ORIGINAL: chickory
yes it must be just you. Because everyone else realizes that before AR/HR there was nothing requiring you to shoot your version of an inferior buck.
You could wait until your little heart was content to shoot your trophy. No body was stopping you.
The funny thing is that Pa's herd is not your herd, my herd or Joe Blows herd. It is every hunter who buys a license therefor it must be managed as such. There are planty of rules in place that restrict what you can and can't do as a hunter, hence the hunters manual. You say that there was nothing in place to tell me what I can and can't shoot, but on the contrary. Every year they tell me when I can shoot a buck and when I can shoot a doe. They tell me how many of each animal I am allowed and whet I must do with each animal after it has been shot. So if you are saying that you don't have the freedom to choose any more than you missed that boat a long time ago. Rules are in place to manage the herd wether you like them or not. If you want to shoot whatever the heck you want then move to.....oh wait, there is no state where you can shoot what you want, when you want.
Prior to AR/HR and you actually had a greater chance of seeing a buck you would feel "up to your wannabe standards" because there were more bucks availble for you hard hunters. (note the harvest #'s before and after AR was implemented)
No crap the harvest numbers are going to drop. You just told millions of hunters not to shoot spikes and forks! This is the point. Less yearling harvested = the more bigger bucks there are.It's like telling half the country they aren't allowed to drive anymore and then standing there shocked when yearly accidents go down.
Now though, choice has been taken away and we cannot decide for ourselves, we must turnover our freedom of choice to career bureaucrats in harrisburg. And as we know that is always a good thing?[:-]
Once again I refer back to my statement earlier. Since when did you actually have complete freedom of choice when it came to hunting. If this was the case every Tom,Dick and Harry would be out with a spotlight at midnight knocking off every deer in their neighbors cornfield. Now why shouldn't that be allowed? I mean, if you are REALLY concerned about our freedom of choice then this sounds like a much more blatant disregard for our rights than antler restrictions. I'll tell you why it's not allowed. It's because of game management and conservation which is the same reason AR's are in place.
So now after we work on herd reductions you will actually have less bucks to shoot, less deer to see ( and we all know we like seeing deer in the woods)
It's funny how this works. I'm no math genius but if our herd was staying stable when we were harvesting over 200,000 bucks/year. Then how are we losing Bucks if we hervest around 60,000 less Bucks/year. This is Physically impossible. Without AR's in place there would be roughly 150,000 less bucks in the woods. But then again there would be 150,000 hunters who would have a beautifull set of spikes to hang on their wall (or make a keychain out of).
So what you are saying livbucks is a nice soundbite, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If you truly didn't like spikes or forkies, then you could have waited like a good wannabe for your trophy before AR. Or didn't you have the gumption to do so?
What you are saying Chickory is a nice soundbite, but it doesn't stand up after srutiny. Yea, we could have let the spikes walk so we could have bigger deer next year...but...oh wait. He wouldn't have made it because some weekend warrior would have blasted 20 holes in him as soon as he crested the next ridge. Once again proving that without AR's the few hunters who would practice quality management would be wasting their time.
Now you are stuck with less deer and less bucks overall and no matter how your slice dice or chop that, it still means less deer = less deer. And if you take it a step further, if pa doesn't get its herd reduced soon you won't have "more and better habitat" in order to grow your bigger bucks that you dream of for the future!
Now Pa has less deer and more bucks which reduses the herd and improves the ratio so we can slice, dice, chop, cut, or puree that any way you want and the bottom line is that Alt is doing what he said he would. And to take it a step further in one breath you are telling us that the deer population is way down and the next breath you are saying that if we don't reduce our herd then their won't be any habitat for our bigger bucks. So which one is it, you can't change your stance on an issue just so it supports the point you are currently trying to make because it will only nullify your previous argument.
sort of makes it a lose - lose right now in pa, Don't it...
Looks like win - win in my book.