Exactly................yet that is all I ever hear guys telling me......."shoot more does and let the bucks walk"

Why do guys cry when a BB or spikegets shot but don't care when their mom gets killed??.......the young buck is only one.........the doe could possibly bring 6more bucks into your area in the next 4 years.

Can't have bucks without does to give birth to them.

Unless your population is so out of whack that the land is at abreaking point (VERY rare) I see no need to target does specifically and see it as counter productive for hunting management.

I attended 2 Dr Alt seminars. One was a pretty rough crowd. Alt was NOT a popular person.

If you are along the lines of "follow the money trail", PA is making WAY more off of herd reduction than antler restriction. Which honestly never should have gotten to this point in the first place, but the deer damaged the northern tier forests to a point where there was little to no new growth regeneration. And since the DCNR has jurisdiction over that, and money comes from new trees to lumber, they pressed the PGC hard to reduce the deer numbers siginificantly. THAT'S the real reason most PA "traditionalists" are irate. All of them fail to grasp the concept of good habitat and food for deer to be healthy, but a little thing like biological facts isn't going to stand in thier way.

Why is it bad for young bucks to breed??

A bucks genetic code does not change with age...........in other words a deer that will bea 180" hammer at age 4.5 has the same DNA to pass along at age 1.5 as he does when he is 4.5..........just different head gear.

When the ratio is out of whack, bucks overly exert themselves trying to breed all the does out there. In doing so, they weaken themselves more than nature accounted for, and thus take longer to recover thru the winter, and less energy goes into antler & body growth. Also, an unbalanced herd(one made nearly entirely of young bucks) brings more young bucks into the breeding arena and causes the above mentioned stress issues. Their energy isn’t going into growing and developing, its going to breeding and recovering.

Any thoughts to this explaination that I've posted?

It's a balance Atlas. Why is it ok to shoot just bucks

TDM thinking Atlas. What happens the deer do get over populated. Then we have a big kill.

I think NY and MI are similar. We go from deer everywhere to no deer. We are not managing the herd. The key is not whacking does, it's whacking the right number of does.

Bingo Charlie

I mention OBR earlier

That is assuming no die off or hunter kills.

Jeff it's up to you guys in NC

We hammer NRC here in MI every year, change is hard, but not impossible. In time a lot of states will be.

I am not in favor of AR at all, but states should setup tag systems that promote sound deer management. In doing so, only good things will happen.

Here is what I don't understand everyone talks about killing does but it doesn't seem like that is actually happening.

VA's 06-07 harvest #'s

2006-2007 Deer Kill Summary
During the past deer season, 223,198 deer were reported killed by hunters in Virginia. This total included 106,595 antlered bucks, 19,652 button bucks, and 96,951 does (43.4%). This represents a 4% increase from the 215,082 deer reported killed last year. It is also 7% higher than the last 10 year average of 208,300.

NC harvest 06-07 #'s:
AB BBDoes

85,458 8,153 60,662

I don't see a problem with reducingour buck tags in either state and I strongly believe it would help with both population and managementbecause what seems to be part of the problem is yes we have lots of doe tags in both statesbutthe numbers saypeople aren't using them. Whywould they, they get5 or 6 buck tags between both states, I can buck hunt all season (not my mentalitybut it seems to be others based on the numbers). If you reduce the number of buck tagspeople may become more interested in harvesting an extra doe or two. JMO

I'll go along with whacking the right number of does,but isn't it habitat that should determine that number?