I wanted to discuss a topic that comes up from yime to time. Cull bucks. It has been ingrained in our brain from the t.v. that we must take inferior deer out of the heard if their antlers don't look normal or big enough and now our Game and Fish is considering a slot rule to deal with these cull bucks. It is my opnion that true cull bucks in Arkansas are few and far in between and most bucks given time would grow into nice deer. I feel like the term cull buck is just an axcuse for hunters to shoot young deer and not feel bad about it. Now, If you think that any buck is good enough then that is great but lets stop hiding behind the cull buck to feed our desire to kill. I hope that we do not go to a slot limit, this will result in many young deer being taken out. I am not a biologist but from my experience, big deer will grow anywhere they just need time. The only way to do that is to not hunt them as much and as long. Change is hard and the states that don't have long seasons, expecially gun, and have a limited buck harvest have the best oportunity to kill a big deer. I know that antlers are not for everyone.
Have you ever wondered what happened to all the spikes and buttons and forked horns that i saw last year. Well i would say that they are in the freezer after the first week of being a six point the next year.
If we had a two week gun season with an earn a buck and a one buck limit it would only take a few years and we would see a huge diff. You can feed, grow food plots, minerals fert trees but if we continue to have these long seasons we will not improve our herd.
Have you ever wondered what happened to all the spikes and buttons and forked horns that i saw last year. Well i would say that they are in the freezer after the first week of being a six point the next year.
If we had a two week gun season with an earn a buck and a one buck limit it would only take a few years and we would see a huge diff. You can feed, grow food plots, minerals fert trees but if we continue to have these long seasons we will not improve our herd.