ORIGINAL: bluebird2
Since Pennsylvania was previously only protecting bucks with antlers less then three inches, before the change to the current antler restrictions, if there was any chance of high grading in this state it already happened a long, long time ago. Now we protect more of our better bucks then what we have EVER protected before, so if anything we have started the steps of reversing the past more significant potential for high grading by only keeping the really short antlered spikes.
That simply is not true. The 3" spike rule was designed to protect BB from being harvested as antlered deer, and it was not designed to protect 1.5+ buck. We are now harvesting the best of the buck in each age class while protecting those bucks that are inferior for the rate of antler development. That is the very definition of high grading.
Even with the 3" spike rule there was no protected class of deer, BB and inferior 1.5 buck that didn't have 3" spikes were legal as antlerless deer. Now inferior 1.5 buck and inferior 2.5+ buck are protected from being harvested except by juniors and military.
You are either just full of bologna or once again intentionally misleading people to advance your misguided agenda.
Button bucks don’t even come close to having three inch antlers and the past antler restrictions had nothing to do with protecting button bucks.
Even if they were legal as antler less deer the vast majority of those 1 ½ year old bucks with antlers shorter then three inches were making it through to the next season to become 2 ½ year old bucks. Those short spike bucks of the past were the 2 ½ year old bucks that wouldn’t make today’s antler restrictions that you keep harping about. Therefore it was more a problem of high grading in the past. Now that we keep more of the larger 1 ½ year old bucks, that would have been harvested before the more restrictive antler restrictions, that old high grading concern has been improved upon instead of being made worse.
R.S. Bodenhorn