My friend I am from WEST VIRGINIA and have been hunting in WEST VIRGINIA for over 30 years now. Clueless? Not hardly. Where I hunt in southwestern, PENNSYLVANIA (Greene County) there is an antler restriction, must be 4 points to a side, that's something WEST VIRGINIA doesn't have therefore you wont see the "Big Rack" bucks unless you are hunting the 4 southern WV counties that hasn't allowed gun hunting since 1972. That's not to say that there aren't any "BIG RACKED" deer in the Mountain State, just hard to see any when they never get to reach maturity.
RidgeFACTOR you made the generalized statement that hunting WV is down and your only rebutal is because we don't have a antler restriction... thus making "record" racks hard to find, though every year there are beasts that come to checking stations all over the state. In my original post I said other than we don't have a rack restriction. To me that is a double edge sword for my hunting experience and others. yeah the theory is if you don't kill a spike or 4 point then they will grow to 6 points +. Biologically I agree. The trouble is, though i don't own the wildlife the state does, it is what i want to do on my hunting property. On the other side of your generalized statement on WV "Hunting"... your on the greedy side that says "hunting" is big buck killing. He should be excited about killing a doe and if you are a true management hunter you better be killing does, ideally 2 to one buck you kill is our moto (and we impose a rack limit on our hunting property). So, to paint your statement in your eyes, yeah WV "hunting" isn't down it is just that we have smaller racks on percapta. But the deer herd is growing great. To me hunting is hunting. i would rather set in a stand for 8 hours and see 6 does, a spike and a 6 point. then set in a stand all hunting season and maybe see a deer. So, if you want to hunt and see deer then WV is booming, if you want to hunt a 180 class buck then go to OH, Ill, Kan, Tex, somewhere else for a trip. Also have you hunted the southern WV counties? By the way they have openned up gun bear season in Wyoming County this year.
RT1 you are the man! Well half right anyway :-) WVU!!
