In my opinion culling bucks is absolutely beneficial for your property but not for the reason most of you are debating. No matter how many acres you own, unless its high fenced, a high percentage of the bucks on your property will have home ranges that extend beyond your property lines. Lets say hypothetically you own 300 acres. You put out a few cameras and find that you have three 3.5 yr old bucks spending most of their time on your property. Well the buck with largest antlers is not necessarily the dominant buck of the three. In this scenario the buck with the least desirable rack may very well be the dominant buck when they turn 4.5 the next year and wont tolerate the presence of the other two bucks. By shooting the buck with the smallest rack you increase the odds of keeping the larger racked bucks on your property by reducing the competition for territory among their age class. It doesnt guarantee they will stay on your property but it helps. Think about it how many people have gotten pictures of 2 or 3 year old bucks some with potential and some not so much. a couple of years down the line you get a picture of the one of the "not so much" bucks and the bucks that had potential are never seen again. All bucks that you let reach maturity are going to establish a territory and defend it, why let scraggly poor racked bucks set up shop on your property and potentially run larger racked 3.5 year olds away. Thats why you cull not because you think you can manipulate the gene pool of the entire alabama whitetail population by shooting a buck with short brow tines.
