antler point restrictions

[Yankee Doodle]

Brian
The area I hunt in NY is truly rural. All farmland. In addition to the APR, we are dealing with the fact that it requires at least 2 preference points to obtain a DMP for that area. This means that to all intents and purposes, if you are really lucky, you may get to take a legal deer once every three years or so.
As you are aware, a muzzleloading license permits on deer of either sex, so at least we have a chance to fill our freezers with a doe during M/L season.
The other problem is that this area is so far back of the beyond that active enforcement of game laws is, pretty much non-existant.
Most of the landowners want some venison to feed their families, and feel that they are entitled to it. I cannot, and will not, argue that point. However, most of them have a gun with them whenever they are working the fields, and venison on the hoof finds it's way into the nearest shed. You can take it from there.
Antler restrictions are nothing more than an Ideal Solution to a Non-existant problem.
Good luck this season

[Brian Pfleuger]

Most of the areas that I hunt are the same, nothing but farms and trees for miles around.

I have to ask myself, do the various environmental agencies in all of the various states have these "silly" rules for controlling deer populations? Not APRs specifically but bag limits, doe tags, gender restrictions, etc. Yes, they all do.
Then I ask myself, when I watch a show like The Crush with Lee and Tiffany and I see a guy who started with farm land and trees and whatever deer were there, how come HIS farm land and trees are filled with more deer than I can imagine AND monster bucks while on your farmland (and mine) we see fewer deer in a year than they do in a day and their "cull" bucks are our bucks of a lifetime?

So what's the difference? The difference is knowledge and control.

There, you have a guy (or a group) that own enough land and know enough about deer to grow and maintain a large, healthy population with proper ratios and huge bucks. Self control and knowledge. Don't let anybody lie to you either. Those guys shoot doe. They shoot PLENTY of doe. Managing a herd for big bucks doesn't stop anybody from putting meat in the freezer.

Here, we have ignorance and greed. The tags don't matter much because there's little enforcement and no self control. "If it's brown, it's down!" Tell me you don't hear that phrase 100 times every season.

APRs and all the other DEC regs have nothing, *zero*, to do with the deer population problems in your area. It's greed and ignorance.

APRs are a way to try to apply a GENERAL truth that every hunter COULD comply with that would make for a better deer herd ON AVERAGE, for the average hunter, than other methods because the uneducated (about deer biology) average hunter could not possibly hope to follow them.

It is generally true that older bucks grow bigger racks. It is generally true that bigger racked bucks are older, mature, dominant bucks. Are there exceptions? Yes. Would it be nice to be able to shoot those exceptions? Yes.

What do we get if we (in general, greedy, uncaring, uneducated hunters, not we "you and me"), can shoot small bucks? We get what we have now. "If it's brown, it's down!"

How's that working out?

[Wyoredman]

Many times out here in the west, our game management agencies use APR not as a tool to manage the deer themselves, but as a tool to manage the hunters of those deer.

For instance, tags in many areas are general, over the counter unlimited type. As deer herds have been declining lately, Game managers have used antler point restrictions on these areas to cause the hunting pressure to decline and shift elsewhere. Many of the meat hunters chose different areas, because they just want deer meat, antler size doesn't matter.

Now, these APR can't de sustained for long periods, year after year, because the fact that they promote removal of the better quality and breeding age bucks. So, managers will institute a APR for a year or two, let the meat hunters hunt other areas, taking the pressure off the specific herd. Then after a couple years, remove the APR.

It helps, but is not the cure all. Deer management is a very complex issue and APR's are just one of the tools managers use.

More important to deer numbers and size is habitat. If the habitat is poor, it will only support a specific number of animals (herd size). If that herd size is larger than the habitat will support, the quality of each individual animal will suffer. If the habitat will support more individual animals then are present, those animals living in this under utilized habitat will be better quality. Over utilized habitat doesn't respond well to APR's, as there are too many deer and the APR's save the deer that should be removed. Doe tags and multiple tags are a good tool for this situation.

Good quality habitat and low deer numbers is an indication of over hunting, or other mortality like disease and predation. This is a situation where APR's may help the population; if too many hunters are in the field competing with parasites and predators, the manager may remove some of the hunter success through APR's and combine that with predator removal. etc.

It gets real complicated. APR's work for some reasons and don't work for others. That is why science and biology must be considered in all deer herds.

I imagine that the places the TV folks like "The Crush" hunt are not over hunted. I imagine they now exactly, to the single deer, how many animals are living off that habitat. They strictly control hunter numbers, and certainly control deer numbers. They remove poor quality animals, don't shoot younger animals and generally have much more control over their herds than State game agencies do.

Don't forget, Game Management Agencies can't just quit selling tags to cut hunter numbers. Hunting license sales are what keep the agencies open. APR's allow them to control things like harvest, yet still sell tags.

Again, it is complicated!

[Brian Pfleuger]

I don't understand the logic in the argument that APRs promote the removal of better quality bucks.

The standards in the APRs that I've seen are veeeerrrry low. Something like 3 points on one side.

There are not many bucks that won't have at least one antler with 3 points on it by the time they're 2 1/2.

Not shooting them when they're 1/2 and 1 1/2 years old means that there are a lot more bucks that get to be 2 1/2 or older. Having a lot more bucks that are older means that more guys will see more bucks that they can kill. More bucks that can be killed actually helps to PROTECT the would-be monster because there are more targets available.

There's no step of logic that says that not killing young deer results in there being the same number of big deer and the big ones get killed while the little ones go free.

The number of adult bucks that don't make it to that minimum standard is exceedingly low. Therefore, not shooting them before they reach that standard allows ALL the bucks to get to a reasonable age. Even if that would-be monster gets shot when he's only 2 1/2 instead of living to be 5 1/2, he still got 2 breeding seasons and he's still likely to be dominant because, remember, the argument is that the other bucks are inferior weaklings.

Now, remove the APR. Who says that would-be monster isn't going to get shot anyway? In fact, it might be MORE likely, because most hunters will be "If it's brown, it's down!" and they'll shoot any inferior spike they see OR the 1 1/2 year old 8 point and brag it up to their buddies. Right? Can it really be argued? Every less 6 month old or 1 1/2 year old around that they DON'T see is that much longer they have to wait to shoot ANYTHING and that much more likely that the deer they do see (if they see any at all) will be the would-be monster. A couple of years of not killing those little guys though and they start to see more antlered bucks More antlered bucks means that Mr 8-point is the only target in the woods. He's now LESS likely to get shot.

[Keg]

Brian..I commend u on what u can see..on what could be.... Antler Restrictions are the beginning point of management.... Thanks for not pulling punches and calling things as they are...
We should all be more concerned about the future of the deer herd than just filling the freezer..... We went a long time not shooting bucks.... Letting them walk.... We are at a point now..where most of our hunters harvest a mature buck.... Mature 8 points at 5.5 are considered management bucks.... We went years not shooting bucks or very few.... We had to harvest one doe each.... We owe it to our kids and g kids..the future of hunting....

[Wyoredman]

Again, antler point restrictions are a better hunter management tool than a deer management tool.

500 hunters with a 50% success rate kill 250 buck deer, 200 of which have 4 points, in an area that does not use APR

Place a 4 points or better APR on the same area, only 350 hunters show up, the other 150 went someplace they can shoot the first deer they see (and the agency still sold 500 tags).

These 350 hunters have the same 50% success rate, so only 175 deer are killed, all with 4 points. There is less total harvest (175 vs. 250), less 4 point harvest (175 vs. 200) meaning 25 more 4 points got to live this year, fewer hunters in the field (350 vs. 500) equaling a better experience for the hunters.

Next year there may be to large a buck doe ratio, and the managers remove the APR.

A simplified version of how the APR rules may help a herd.

Very simplified.

ETA: I use 4 points counted the western way - per side. 8 pointer east of the river!

[Wyoredman]

I don't understand the logic in the argument that APRs promote the removal of better quality bucks.

Only if APR's are long term and hunting pressure does not respond. I should have qualified that statement. In general, used as a hunter management tool, you are correct. Sorry.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Do the APRs in your area actually require a full 8-pt (4 by your count) rack? If so, I would oppose that restriction.

[Tom Matiska]

Brian, my take is that now all must hunt for the same prime breeders. Under old rules we had a mix of meat hunters who took a modest deer at first chance, and some who held out for a trophy.

PA seasons span 4 months from early archery to rifle to late archery and ML. All use the same restrictions. Logic for removing only the biggest racks before the rut escapes me.

We have lots of old woods deer that never grow the racks of their corn fed farm cousins. We have made it harder to harvest a mature woods buck, and are relying on excessive the use of anterless permits to control overpopulation problems in our woods.

Our six point(eight in some western counties) has made open sights and the unaided eyeball obsolete.... scopes are needed to count brow tines.

Simple Y restrictions would help last two problems.


edit.... 6 and 8 means 3 or 4 on one side...

[Wyoredman]

Brian,

Some APR's in Wyoming for mule deer stipulate that a deer must have 3pts on one side, some stipulate they must have 4 points on one side.

The 3 point antler restriction allows for some forked horn bucks (1 1/2 year old) with an eye guard to be killed. Some of the 3 point (2 1/2+ year old) bucks also have an eye guard, and are legal under the 4 point restriction.

So, you see, even the " x points on one side" type restrictions are more geared to hunter number management.

I can attest that just having the restriction listed in the regulations does discourage some hunters from participating.

Another tool that has been used in conjunction with APR's to limit hunter numbers is season length. Our game managers have shortened seasons to allow only one open weekend in conjunction with APR's. This strategy has been show to greatly shift hunting pressure from one unit to another.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Interesting,

Well, here is NYs take on it, which includes the opinions of hunters from their polling.

[ZeroJunk]

I remember decades ago trying to get the hunters that shared the area to quit shooting all the little 4 and 6 point first year bucks. They were in the brown hair it's down camp. About ten years later I saw one of the guys and he was complaining that they never saw any good bucks and that everybody was shooting the year and a half old bucks. I guess it had dawned on him at some point.

Sure if you let one walk somebody else might shoot him. But, one thing is for sure, if you shoot him he is never going to be a decent buck.

Now, I don't have a problem with a kids first buck being small. But, after you have killed a small buck I just can't see a good reason to kill another one when there are a zillion doe around that taste just as good.

Most seasoned hunters quit shooting small bucks on their own.

But, if a larger antlered buck population on public land is your goal it is probably unrealistic to think it can be done without law enforcement.

[Wyoredman]

•ARs had no effect on hunter participation for the majority of hunters. Overall participation by non-local hunters appeared to decline because of ARs.

Interesting! I need to read the whole study to understand how it distinguishes between "local" and "non-local" hunters.

In Wyoming, because our population is so small, a local hunter may be described as some one "living in a particular unit" and a "non-local" as someone living in a different game unit.

In Wyoming, I often drive 100 miles to hunt a specific area, yet consider it a local unit.

Many hunters will drive from one side of the state to the other to hunt, but antler restrictions keep them home.

Interesting.

[Gunplummer]

I am below Tom in Jim Thorpe. Our Game Commission has only one plan. Get rid of deer. That is how it started out. It became such a mess that soon it was "We can engineer the State for big racks." Every time there was a Gary Alt meeting, he would show up with a handful of racks to really make the point. Buck46, you are so naive it is almost beyond belief. Get involved? The Pa Game Commission does what it is told to by the Insurance Companies and farming community. One year my EX hit a deer with her truck and when reporting it was asked what zip code it happened in. They don't ask that when you hit a tree. You are quoting "Numbers". You must have no idea just how we get a deer kill report here. AR sucks as a state wide "Management tool". What kind of management tool allows certain people to kill deer below the AR laws? Believe me, under our AR laws, there are plenty of spikes and forks being killed legally. Add that to the buttons being killed in the long doe season and the woods starts to get short of bucks and deer. If the laws work, a hunter should see small bucks running everywhere in the mountains. Either you have AR or you don't. Buck46, you don't have a clue. I have shot two button bucks on one mountain that were 80+ pounds. In a group of moving doe, how do you get the time to screw around looking for knobs on their head?
Anyway, as I said before, it is slowly getting better because of the hunters dropping out of hunting. That is one thing the PA Game Commission can not control. I don't know what "Other reasons" Buck46 has, but I can name almost a dozen people off the top of my head that quit hunting because of the low deer herd. It does not matter to me, I usually do O.K. and I really don't know any kids that aren't too lazy to learn how to hunt. I shoot as many as I legally want to now.

[Wyoredman]

•ARs had no effect on hunter participation for the majority of hunters. Overall participation by non-local hunters appeared to decline because of ARs.

I just finished reading the study.

"AR's had no effect on hunter participation for the majority of hunters." Yet over 6% of the local hunters polled claimed to have quit hunting because of the antler restriction. They are measuring hunter participation as hunter days afield. Those hunters that did still hunt, seamed to hunt longer, indicating to me that they were enjoying the less crowded fields! Although 12% of locals did say they hunted fewer days.

"Overall participation by non-local hunters appeared to decline because of AR's."

Nearly 8% of "non-local" hunters quit hunting those areas after the AR restriction regulation. Again, the AR's were successful in managing the hunter numbers. 6% of local hunter and 8% of non-local hunters gave up hunting in these areas because of AR's. 18.7% of non-locals that continued to hunt the area, did admit to spending fewer days afield. That seems significant to me.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Believe me, under our AR laws, there are plenty of spikes and forks being killed legally. Add that to the buttons being killed in the long doe season and the woods starts to get short of bucks and deer.

All of those deer are legal withOUT the APRs. How exactly does taking a population of 1,000 deer ALL of which can legally be killed and changing the law so that only 800 of them are legal targets result in FEWER deer than it did when ALL of the deer were legal?

It's impossible. If folks are shooting the larger racked deer, they're NOT shooting the smaller racked deer. They don't have enough tags for all of them. If they're shooting the doe, they'd be shooting the doe ANYWAY, they were already legal.

It's completely illogical that you could start with a given population and make the population WORSE by making some it illegal rather than having all of it legal.

Imagine if I had a room full of 500 mice, 400 white and 100 black. If said, "you've got 2 minutes to kill all the mice you can." instead of "You've got 2 minutes to kill all the mice you can EXCEPT you can't kill the black ones."

Can anyone really try to make the argument that being unable to kill the black mice will mean that MORE mice get killed than if it were a free for all?

[Erno86]

I would certainly not want to shoot a doe that has been seen in a trophy buck's core area, due to the possibility of the doe carrying the big buck's genes.

Sometimes...especially when a deer is trotting along, you can tell the difference between a doe and a button buck ---the doe moves daintily along, while the button buck likes to prance about.

If the forest plant life is in danger of over browsing by the local deer population --- I don't mind legally harvesting a doe or two --- but in Western Maryland, I don't like to harvest does. The more eyes and noses that a big buck has {meaning does/bachelor bucks}...the more chance of his survivability --- that's the same way with wild turkeys {eyes an ears}.

I believe the Maryland DNR wanted to give turkey populations in Western Maryland a boost --- since most of the trapping of wild turkey's was done in Western Maryland and were released throughout the rest of the state --- by bearing hunting pressure on the deer population; so the turkeys could have better food sources.

At first...the farmers and hunters of Western Maryland, were against trapping of wild turkeys in Western Maryland, because they feared it would dwindle the turkey populations so much that they would have less chance of a true quality hunter experience. The Maryland DNR countered back, by saying: their would be less hunting pressure, by the turkey trap and release program, with having fewer hunter's from the Eastern Maryland, travelling to Western Maryland to hunt the wild turkey. Turn's out...the Maryland DNR was right on that one, and they should also be biologically correct on APR's in Western Maryland --- so as to give a true quality hunter experience, along with a economic boost in hunter fees and lounging in that part of the state. It's the same reason for my support for the Rocky Mountain Foundation's introduction of an elk herd in Western Maryland --- with the current proposal --- being shelved for the time --- because of farmer apathy and the auto insurance corporation's anti-hunter propaganda.

[BuckRub]

Man I feel like I'm At a political campaign. Lol
Some of you guys are some true enough hard core trophy hunters. Just because I am, I'm not trying to talk everyone into following my suit. I shoot all does.

[buck460XVR]

Buck46, you are so naive it is almost beyond belief.

Buck46, you don't have a clue.

I don't know what "Other reasons" Buck46 has,

I don't know about that Buck46 either, but I know after reading this,

I have shot two button bucks on one mountain that were 80+ pounds.

buck460XVR will be puttin' on his hip waders 'cause it's getting mighty deep in here.....


I also think it's ironic that in one sentence you chastise folk for something...

Add that to the buttons being killed in the long doe season and the woods starts to get short of bucks and deer.

...and then in the next sentence you brag about doing the same thing twice yourself.

ARs are part of a plan to stabilize deer populations and to contribute to the quality of the hunt. Those plans do indeed take into consideration how the population of deer in an area impact car/deer collisions and how they contribute to damage of local crops. Most certainly, it should be. Keeping deer collisions to a minimum and reducing the risk of folk getting hurt by hitting a deer is more important than Joe Blow gettin' his button buck this year. Allowing farmers to raise a crop and harvest the majority of it in an area is more important than Joe Blow shootin' two button bucks off the neighboring property every year. Part of intelligent herd management. Of course, greedy hunters that don't care about anything but getting the chance of pullin' the trigger more than once, are gonna scream "F&G sucks!" when they aren't overrun with fawn of the year to fill their tags. They don't care if the farmer is losin' his butt or someone's little girl gets killed in a deer/car collision....they just want lots of deer runnin' around in the woods to shoot at. The reason your ex was asked what the zipcode was when she hit the deer was to count that deer as a kill in that area as part of the management program. But it don't make sense to those that don't care.


Brian Pfleuger understands and expressed this well in his statement,

Here, we have ignorance and greed. The tags don't matter much because there's little enforcement and no self control. "If it's brown, it's down!" Tell me you don't hear that phrase 100 times every season.

APRs and all the other DEC regs have nothing, *zero*, to do with the deer population problems in your area. It's greed and ignorance.

[reynolds357]

Brian, Antler restrictions do not promote the removal of the best bucks. Trophy hunting takes care of that. What antler restrictions do is protect inferior bucks that should be eliminated from the gene pool.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Antler restrictions also protect FUTURE trophies. Those trophies don't start as trophies. They have to survive the young phase too.

As I said before, very, very few bucks will not reach the APR minimum. Almost none. They won't be permanently protected.

In NY, the average life expectancy of a buck is about 2 1/2. That means MOST trophies never get to be trophies.

Also, research indicates that most breeding is being done by yearling bucks.

If those two things are true, I have two questions.

1)How could an APR possibly make it worse?

2)What is the better idea that will work with the Unwashed Masses?

[Keg]

Exactly.....



And BuckRub.... Being from central TX..that is well known for havin an abundance of deer.... Very much overpopulated for years.... I hear management has helped Cen TX.... If there was ever a place that needed it..... Most folks don't have the overpopulation problem..... Bucks are getting better and better there now.....

[Tom Matiska]

1)How could an APR possibly make it worse?

We have a few hundred thousand meat hunters here in PA that hunt the typical two Saturdays per year that would put the first modest buck they see in the freezer. They must now press on until they get a trophy, or make use of one of the excessive anterless permits the game commission now rationalizes as necessary to control the herd. The runt buck they're passing on don't all grow into trophies.

[Keg]

Pennsylvania can sustain a few hundred thousand hunters filling their freezers? Wow!
It sounds like y'all need the restrictions bad....

[BuckRub]

Really hunters , true hunters are a during breed. Here in Texas it seems like it anyhow. Sure a lot of people like to hunt opening weekend and thanksgiving but all in all I think there's less hunters than say 30-40 years ago.

Keg, I see you must live close to Fairfield or somewhere close. I live out in the Buffalo Creek Bottom on hwy 79. From Charles Cadenheads place on 79 clean to Keechi there a few houses by road but that's all woods in behind with Tons of wall hangers. But everyone knows where I stand on antlers. Lol