Are Spikes a Good Thing?
Filed under: Ask Grant, Deer Biology, Deer Management
Grant, I thoroughly enjoy your website. The information that you provide has been very useful for our property. I was bowhunting with my son (11) and daughter (17) in a ground blind overlooking a 40 acre food plot. While we were hunting we had 15 young spikes come out on the food plot and feed close by us. Is this a good thing? I kept telling my son that in 3-4 years that we would have a lot of shooter bucks and that we need to be patient and enjoy watching the deer. Thanks for all of your help. Lawrence
Lawrence,
Thanks for the kind words! You are correct! Young bucks, if allowed to mature, turn into big bucks! The old adage “once a spike, always a spike” is absolutely not true. If those yearling bucks are allowed to mature and have access to good quality forage, they will produce much larger antlers as they mature. Some of them will have larger antlers than others, just like some humans are taller than others. All critters have slightly different genetic potential. However, environmental factors impact how much of that potential can be expressed. If a buck is harvested as a yearling, it certainly will not express much of its antler growth potential.
Growing (and passing) Deer together,
Grant
