The spike issue may never be decided but through out DINWIDDIE CO. thats the consenses. Bad genetics can be a number of things. In controled environments as mentioned, they take anything thats not a basket rack in the making. Yearling deer in Texas have little 12" baskets. We see web racks acorn tips, claw horns, and cow horn bucks all the time,these are good examples of bad genetics in your area. The game dept. has basically put it in our hands to thin the heard in Va. with the laws they have passed lately. We as hunters are only hunters and must do our part to preserve and make better what we have. The insurance co. have lobbyed the dept. for these laws because of the no. of deer related accidents each year. This being said if you think you have too many deer you are probably right. Back in the 70's the old guy's used to hate when doe season came in, they would get mad as hell on a 5 deer day. This was before everybody got into muzzle loading, and there were maybe 2 or three guys you knew that bow hunted. In my opinion we have population boom thats out of control. High powered dogs, tracking collers, 4wd's, cb radioes, muzzle loaders, cross bows, trains, cars, it makes no difference. Every man on this board could kill every deer they saw this year and wouldn't put a dent in the problem. If we as hunters don't take control Hemorrhagic Disease (HD), or Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) might take care of the problem for us. Just food for thought; if we killed a deer every time we hunted they would call it killing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!