While I advocate for fewer laws-regs and hunting to be happy, it's easy to see that a lot of the 2- and 3-yo bucks with skinny spindle tines *might* be quite better a year or two later with more nutrition and age.
If you're shooting 5- and 6-yo bucks as determined by legitimate aging and they're not any bigger (antler-wise), that could be poor nutrition-food souces or crappy genes. Or both. One of those can be affected easily - the food souces.
Hunters have the ability to impact two of the three prongs on that stool with food and age. The latter should be the most simple but probably is the hardest to achieve. Depends on your goals and level of satisfaction.
Same thing with turkeys. If you shoot jakes all the time you're not going to have older birds. Shoot one now and then, eh, OK. I think I've shot two in my limited hunting. But I also don't want to be mandated by The Man that I shouldn't do that. Common sense and logic should guide me into not shooting jakes in order to have more older birds.
"Hunting Politics are stupid!" - Farm Hunter
"Bible says you shouldn't put sugar in your cornbread." Dustin, 2013
"Best I can figure 97.365% of the general public is a paint chip eating, mouth breathing, certified dumbass." BCLC, 2020
