Doug, Oh, Doug, This thread was not about Alt... It was about management the previous 100 odd years or so, or at the the last 20 to 40 years folks have been hunting. Anyway..... I do believe their are reasons we won't as many larger numbers of larger bucks in the begining years of the managment change that some folks would like or they can twist around. But we certainly do have more bucks in larger age classes. If you've spent any time in the field, or viewed deer from the truck while spotlighting you can see that. It's plainly obvious. Thier are more rack bucks out thier. OOOPS there I go...using heresay to prove my point. Wow, I'd make a good canidate to join the anti alt crowd! Deer numbers do need to come down, habitat does need to improve... which does not happen over night or over year for that matter. Deer will get bigger, healthier, and bucks will have larger antlers and then low and behold the habitat will be able to hold...... a bit more deer.. Imagine hunting being used as a management tool. Not much the antihunters could then argue about at that point, huh. Call me crazy.
The first buck I ever shot was in a group of about 25 to thirty deer, I stopped counting looking for the buck I saw as they came down the hill. I then watched as they all made a turn and filed by me. At least twenty five does and fawns followed by the buck I shot . What a great memory from years gone by....BUT that's not how things should be!! Too many deer, too many does compared to bucks, not enough older age class bucks, all on habitat steadily declining. A lifetime of hunting without discussing, realizing or careing about what we were doing to the habitat, to the deer, to the resource as a whole.... My son begins hunting in 11 years... maybe we can correct our mistakes by then. Juniorpc.