I like voluntary QDM. If you want to pass on any deer, feel free. But not all areas are alike and the generalization that "all parts of the US are overloaded with deer" is a bit of hype and fallacy that gets perpetuated on web site and magazines.

Why wouldn't a person who says he does not like AR "just shoot a fat doe"? Anyone who would ask that question out of irgnorance has not hunted low deer numbers. You are likely sitting in a DMU that is 3 times over its deer density goals, and wondering about people's hunting in DMU's that are below DD goals (based on 65% of biological CC btw).

I as an individual may want to shoot a doe instead of a young buck. I did it some years going back over 20, voluntarily by choice and dependant on evaluating each land area and from year to year. I consider myself to have some QDM traits, since I also work to improve habitat going back 15 years and I have always chosen bucks or does.

BUT I DEPLORE PA's statewide mandatory antler restrictions. You ask a hunter why he doesn't just shoot a doe instead of a young buck.....? For the same reason I could ask you "why do you need a mandated law to just pass on a young buck? Because you cannot regulate what all the other folks do, thats why. When you deer density drops to 5dpsm, you better watch how many does are leaving in ziplock bags, sport. Or you'll be hunting squirrel only the next couple years.

Not everyone uses good judgement, and in areas of PA where the PGC has gone from 67 deer managment units, now to 22 huge bloated WMU's with little control over where tags are used. In my area, (areas with easy access) the new plan allows huge numbers of doe tags to be brought to bear. In just the last two years our sighting of deer went from 3-4 deer a day hunting to maybe one deer in a weeks time. Why? Because In our area of a county size we doubled our doe harvest ( and this in a county where we have ALREADY harvested more antlerless than antlered, for the last DECADE). Thats why we were only seeing 3-4 deer a day, not 50.

So Antler restrictions for the lazy people who could not have the patience to pass on small bucks voluntarily, really messed up our hunting overall and our buck hunting. On the farm and the State forest areas (we move around) we used to take for a party of ten hunters 3 bucks, and usually 3 does. The bucks would be anywhere from 4 points to 8 points. Now after two years of AR and its one size fits all HERD REDUCTION in Pa, we took one buck in two seasons and it was just an average 5point and now we have no taken any doe since we have not seen any to take!

Less deer = less deer
...and if you think by waiting another 6 years you will Saskatchewan booners popping out of the shrubbery, your a potato head. Ain't gonna happen with 900,000 pa hunters.


Our hunting here is not better, the bucks are not booners. (if you show me a nice 15point deer taken in Sproul, Rothrock, Moshannon state forests, then I will agree AR/HR has made a difference ) So far it has done nothing but draw down the herd. We always took a few nice deer in pa every season before AR, and if you are from pa you know that a handfull of fat whitetails waddle out of a Lebanon or Lancaster County cornfield to get wailed ever year for 100 years. nothing new. Now if you told me it happened in Centre county it would perk my ears up!.


AR/HR in pa means long term a smaller herd with less opportunity for everyone. The last two years our buck harvests have dropped AND OUR DOE harvest. Tens of thousands of hunters go home without deer of any sort because a few wannabe rack hunters want something for the wall? Puhhhhhlease. is that all that hunting is anymore? A competition?


There is no such thing as a free lunch, in order for one group to benefit another has to lose something. You keep harvesting does for long term in pa and the herd shrinks. This is not Michigan or Arkasas where they were harvesting twice as many bucks as does. PA has taken more antlerless than antlered for TEN YEARS! We are not getting a big pop in recruitment or fecundity as a result of taking more doe. We are gettingone thing, a smaller herd which is what Dr. Alt promised. Remember?

AR/HR in PA has made our area almost unhuntable. We can put 10 hunters in the field for a week and count the number of deer so far in archery on ten fingers. No one has even had an opportunity on a buck as they are few and far between. this is hunting next to 80 acres of clover, 150 acres of corn, eheat, oats, and all the things to run a dairy farm with. Adjacent to a SGL that has skads of acorns, but easy access and plenty of hunters.

Pa puts 900,000 hunters in the woods and has given the large WMU's and 1.04 million doe tags. Not a good recipe for seeing lots of deer. No correct that, not a good recipe in areas of easy access and public lands for even seein DECENT deer numbers.

Statewide AR, is not QDM.

Herd reductions also reduce hunter satisfaction.

Areas that did not have a ton of deer before Penna's mediocre plan now do worse because of the bloated wmu's and LACK of real management. Any QDM plan will involve IMPROVING habitat and mangeing areas individually. Pa does neither.

Some areas of Pa have wonderfull populations, and I suspect the dopey comments about why worry about herd reductions comes from there. YOU experience a few years of hunting in 5 dpm based on pellet counts and sighting surveys and then come back and tell us how wonderfull it is to see a handfull of deer in a weeks time and none of them be a shooter buck and then we can all pass judgment on the statewide deer plan.

You might sluff off any remarks now...... but wait until it comes to your back yard. Then you will sing a different tune.

3 years of dropping harvests under AR.

Have's

...and have nots.