Originally Posted by
Nomercy448
In many states, a hunter can only take one antlered deer and multiple doe. In my experience, bucks with large racks also have large bodies.Shooting the freezer full of mature doe, plus one large bodied, large antlered buck sure seems to make sense - and fits the legal restriction of many states.
I might turn biology on your argument: it's proven that taking immature deer - filling the freezer by being less selective in how you fill your tags - is damaging to deer population both in quantity and quality. So my neighbors who tout themselves as "meat hunters," who shoot any deer they see walking to fill their freezers, are doing statistically far more irresponsible damage to the deer population than those of us who selectively pick off mature, big bodied, big bodied bucks, and mature doe who have already produced multiple seasons.
"Rack records" have been on the books a very, very long time. We've recognized large bucks by inches rather than pounds since before WWII in many states, and it's impossible to say that there isn't an incentive to harvest a large buck. But it's asinine to pretend the nutrition and genetics which yield big racks doesn't also yield big bodies.
In keeping with what Nomercy said here in Vermont we were way behind many of the leader states that elected to go with antler restriction. When we finally did restrict the taking of small antlered bucks it wasn't a biologically sound formula and they elected to not allow spikes to be taken except for youth hunters in the special weekend. Now most states that started that have reversed since it has been proven that over time the genetics suffer since the spikes are saved but the bigger antlered yearlings with 3 to 8 points are harvested. Here in Vermont where the AR restrictions were supposed to be a 5 year study has gone on to 13 years. The Department biologists are calling to remove the spike ban as a non biological restriction but the powers that govern whitetail deer have refused to move. Slow to implement and slow to remove. That is the path that our pathetic Fish and Wildlife Department follows. Recently I called complaining that they didn't remove the metal docks at all of the northern Vermont fish accesses. Many were frozen in embedded with 6" of new ice. They sent out an excavator to break up the ice and damaged all the docks trying to get them out. Our tax dollars in addition to Dingle Johnson Federal funds pays for these accesses and the docks. No wonder many Vermonters quit even buying a license and go elsewhere.