the buck to doe ratio in my area was pretty pathetic. id honestly say it was near 20 antlerless to 1 antlered deer when i started hunting in the late 90s.

since then we underwent major herd reduction and antler restrictions...i want to say 2002...

the area i do alot of my hunting is special regs...you can rifle hunt for does for 5 weeks. plus all the other seasons. the herd is definently thinned out. we dont see half of what we used to see...BUT...one thing ive noticed is i atleast see antlered bucks now. now id say its somewhere around 4-6 antlerless to 1 antlered...not tooooo bad...now for all them sub-legal bucks to become legal....for some reason the antler restrictions just dont seem to be doing a whole lot in my area...weve always had the nice ones that somehow make it...and weve always had the younguns..just not as many...something is wrong...we should be seeing lots of decint 2.5yo shooters..my guess is illegal taking of sub-legal bucks, jrs and others allowed to take sub-legals and hunters taking bucks in the late season with rifles, bows and flintlocks after they shed their antlers...

been neat to watch it all unfold...before in PA it was HARD to get an antlerless tag...im pretty sure that if you took a buck you couldnt even use your antlerless tag...so although we see less deer im atleast glad we see more antlered deer...wishful thinking keeps me looking forward to each season to see what made it....hopefully this year theres a couple more shooters...

please oh please guys dont turn this into a PA debate/arguement...im just stating what ive noticed in my area that ive been hunting hard for near 10yrs now...