Archery
Cull Buck
2/24/12 @ 9:58 PM
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I say shoot what makes you happy. If calling it or judging it as a cull buck makes you happy and you want to shoot it go for it. If you believe culling bucks works to improve genetics you should also not harvest the big racked bucks with desirable racks as you are removing "good" genetics out of the herd as well, it has to work both ways. Not all bucks are going to grow B&C racks much less 140" racks. You will never know their potential until they are mature and at that point they are trophies anyways. I would shoot a 80" forkhorn any day of the week if it was mature, someone else's "inferior" is a pretty cool trophy to others.
Cull bucks are shot by people who have more private land to hunt than I do and try to control the deer herd so that it is to their liking. They don't hunt the way the average guy does. They also have a hard time talking to the average hunter. They typically talk down to them. Some guys try this with less land too but I'm guessing it's not very successful so they shoot lots of cull bucks in their minds.
I shoot scrub bucks at times and am happy with them. A scrub buck is not a cull buck. I just call small bucks scrub bucks. If people don't get a kick out of shooting them, then I would hope they don't shoot them. If people do enjoy it, go for it. That's how I look at it. I know guys who hold out for big bucks and guys who don't. I don't think any of us care one way or another what others decide to do legally, as long as they are happy.
Using this term, or, shooting deer while using the term as your justification for doing it is a little like playing God, reading the tea leaves and peering into your crystal ball. You're assuming that you KNOW a deer's potential only by his rack at a given age.
Any number of things can influence a deer's rack, and perhaps none of them influence his ability to genetically pass on "good" genes. I think alot of people mistake feed and physical limitations of a given animal with chromosomes. But, in the end, all you've got to judge a deer by is his rack, and if you're wanting better horns......
My in-laws had a 2YO spike on their property they called "Beaker." He had a long top jaw and a small lower jaw, kinda like the Muppets character. Saw him as a young deer, and again on what the believed to be his 2nd year with perhaps 1" LONGER spikes than he had the year prior. He was "culled" during blackpowder season.
Again, you have no idea what was going on with that deer. Maybe his daddy was the 160 class 10 pointer they'd been chasing 3 years ago. Maybe he got injured as a fawn and that's why his face was goofed up. Maybe the injury is what caused his horns to be small. Maybe his small lower jaw prevented him from eating well, and so he had almost no surplus nutrients to devote to antler growth. Maybe his fawns would have been given the 160 class 10pt genes. There is just no way of knowing all this from looking at a deer. Hence my reference to tea leaves, God and crystal balls.
Or, maybe he was just a genetically inferior deer. Either way, they opted not to take a chance of him siring any fawns, given his appearance and lack of rack growth as a 2YO.
In it's true term it's a buck that someone (although I don't know who thinks they know what antlers should look like more than Mother Nature) thinks should be out of the herd. IN the real world it generally means that someone shot a buck that isn't big enough to brag about. Although I don't think you should need to brag about any deer you shoot, if you are happy with who cares what others think?
Not only the buck only has 50 percent of the genes but they already breed before you realize it's a cull buck. Cull buck is one with inferior antlers in the mind of the ranch or hunting land owner. I think they shoot them so that when a client sees deer they see the more symmetrical beautiful deer in stead of scrubby looking deer. IMHO but I could be totally wrong . I personally prefer nontypical bucks vs typicals.
The term "cull buck" arises from the notion that one can cull, or remove, an individual with less than desireable attributes from the breeding population. In this case, the less than desireable attributes are antlers that do not meet expectations. The idea that you can remove a buck from a free roaming, naturally reproducing deer herd with less than desireable antlers to prevent that buck from spreading the "less than desireable gene" to future generations in inherently fiction. This is only possible in a captive breeding situation where the manager has 100% control over husbandry activities. I always get a kick out these shows whenever they talk about improving genetics by culling. The buck provides only 50% of the genetic legacy. How can you be sure your does aren't propagating the "less than desireable" antler gene? You can't....
I guess what Im getting at is that you have a show where they are reporting that they are on their third and final day and decide to take a cull buck. Seems as if its not a monster they give it the term "cull buck" to protect the fact that they settled for a smaller buck than normal. Just my observations....sure its not the case all the time.
Cull buck is a term that is used for a deer that doesn't meet that land manager's expectations for improving the quality of the bucks on that particular piece of property.
Those "cull bucks" are sometimes deer that are fully mature, but for some reason haven't developed a good rack, or if they're managing for typical/symmetrical racks, is too deformed. And quite often that "cull buck" is the buck of a lifetime for someone else. When I was doing the television show, I was able to hunt some "cull bucks" that I was tickled to death to be able to take.
I wouldn't get hung up on the term, it's not a slam on any particular deer. It's just a deer industry term that television show hosts have taken a fancy to...
Formerly Steve @ G & S
Displaying 1 to 15 of 23 posts
