Well, I aint buying it.

In my area, Arkansas, people want to shoot deer. they want to be successful, they want meat. In the past two year (since the three point rule) does have filled that slot - providing meat and success. Also, a LOT of bigger bucks have been coming in, which I attribut to #1 - them being allowed to grow a year extra and #2 - more people in the woods hunting for them (because they didn't fill their tags with a young buck)

What we now have is 40-60% declines in deer population/harvest. the blind AG&FC says "oh, the deer are there, ya'll aint seeing them" - bull. A co-worker hunts 5,000 private leased acres, second gun hunt he hunted every day and saw two deer TOTAL. Thats southern Arkansas too - where the deer are abundant.

On a statewide level, I don't think it QDM 3 point rules can work and still allow the harvest of the bulk of the does. When I hunt, I want to see deer. Our deer hurt is hurting right now, and I think QDM, while improving the age structure of buck, is hurting our overall herd.

I think Arkansas should close all doe hunting in 2002 - radical move but I am telling ya'll, a statewide 3 point rule and a bunch of doe tags will equal a declining deer herd - its happened here.