I want the meat. I enjoy the hunt. I appreciate the beauty of a mature buck. But I hunt for the kill. A good deer is a good deer. A big wide impressive rack is fantastic but that isn't my only goal when I go out hunting. Virginia is starting to impliment antler restrictions in the western part of the state. It definitely made sense to impose bag limits when the deer herd was diminished. But now the state is doing it to produce trophy deer because that brings in money.
+1 here. Though, I am not aware of the antler restriction. Do tell. Do you have a link? I am totally against an antler restriction being mandated by the State. If you want to mandate an antler restriction on private property, more power to ya. The State has no business doing so as it has nothing to do with
herd management.
Blur: VA issues 6 deer tags (3 either sex, 3 antlerless), but only 5 can be used west of the Blue Ridge (2 either sex, 3 antlerless). It should be noted that the regular firearms season west of the Blue Ridge is only 2 weeks. VA does not issue physical tags that you can tie onto an antler or punch into a doe's ear. What they issue instead is a card with your tags on them. If you kill a deer, you are instructed to notch out one of the tags at the time you recover the deer (before field dressing, etc). You are then required to "check" your deer via the internet or telephone within 24 hours, at which point you'll obtain a tag # that you are required to write on the tag.