Antler Restrictions on Deer: They Work!
By Buck Manager on Nov 22, 2007 in Deer Management, Photo Gallery & Stories
If you’re not familiar with antler restrictions, let me just say that they do work! In Texas, certain counties have restrictions on white-tailed bucks, meaning only bucks with inside spreads equal to or greater than 13 inches OR bucks with at least one unbranched antler (i.e. spike on at least on one side) can be harvested. Growing up, I spent a considerable amount of time hunting a parcel of land located in Colorado County. From the time I was old enough to hunt up until 2000, the county bag limit was 1 buck per hunter. After that time, antler restrictions were implemented. Why, you ask? Well, under a 1 buck bag limit only the best young bucks were harvested and the cull (inferior) bucks were left on the range.
With legal bucks now limited to unbranched antlered bucks and those with an inside spread exceeding 13-inches, many young bucks now enter older age classes and inferior spikes are harvested. Of all those years I spent hunting that tract of land in Colorado County, rarely did I see a buck over 2 1/2 years old. Now, to see several high quality, young bucks in a hunt is common place. In fact, the hunter pictured above was lucky enough to harvest the 4 1/2 year old 9-point buck on that same parcel of land.
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A fellow on the Texas Hunting Forum said this on antler restrictions:
Yep, those restrictions work!
My neighbor hunts DeWitt county, and every year he hunted the first weekend and brought back the first buck he saw, which usually was a smallish fork-horn. The last two years he’s taken two pretty nice bucks with about 15″ to 16″ racks on the two, so now instead of shooting the first thing with horns that steps out, he has to wait for a legal shooter.
Makes perfect sense to me, is if you don’t shoot your younger, smaller bucks, you will have to be more patient, and wait for a legal deer, which might take a few weeks, or longer, so I would have to say I’ve seen the proof and it works!
BTW he hunts on the family farm and he’s a meat hunter, and complained about having to pass those smaller bucks and that he could have had his sausage meat already and been tagged out, but now, he even admits he likes the new rules, since those are the biggest deer he’s taken in years, and say’s the horns don’t make the sausage taste any different, but it just reminds him of the old days, and the big bucks he used to kill!
Buck Manager | Nov 25, 2007 | Reply
I live and hunt in Louisiana. I was wanting to know about a buck spike. I’ve heard that once a spike always a spike. Is this true? Or does a spike grow up to be a trophy buck? And why do some spikes look funny? One larger than the other? I thank you and appreciate your time.
Butch Brading | Nov 25, 2008 | Reply
I have hunted a 100 acre parcel of land in Colorado County, Texas, for the past two years pretty much every weekend and have yet to see a buck over 13 inches wide. I’ve had some that were close, but then again its hard to judge them on the hoof. I have elected to pass on them and I am not a big fan of the restrictions. Hunters should judge deer by their age and not the width of their horns.
billy | Dec 2, 2008 | Reply
Billy, if you find it hard to judge the width of a bucks’s antlers, then how can we expect that you can age live deer any better? I think without the antler restrictions you would not be seeing any bucks. Antler restrictions have improve our deer herd.
Jason | Dec 3, 2008 | Reply
its easier to tell the age by certain feature. like the neck or if there legs look to big for there body. i have a question tho. its says u need an mld permit to harvest does during general season why is this. i must see 30 does a day.
billy | Dec 3, 2008 | Reply