First off, I don't live or hunt in a big buck area. Warren county is known for lots of deer...not big ones. I took vacation on thursday and friday to hunt.

Thursday I saw 6 bucks. One "unicorn", a 6pt, a 7pt, 2 8pts and a 10pt. I also saw a whopping 4 doe. I missed one of the 8s at 40 yards(miss judged yardage for 30).

Firday morning I saw an 8pt at 7am...he needed to take two steps, but alas he winded me and was gone. One spike fed in a few minutes later and hung out feeding for a while. At 7:15am I shot a LEGAL 4pt(I'll explain in a minute).

He came in behind me in some thick laurel. I saw 4 pts on one beam, drew and picked a spot. Positive he was legal....I released. Hit a little forward and broke both shoulders on a pass thru. He went 20 yards and expired. I climbed down a little while later and found a half rack! I was a little upset that I didn't identify that, but happy that the shot was clean and quickly dispatching. If the other side wasn't broken off he would have probably been an 8 with about 13-15" inside....that's a little above average around here, but not all the area is capable of producing.

SO, in two days I saw 9 bucks and 4 doe. Of the nine bucks two were not legal for me and 7 were. Of the legal deer all were respectable for this area and one(10pt) was an absolute monster. Thursday and Friday were the last two days of the season I'll have to hunt, so I needed to fill the freezer. A doe would have been fine, but the half rack I shot(thought 8pt) would have been better.

My theory on the AR's....
It'll work in time. Don't expect results immediately. We may see some results next year. In a few years we my have some real big bucks running around the mountains. If there is any area that the AR's will help....the ANF and Gamelands will most benefit. It's these public access areas that have way out-of-whack ratios. There is a lot of food in alot of these areas, just not the corn and soybeans and wheat that farm country offers. Acorns, beechnuts, hickory nuts, walnuts, wild blueberries and strawberries, grasses & general browse. The bodies on the woods deer are smaller than that of the farm deer, but the genetics still allow quality animals and lots of them.