If the older buck are so much smarter how did we kill 52.6K 2.5+ buck in 2002 before there were any buck saved by AR. If hunters were any more effective none of the 80 K buck carried over in 2002 would have survived the 2003 season and we would have fewer 3.5 buck than Pre -AR. The antler buck study showed we harvested 66% of the buck being tracked.

Remember ,AR does not add any additional legal buck to the PS herd so we will never have the buck harvests of 203K that we had in 2000 and 2001. If herd reduction is successful buck harvests will never exceed 180K and it is much more likely that the harvest will decline to 110K. After AR was implemented in ARK. the buck harvest declined by 40% in 5 years. A 40% decrease in PS would mean a harvest of 120K . That is what we have to look forward to.