So I’m curious as to how some hunters determine a cull on a drought year. Even year round feeding doesn’t help in some cases to allow a deer reach his full potential during a dry season. I remember in Carrizo Springs we chose to shoot no trophies or culls during a drought around ‘97 or ‘98. All mature bucks were down 5-10 inches because of it. We only shot does and pigs. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t happen……just wondering what the criteria will be. In for replies.
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Culling On A Drought Year
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We are still going to take the bottom end out of our 4+ yr olds. They will be down also but they would have gone in a wet year also being the bottom of each age class.
IMO people now use Cull as a reason to shoot the biggest 8 pt or less they can find instead of the bottom of every age class regardless of year.
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We shoot junk....especially stuff that was mature borderline junk we couldn't get killed last year and stayed a lesser junk this year. Gives us something to pursue/shoot and takes a mouth off the feedbill....mother nature's and our's.
Try not to shoot "next year's" deer from last year that are down some. I'd rather see them get another year on hopefully a good rain year next year than shoot them just to shoot a deer. Gotta be careful not to shoot your future trophies.
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We run a lot of cameras and keep tabs on deer. In spite of the drought, it seems the majority of our deer have done well and added inches. Borderline trophy/management deer will get passed by me. I have some 5-7yo deer that aren’t breaking 125, and that’s what we’ll focus on. I’ll shoot a trophy too if I find the right one.
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Culling isint the same as it was decades ago. So many guys are hunting ranches with heavy protein feeding programs. Droughts still suck and they still hurt but when it comes to horns, the effect is not always bad. We kill some of our best bucks on drought years bc of heavier protein use. On drought years i worry more about future age classes of bucks and possible the lack of mature deer in the future, who where born this season but didnt survive bc of the drought.
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We are seeing some of the biggest numbers of quality deer this year than we have in a while. A few real nice ones, but when we used to see a number of spikes and 4 points, they are now all basket rack 6s and 8s.
Drought seemed to have helped us this year. Maybe has pushed them more to the protein than in years past? Who knows.
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