RE: Antler Restrictions (What they found in TX)
The only thing that has been proven is that yearlings sporting small unbranched antlers are inferior per rate of development. Some of the deer in the studies did eventually catch up to their peers, but not until ages 4.5 and older. So, how many deer have you killed in PA older than age 4.5? Our der harvest is so large that even with AR's a very small percentage of our bucks will ever see that age, and my guess is that you and I would be fortunate under these circumstances to ever harvest more than one or two 4.5 or older deer in PA in our lifetimes. The overwhelming majority of our buck harvest is composed of yearling and two and a half year bucks with a smaller percentage of bucks 3.5 and even tinier fraction of the harvest being composed of bucks older than age 4.5. Why would we want bucks possessing slow grow genes to be perpetuating within the herd? If you truly feel this way about deer mgt,I would challenge you that if you claim access to a manageable tract of private land to specifically remove your best yearling bucksevery year. You would have to be an idiot to want to do it, but that is exactly what we are doing. Texas has long been at the forefront of deer mgt, actually decades ahead of the curve, but when their biologists lend credibility to the existence of high grading under point based AR's you and other PGC supporters don't want to give then any due credit. Amazing.