That guy in the pic looks pretty young and healthy...let me guess, his shoulder bothers him? Not like it matters anyway, with the new regs.
A fair portion of Westmoreland County is within the 2B WMU and crossbows have been legal to all for a while now.
Bucks like the one in the photo are rare freaks of nature even in the very best habitat in the country. Rest assured that AR's did not directly produce that deer.
Is that deer that big purely because of AR's? Probably not. Does that deer represent the norm? Of course not. Did we have deer that big before AR? Yes of course. But do some 1.5 fork horns have the potential to grow this big? You betcha!
In the face of alot of research that supports the prospect of AR's producing high grading effects, we may be closing the door to more top end specimens like him in the future.
Have you read the research that concludes the opposite?
[quote ]A close friend has been raising large, captive deer for years, and his largest bucks...who incidentally scored very close to that monster non typical, always sported exceptional antlers (110"+) as yearlings, and began demostrating their non typical characteristics by age 2.5. [/quote]
Captive deer arent always a good indicator but since you brought them up, take a day and visit Double Diamond deer ranch on Rt 36 south of Cook Forest in Clarion County and look at the rack history of their deer. They have the sheds from each year of 20+ bucks in order on a wall. Some of them lived well past their prime years. Many of the truly exceptional bucks sported terribly small junk antlers their first year or even two and the yearlings that started with impressive racks didn't necessarily carry them through. A visit there is well worth the trip.
Pa will never be like Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconson or even Ohio. But we have improved the age structure and as a result, our average antler quality
But keep on praising our inferior AR system, even though there are so many better options out there that would increase age structure more effectively, and likely produce larger bucks within age classes.
Our AR system could be better. With 900,000 hunters it will always be a far less than perfect situation.We could make it better. No doubt. I'd support a spread restriction over a point count. What would you suggest we do statewide in PA?