I picked up the Mar/ Apr 2009 issue of Bowhunter magazine last week, and found a very intersting piece on the new anler restrictions in TX. I wish I could find a link to the article....it outlined some key differences in the way TX went about instituting these changes in comparison to te way it was done and is currently being done in PA. I did find a link to TX Parks and Wildlife Department that specifies the current restictions with a visual aid. Very intersting that TX designed their regs to allow for harvest of spikes, and even deer sporting one unbranched antler. Their restriction is primarily spread based, while allowing for harvest of sub prime animals sporting either mature, yet abnormally narrow racks, and unbranched antlers. Interestingly, these regs are very similar to what I envisioned as being a superior method to our current system. Here are a few exceptf from the article:
"Data from Texas shows that 25% of all yearlings are spikes, while 93% of all spikes ae yearlings. In other words, hunters could take every spike form the yearling age clas, and still leave 75% of yearlings alive and well in the field." -
This corresponds roughly to my laymans pespective. I would say in my hunting areas that approx 1/4 of yearlings I observe are spikes, and that 90% or better of spikes that I observe are yearling bucks.
"Additionally, this strategy may have helped reduce any high grading in the 1 1/2 year old age class. High grading means that hunters harvest all the top end bucks and leave the lower quality bucks (spikes) to breed....Allowing the hunters the opportunity to take spikes seemed to make most people happy, and believe it or not, the AR were easier to sell to youth hunters than older hunters." - So, while PA AR proponents vehemently deny the possibility of AR's causing high grading, the TX biologists where aware and concerned of that possibility, and took steps to reduce its effect.The spike slot was well recieved by the public, and wait.....it gets better.
"As Carroll and his biologists predicted, within one year, the toatal number of bucks harvested was the same as it was prior to antler restrictions. Interestingly, after thre years the total number of spikes harvested dropped from 42 % to 19 %. Since the original six counties in the study had one buck limits, it was believed hunters were passing on spikes in hopes of taking mature bucks. The previous ten years of data from those six counties showed that 1.5 AND 2.5 YEAR OLD BUCKS COMPRISED 80 PERCENT OF THE HARVEST. After three years of the new rules, only 29% of bucks harvested were younger than 3.5 years! "Prior to antler restrictions, if the typical hunters did not see a buck in the first three or four hunts, the chance to even see a buck the rest of the hunting season became slim." Carrol said. "Nowadays, it's not uncommon for a hunter to see several bucks every time he goes out. Many hunters are now passing on bucks in the thirteen inch range, in hopes of seeing just how big some of these bucks will get." -So, TX predicted that after the first year their buck harvest would return to normal and it did. Why did PA fail and still fails to accomplish this? Could you imagine if by changing our regs, that we could possibly see results similar to those of TX? 71% of bucks killed age 3.5 and older! Another thing that truly stuck out to me as I read the article was the constant mention of hunter satisfaction. A point that has gone completely by the wayside in PA. Proven by the crossbow vote, continued HR in many areas, and the degrading comments made by RSB and other PGC employees, recently.
Here is the link I did find. It outlines the Texas AR's in detail. I highly reccommend buying the magazine and reading the entire article.
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/game_management/deer/antler_restrictions/
I particularly enjoyed this little excerpt from the link above:
With so many more "quality" bucks available for harvest, and only 1 buck tag available, few hunters chose to use their only buck tag on a spike. The likely result was high-grading of the buck population. Therefore, the regulation was modified (adding a second buck to the bag, which must be restricted to a buck with at least 1 unbranched antler) to allow more hunting opportunity while minimizing the risk of high-grading. As a result, the incidence of "spikes" in the harvest increased slightly as expected.
Many of the southeastern states have antler-point restrictions, where they protect they bottom end of the herd, and make the better quality yearlings vulnerable to harvest. For example, one state has a rule that protects all bucks that don't have at least 3 points on one antler. Therefore, the 6-point and 8-point yearlings are available for harvest, while the bucks with less antler potential (e.g., spikes) are protected. Another state has a 4-point rule, which protects all bucks with less than 4 points. These and other southeastern states are taking a hard look at their data, and questioning whether they should be continuing with such a harvest strategy. Most biologists agree that improving the age structure of a buck herd is beneficial; however, many southeastern biologists simply don't think that protecting only the poor-quality yearlings has been the best approach. We (TPWD) agree.