You would think that a career WCO would have seen a few deer in his day. I have a skull at home that I have had for a number of years. It is obviously the skull plate of a six month old button buck...The deer was killed as an antlerless deer, in rich farm country in 5A. The deer weighed approx 85 lbs, and his buttons are two inches long. While I have rarely seen buttons of that length, they do exist, and the old three inch rule would have protected this deer from harvest as a legal buck, not during doe season. Because bucks shorter than three inches were legal for harvest as antlerless deer, your claim of the old system causing high grading is a crock of crap as well. While it certainly allowed for a very high percentage yearling buck harves, there was NO possibility of high grading as NO measure of buck was protected, permitting a diverse buck harvest, based on hunter choice. If the PGC wasn't so closed minded, or actually gave a crap about hunter satisaction, they would see that there are ways to increase the age structure of our bucks, while reducing high grading. Imagine...our bucks could actually BE getting bigger within their respective age classes ....not just older, and possibly smaller. Oh yeah....when are they going to release some definitive antler data comparing pre AR antler size to current antler data? Cricket, cricket, cricket.......
First of all I would be willing to bet I have had my hands, on and examined, at least a hundreds of dead deer for every one you have ever touched. Besides those thousands upon thousands of dead deer I have handled I have studied reports from others who have documented the ages of the thousands up thousands of dead deer they have handled each hunting season for decades now.
Though it is a fact that you will occasionally see a less then one year old button buck with buttons over an inch long that is a very unusual occurrence. A high percentage of the button buck will have rubbed antlers that are visible above the hair line even though most hunters never see that before they walk up to the dead deer.
Now here are a few other facts for everyone that thinks we are more likely to high grade bucks now then we did with the past antler restrictions that only protected bucks with antlers less then three inches.
Back in the eighties and early nineties the U.S. Forest Service had teams out all over the National Forest checking the ages of the hunter harvests. They also recorded the sex and the antler points for bucks.
What they found was that some years, especially following poor mast crop or hard winter years, that as many as 33% of all of the button bucks checked during the antler less deer harvests were actually 1 ½ year old bucks that didn’t have legal spikes. I too checked hundreds of 1 ½ year old bucks harvested as antler less deer during those years that had a button that was less then a couple inches long though they were often as large in diameter as my finger. Even on a mild winter year as many as 20% of the button buck were 1 ½ years old back in those days.
Then the year following those higher percentages of button bucks harvested being 1 ½ years old they would frequently find that close to 50% of the antlered deer harvested were 2 ½ year old and older. The reason so many of the legal bucks being harvested were 2 ½ and older was simply that they hadn’t been legal to harvest the year before when they were 1 ½ years old.
Those 1 ½ year old bucks that made it through with buttons were the smallest antlered bucks in the deer population yet they were making it through to the next year as 2 ½ year old bucks. They were not only the breeding stock the following year but also the bucks least likely to have quality ranks as 2 ½ year old bucks. Therefore, if there was nay likelihood of either high grading or poor genetics having an influence on the deer it happened a long time ago.
I have only seen one 1 ½ year old button buck killed in the past several years and it was one hit on the road in the fall of 2005 after the harsh winter we had in 2004. Antler quality on even the 1 ½ year old bucks have improved in recent years so any fear of high grading seems to be totally unfounded.
I do still field check some shed antler bucks that get harvested as antler less deer but that is something that has always occurred and always will.
R.S. Bodenhorn