Button bucks comprise 22 percent of the antlerless harvest but fawns comprise 44 percent of the antlerless harvest as deaddeer said.This is my take on the whole Alt management scheme.I can live with ar simply because I don'y shoot sub ar bucks.That's a personal decision but in reality ar has the potential of decreasing the size of the bucks overtime.Read the mississippi report if you get a chance.It's very interesting.I can also live with concurrent seasons and a smaller herd.I see the need to balance the herd with the habitat but Alt's goals are presently 50% lower than the maximum carrying capacity needed for regeneration.We've been below 15 dpsm near my house since 1999 and below 21 dpsm for almost ten years.The deer are no heavier and the racks aren't any bigger than they used to be.I killed a 174 lb 8 point that grossed over 140 inches in 1993.Also,as far as the enclosures are concerned,check out the ones around here,They look no different inside than out.Is it possible there is more blame than just the deer?

Throughout Alt's roadshow he claimed our b/d ratio was way out of wack.It's been around 1 / 2.1 for many years.That's perfectly acceptable in a heavily hunted state according to qdm standards.He claimed we had a breeding ecology problem,yet 91 percent of our adult doe were being bred,most during the two week peak of the rut.He claimed we would double the number of 8 point bucks.He said we would have MORE and bigger bucks than ever before.He said we've been killing too many bucks and not enough doe.The previous deer managers were a disgrace according to him.I guess he forget to check the harvest statistics.We've been killing more doe than buck since the late 80's.HE said our buck harvests would return to normal after the first year of AR.That didn't happen and won't ever happen as long as the herd is being reduced to the levels he's shooting for.Most people that left his antler waving presentation thought we just had to kill enough does to make room for the bucks saved by ar.I guess he forgot to mention the true goal was to reduce the herd to below 15 dpsm(it's now posted on the pgc website).How many of you knew that was the goal and support it?

This past year was good in many areas.I hunt in a few places that saw an improvement in buck size and numbers.Not surprisingly,these areas are private and almost triple the deer density goals.A large part of the state saw a big decrease in both antlered and antlerless harvests.Rather than admit there were less deer,he blamed it on the weather and poor mast crop.I don't know about you but I saw many years with fewer days to kill deer that had far worse conditions.It didn't stop me or anyone I hunt with.We all killed our deer.Besides part of the reason Alt implemented the concurrent seasons was to offset poor weather on the first day of doe season.Why didn't he just admit we had less deer then?Simple,it didn't fit his agenda of slowing down the antlerless harvest.Pa is in danger of losing it's forest certification and Alt can't let that happen.Probably the biggest thing that ticks me off is the fact that Alt is claiming the herd has not been reduced.That statement is impossible to be true if we had the 8% decrease in 201 that Alt claimed followed the next year by the biggest kill in history.Honestly,don't you see anything wrong with that?

If you support Alt,please expain how his claims of more and bigger bucks than ever before will come true if we reduce the deer density to less than 15 dpsm.Also,do you support having that small of a herd?If you don't,then you can't support him because that is the ultimate goal he is after.It's quality timber management not quality deer management.Let me list the deer density goals for each unit.These were taken from the pgc website.1a-9dpsm,1b-12dpsm,2a-13dpsm,2c-15dpsm,2d+2e-14dpsm,2f-17dpsm,2g+3a-15dpsm,3b-13dpsm,3c-14dpsm,3d-13dpsm,4a-15dpsm,4b-11dpsm,4c-12dpsm,4d-14dpsm,4e-11dpsm,5a-8dpsm,5b-5dpsm,5c-6dpsm.Currently,2g is the only unit under the goal.I live in that unit and I can tell you for a fact that when the goals are met,none of Alt's predictions will come true.