Since you don't like the fact that I used the word "if" here is what Bret wallingford had to say about the number of buck carried over to 2001.
In January 2001, using the ESTIMATED preseason population (which used harvest data) and subtracting the harvest left the following deer to overwinter:
Adult bucks: 55,482
Male fawns: 282,571 (total males = 338,053)
Adult females: 412,803
Female fawns: 259,700 (total females = 672,503)
(Note: all of the overwintering deer listed above will be adults in the October 2001 preseason estimate.)
Since the 2001 harvest was less than the 2000 harvest,which kept the herd stable , there is no reason to believe the 2001 harvest reduced the number of 1.5 buck in 2002. Therefore , the 2002 harvest of 112,384 buck should have carried over 112,384 buck to become 2.5+ buck. But the 2003 2.5+ buck harvest was only 62,030 So the question becomes what happen to all the additional buck that were carried over? Were they lost to non-hunting mortality and poaching? Was a significant percentage of 2.5 buck non-AR legal?
Why didn't the buck harvest return to normal in 2003 as Alt and you predicted? Why has the 1.5 and 2.5+ buck harvest continued to decline since Ars were implemented?