I would have to say that the 2-1/2 and older buck numbers are probably up a good deal - Problem is they are much harder to kill. IMO his plan puts more of these deer in the woods - but they arn't gonna stroll by you like them spikes.
If 2.5+ buck are so much harder to kill, how did our lazy stupid hunters manage to kill 52.6 K 2.5 + buck in 2002? Now here is a riddle for you. If we carried over 80K buck from 2002 and we had 1.6M PS deer, how many of the buck harvested in 2003 were 2.5+ buck and how many were 1.5 buck ?
AR was supposed to increase the number of 2.5 + buck in the harvest and if it did then the 2.5+ buck harvest would have been over 53k 2.5+ buck and that means the 1.5 harvest would have been under 89K. Now what does that mean to you?