I must have missed the rant against shooting BB's, but I do see where that is hypocritical. Sorry if I missed your age also, and if I misinterpreted how your personal preferences were affected, well, that's my mistake too, but I was only going off of what you have posted, and from reading your posts, I think I hit pretty close to the mark.

The large part of my point was that you seem very intolerant of anyone who doesn't ascribe to the same values and philosophies you apply to hunting. The part about anyone who can't, or doesn't want to put in as much effort as you, should take up golf,... that was pretty ignorant. And I know you said you meant it to be just directed at him, but what you typed seemed to indicate an entire class of hunters, actually, "tired, medicore hunters".

My grandfather was a tired, and probably by your standards, a mediocre hunter in his last days, but no one has the right to tell him to get out of the woods and take up golf. He would have been more thrilled with a fork horn than you probably would be with a little 8 point. I just get sick of people acting like there is something wrong with that. That's what hunting is all about, and if you can't see that, than I feel sorry for you.

Personally, I have pretty high standards as to what I will shoot in many places, and actually passed two bucks in the 120's last year waiting on something bigger. But I would NEVER come down on someone for shooting a smaller buck if that is what gives them that great feeling of a successful day afield. What you, and many others seem to be missing, is that for many people, shooting any buck is just as thrilling to them as shooting a P & Y is to you. I don't think you, me or anyone else has the right to tell them they shouldn't feel good about taking a deer like that.

Many of you guy's like to claim it's purely selfish for them to shoot small bucks, but the exact same thing can be applied to the AR situation. In that, those who want to shoot bigger bucks, want more of them, and therefore, are willing to deprive "regular" hunters the chance to shoot a deer that makes them happy in order to have more big bucks for the trophy hunters to choose from. The goals of those who denigrate "buck" hunters are just as selfish as those they belittle. In fact, I would argue that the goals and aims of those people are more selfish, soley because they aim to deprive someone else of taking a deer that holds such value to them, just so that AR guys will have more targets in the woods.

And please don't give me the "health of the herd" line, that is a lot of smoke and mirrors. AR have not been proven in any study I'm aware of to improve the health of the herd. The genetic composition of a buck does not change as he goes from 1.5 yrs old to 4.5 yrs old. That buck will pass on the same genes breeding as a yearling as he would breeding at 4, 5, or 6 years old. If anything, there is evidence from recent studies that indicate antler restrictions actually adversely affect the herd genetics by intentionally protecting ALL bucks with inferior genetics. It's called high-grading.

Now, don't misrepresent what I just typed there. I did not say, nor do I mean to imply, that all spikes and fork horns are genetically inferior deer, but some of them are. Generally, we don't know which ones are until they older, 3.5 yrs old perhaps. But the problem is, that, in Pa's current form, AR protect every one of these deer. So by design, they protect every runt, scrub, dink buck in the herd, While at the same time, they increase pressure on, and removal of, bucks that we know are not inferior, soley by the fact they grew a good rack their first year.

Another factor many people miss when talking about deer management is that programs like this aggressvie herd reduction increase the chances of inbreeding in a herd. In the natural order of things, an adult doe will drive off her buck fawn the following year to prevent this inbreeding. It's called buck dispersal, and I'm sure you guys are aware of it. In many managed areas, hunters strive to pass on the buttons, and kill mature does. They do this in part to prevent buck dispersal (to have more bucks on their land), which in turn leads to unnatural inbreeding. This can also have a negative affect on the helath of the herd.

The fact that antler restrictions are still not proven to actually benefit the health of herd automatically disqualifies that as a reason to support it. The biggest reason for antler restrictions is to increse the number of older, and therefore larger antlered bucks in the herd. This benefits those who want to shoot bigger deer, not necessarily the health of the herd.

You want to brag about working hard, well guess what, there are plenty of good deer in Pa's woods right now. All you have to do is work hard to get them. You don't need regualtions in place to make them more plentiful (and therefore easier to find) to get one, you only have to work a little harder to find them. Yep, it would be much easier to kill a bigger buck with more of them in the woods, but there is no guarantee that AR will give you that.

So, basically, you are belittling other hunters not for the health of the herd, and not even for a guarantee of a bigger buck, but just for the possibility that there may be more big bucks in the woods. I for one do not think it's right for anyone to deprive a hunter the thrill or enjoyment of taking a smaller buck, or to denigrate them for enjoying taking a smaller buck, just so there is a chance I could see more bigger bucks.

Like I said, seemed pretty ignorant to me.