I couldn't stay out of this one, In Crawford county we used to have a lot of deer. Maybe just a few to many, but we have a TON of great habitat here. Many years Crawford was close to the top in deer harvest 10 years ago. Tell me how I can get a youngster interested if I can spot 20 acres of Alf-alfa and soybeans and see 2 deer. Now all we have is old people shooting 4 points and calling their kids/grandkids because they finally saw a deer and shot it. I am a very avid deer hunter, I have access to many hundreds of acres of private land, some close to state lands. In all of archery and rifle I saw ZERO legal bucks. I would say I spent around 100 hours hunting. Though its private most isn't posted because it is owned by farmers. How are the antler restrictions supposed to work when a healthy 1-1/2 year old buck around here with good genetics is usually a 7 or 8 pointer and gets shot right away. But the 4 point might make it through. So they get the good genetic bucks shot right away. The only way to get big bucks around here would be 5 pts a side and no juniors having daddy and grandpa shooting them. Then maybe they could make it to 2-1/2 years old.
All I know is my cousin went for the first time ever last season, the weather was bad enough but not seeing any deer. They are sure making things great.[:@]