Your last paragraph is why spread should never be a factor in shoot / don't shoot and measuring antlers IMO. Spread ain't nothing but air, air is everywhere. BTW, I could see how your club's system saves a lot of bucks , by the time you figure all that out , he's gone.

Never going to come to an agreement on antler size. People can't judge racks anyway so rules are useless. Another big factor - People act like there are no cull bucks to shoot. If you want to blast something kill one with a messed up rack I have them on every property I hunt. Shoot a doe if you want meat.

Some people just want to kill something. Waiting on a cull buck to come past can be like waiting on a mature deer. They don't want to wait that long. Bam! Down goes the 2.5 yo 8 pointer.

The only way I see common ground is to lower the limit. If a guy wants to shoot a 2 yo deer doesn't bother me as long as he only kills 1-2. Not 4 then 8 does on top of that! What do you even do with the meat from 12 deer? You'd have to eat it every meal.

Plenty of people kill that many don't think they don't. That's about 15 deer you won't have the next season as well.

Cull is an excuse to shoot, most "culls" are not culls at all. And those that are , most hunters can't identify anyway.

True as well in a lot of cases.

If someone can't tell the difference between a 2 yr old buck and a 4 or 5 yr old buck within 30 seconds I don't want to be on the same property with them. They might think I'm a deer and shoot me

mman what county are you in with those criteria? just curious...very reasonable...they would work for us here in Baldwin county.

In the end this is still hunting and supposed to be fun and if you kill a trophy and/or fill the freezer to your liking then it's a plus!!

Amen. I typed this loooong reply earlier sorta about that, but just deleted it without replying. That's part of the reason I talked about being a "rack" hunter, not a "trophy" hunter. I've had a charmed hunting life, seen and killed more deer than many people will in a lifetime, killed basically everything you could want. And I still get geeked up to see a 3.5yr old 15" buck slipping across a cutover!!!! At 250 yards in a belt-high cutover of briars, it's happening fast, you aren't gonna get to watch him for enough time to play that crazy game. BANG!!!! To the average hunter (98.643% of Alabama guys), there is an instantly noticeable difference in a 2yr old 12" six point and a 3yr old 15" wide 8pt, but there is not such an easy difference in that same 3yr old 15" eight pt and the 5+yr old 17" eight pt (IF THOSE DEER ARE BY THEMSELVES). Granted, if 5 racked deer come out on a food plot and you've got slow time to look at them, it's quickly noticeable which one I want to shoot. But seldom if ever have I watched that 3yr old 15" deer slipping through the cutover at a distance and decided NOT to shoot him!!! I probably shouldn't, but crap that's fun!!!

But again, it's property specific. I wouldn't go to Iowa and shoot that deer, he wouldn't even raise my eyebrow.

I'll bet the majority of hunters can't tell the difference, just follow the "how old is this buck" threads on here.

Year specific isn't easy but a 2 1/2 and a 5 1/2 yr old buck don't even look like the same species. The 2 yr old is lean with a tucked up streamlined belly and a healthy 5 yr old is built like a young bull. Blocky, rectangular body, huge neck, deep chest and rear end. Some even have a neck hump. If you've ever seen one, first thought is "damn, what a huge body I bet hecweighs 250 lbs"

ron, thats because you LOOK at em, most don't and never learn the difference

Our club goes by age - buck has to be 4 y.o. minimum and if it is an 8 point it has to be at least 125 and if
it is a 10 point at least mid 130s.

At age 5 or older there are no antler restrictions.

It works really good for us.

Tara Wildlife in Mississippi has similar rule:

Buck Harvest Criteria
At least 3 of the following criteria must be met:
Weight – 185lbs
Main beam length – 20″
Antler base – 4″
Inside spread – 16″
Good tine length

Unfortunately, you're right, but in the club I run you'd better learn to or incur my wrath plus a financial penalty and put yourself in a situation where you might be looking for a new place to hunt. It's all about education. Ill give an example. We have 6 members on 800 acres. Nobody is a meat hunter and were all on the same page. One member, who is only a member so his son has a good place to hunt. The son, who has hunted with us since he was around 12, he is now a senior in college and his hunting maturity is well beyond his years. He killed his first buck this year and he has passed on bucks each year that a lot of adults would have killed but wanted to kill something he'd be proud of and that would go on his wall.
I saw the buck earlier in the season and told him about it. He killed it about 10 days later and it was a good 4 1/2 yr old 7 point. He was thrilled and I was proud of him for holding out for a mature buck. To each his own

as you know it really isn't that hard to learn. My grandson has hunted with me since he was in diapers, and he pays attention to EVERYTHING I say. When he was maybe 7-8 we were sitting in the woods when a buck walked by below us. Nice looking buck. Dylan says he's a nice two year old eight...and he was exactly right.

How many 4 year olds do yall normally kill that meets those requirements, on how much land.

Getting back to the ordinal post about natural morality. Well I have 750ac high fence with native deer along with a few bred does and two bucks we've put in over the past couple years. For the most part the Texas stats are right except for the 1% on four year olds, it's way way more. If I had to make a guess, less than 20% make it to 5 years old. Few years ago, had around twenty migrants come out after tree planting season to walk the land looking for sheds, skulls and dead deer. Took about six hours for them to do it along with three of us retrieving stuff when they yelled for back up. Found a lot of deer that disappeared over the years.

I'd guess 1% is pretty low, plenty of loss from rutting and fighting.

That sure don't leave many targets if you are only hunting 5 year old and older bucks. Kind of disheartening actually. I knew mortality was high for bucks but had no ideal it was as high as it is before I started reading some of these studies. If you were hunting 640 acres 1 square mile and the area had 40 deer per square mile and a doe/buck ratio of 2/1 this would be a above average area in AL. You would have 26 does if said does raised an average of 1.25 fawns which would be above average probably you would have 16 buck fawns if 20% made it to 5 years old that would leave 3 bucks. This would be on above average to excellent area of the state and still only 3 bucks per square mile on average. Most of us are hunting land that would be inferior to property with these numbers. Kind of a sobering thought. And really tells me maybe it ain't that those old bucks are that hard to kill more than it is you can't kill what ain't there.

To the OP, I wonder how that all changes in hunted deer herd?

or does it?

There was a documentary month life of a whitetail buck, Marty Stoufer maybe?

The buck died from breeding stress at age 4.5 or 5.5 if I recall correctly. Just wore himself out. It followed him from the time he was born to his natural death.

Without a doubt in a hunted population those numbers would be less. How much would depend on how many bucks you were killing in the 1.5- 2.5 - 3.5 age classes.