year old….he may relocate a long ways from where he was born. Many of the older bucks that are on your land were likely not born there. You get an influx of new young bucks every year from the surrounding area. The fact you shot that big 6 makes little difference as to which young bucks randomly move in.

If you had a jam up place with a ton of deer and really wanted to “cull” bucks….then you would take out the inferior 2-3 year old bucks that exhibited weak antler characteristics and leave the young 9 or 10 points, etc to get older…..It’s being done more because of social carrying capacity than it is to try and effect genetic makeup.

Kill all the deer and release breeder deer. Should help some if you could do that.

Another variable to throw into the equation is the distance bucks range during the rut. I've read studies where collard bucks traveled 10 miles during the rut. So, how are you gonna stop a "cull buck" visiting your does from 5 miles up the road in the middle of the night? It just seems to make sense to just shoot mature bucks, no matter how the racks look.

"Culling" a buck does nothing to the genetic makeup of your deer herd. The only thing culling does is makes the shooter feel better about shooting an ugly duckling or undesirable buck. People that believe they can cull a gene out of the herd fail to recognize the fact that probably every deer on their property carries the gene they want to remove. It's not about what genes are carried, it's about what genes are expressed. Genetics are way too complex to be managed with a bullet.

As mentioned earlier, culling simply to remove undesirables from the herd to leave more resources for the desirables is the only real world reason to cull. This is done in highly controlled Trophy Deer Management situations and it's a very complex application in itself. To do it properly, the individual buck must be allowed to age and be monitored to see what genes he is gonna express. That's why pay ranches allow hunters to come in and take "management " bucks at reduced rates. That's a way for ranches to still make bucks ($$$$$$$$) off undesirable bucks.

if its killed within the rules of club or law, shouldn't have to justify to anyone?