Windwalker,

I also agree with almost everything you said. With an exception of it all being done to grow larger bucks.

The PCG has piggy backed the herd reduction with the ARs to try and maintain hunter support. However, if the deer herd is over harvested ARs cannot even come close to obtainining its potential. Because it reduces the number of little bucks being born, that over time grow into the larger bucks.

Before ARs were introduced We still had a few big / mature deer. This shows that it is not a lack of food that reduced our mature deer population. The biggest hold back was the fact that we shot most of the bucks at 1 1/2 years old. Before they ever had a chance to mature.

I aggree that if the PGC is going to introduce ARs we should also reduce the numbers of doe slightly to accomodate for the increased number of bucks(thus closely maintaining the total deer population). However, in my opinion this 'slight' reduction has been way over done.

Its my thoughts also that if we were to keep the AR's and go back to a traditional 3 day doe season, and properly manage the allocated number of doe permits, we would see a great increase in number of deer we see, and many of these deer would be more mature bucks.