doctori-I'm sure if you watch North American Whitetail Institute Dr. Deer segments or talk with the Drury brothers or talk todeer managers with "masters degrees" orask men and women that manage buck/doe ratios and give buck populations a chance to grow up,we do see stronger results in health and quality. The numbers might not be out there but common sense says it's definetely possible. Minerals,dirt, food, water, all play a major part but letting the fittest surviveto be breeders helps the whole picture if we must get technical. Having habitat is a must but we can grow quality bucks and deer where I live, maybe not like cNY or WNY but we could if they got a chance to put some age on.. Columbia county where I hunt was studied and picked to be one of the primest counties in the state to have the potential to grow big deer. Are they talking big deer???? Very few if any. Last year one buck grossed 150 and it was a freak to see Our deer aren't reachingany age. Wealso haveto many hunters hunting this county(overhunting) which manyof us can relate to and thismakes animal quality almost non-excistent!!!!!

I think we are diving way to deep here in this whole subject of AR.

My question is what is wrong for us to want to see and shoot more quality animals where we live. Will antler restriction help us see more bucks and bigger bucks.Will the probabilities be higher. Yes they will.In 3J where I bow hunt the pilot program has already helped this. This year we already saw more 2.5 year old 8-10 pointers harvested and we saw more 1.5 year olds walking in late bow season that would of been arrowed and dead.I personally saw the same 1.5 year olds still walking at the end of gun season a major rarity!!!!I know most of these 1.5 year olds are now alive because of AR. Next season I will be siked to get into the bow stand!

There will always be deer and they will always survive BUT I would love to make my quality of hunting better because naturally that is a big reason I hunt, to see deer and hope for better deer. Is that wrong, is this greedy or just my human nature? We should all want a chance to see larger deer. Like I stated before, what did deer populations untouched look like. Probably absolutely beautiful!!!!! I could not even imagine. I would love to see just a smidge of that.