BarnesX.308

The other thing about PA is that we are a one buck state. So, guys won't shoot a buck just because he is a cull buck. That would be the end of his season.

As for this buck, I would have shot him no matter what. We watched him for 6 years and got pictures from neighbors of him 7 years prior. He was at least 8.5 years old and probably 9.5 or 10.5 when he died. He was an absolute horse and I would have given him a shoulder mount.

For the record, there was one year when he had more than 6 points. He would have been legal at around 3.5 years old. The year before this picture, he was actually a 5-point. On one side, there was no G2. The main beam grew into a big moose paddle. His name was Csonka.

Bocajnala

In an ideal world everyone would be knowledgeable about "QDMA" and practice good habbits, such as shooting matured deer, not just based on number of points... But since you can't trust people to do that, the only way to attempt to enforce it is antler restrictions. I'm sure allot of young 8 points, which would have potential to be real brutes, get shot every year because they are a "legal buck" even though they arent mature.... And every year some heavy and old illegal bucks walk because they don't meet the point requirement.
-Jake

BarnesX.308

I'm sure you're right. Well, actually, I know you are right. The hope is that this is the exception and not the rule. I'm not sure what the numbers are, but protecting some young bucks is better than protecting none.

It sounds like the OP needs something in place to help his herd out. He's got a serious case of brown and down going on in his area and protecting just a few bucks would help him immensely. A few 3.5 year old Wisconsin bucks would make his hunting experience a lot better. Antler restrictions are the easiest thing to implement. Having guys judge age, and even spread, on the hoof would be pretty tough. Even though point restrictions aren't ideal, they do save some young bucks.

The best scenario is the legal buck that gets saved because the hunter didn't have time to count the points. Maybe the deer was moving, far away or in heavy brush. This frustrates the hunter, but puts a basket 8-pointer into an older age class. Now this buck is a 110 inch 2.5 year old. AND.....he's just a little bit harder to hunt. Making his journey to 3.5 years old a little more likely.

dogbone13

I understand what you are saying about it gives younger bucks the best chance to grow big but there isn't much mistaken can be done with a true mature buck whether it has 15 points or 5. as in the pic that was taken and posted of the mature 6 point.

trigger control is everything. also on another corner of discussion what is a trophy to me, you, your buddy, etc... all are all different but if you can only kill 1 buck a year then it is your choice on what you consider a trophy.

BarnesX.308

I agree with everything you said. Only problem in PA is that we have a million hunters. Maybe 700,000 these days. There is no trigger control and we have lots of guys that only hunt two days a year.

I would abide by an age restriction. Maybe 2.5 yo minimum. I would still like the option to shoot a 100 inch 8-pointer on the last day. But there's no way we could get everyone to abide by that.

Some of us and our neighbors already hunt by these standards. What they do on the adjoining game lands is much more random.

I wouldn't begrudge someone shooting a spike or a 4-pointer. Especially if they had limited time to hunt. But we needed some way to scale back the taking of 1.5 year old bucks.

Oldtimr

Barnes, an age restriction would be as useless as the cub bear law was in PA when we still had it, the law said a bear had to be over a year old to be legal. Half the hunters never had an opportunity to see enough bears to make that distinction. Of course when you looked in the mouth and the premolar teeth were emerged you knew it was, but it was too late if it was dead. There are too many people who don't know the difference in age of deer and bear on the hoof. When AR started you would not believe the numbers of deer that did not meet the restrictions that were killed and that is still happening, the difference now is that it isn't a pay the small penalty as a mistake kill and lose the head and take it home. Now, the officers are not under a mandate to accept those deer as mistakes and arrests and seizure are taking place. They never should have had that policy to begin with and I fought against it when it was talked about as a policy for the first few years. The problem with that as the policy was developed by biologists who didn't really think much about all the people who were willing to pay a $25.00 restitution fee and go home with a deer sans the head. If there are going to be restrictions they must be enforced with more than a wink and a nod for the law to be effective. This year the numbers of buck killed that did not meet AR was up substantially according to several WCOs I talked to. However with antler restrictions anyone should be able to count to 3 or 4, even though some don't and it is easier in court to show they should have counted points than to try to prove they should have known the age.

BarnesX.308

Most hunters can't age a deer on the hoof. And experts can be wrong too. Bears are even tougher. Especially if a bear is alone. They look bigger than they are. Especially when you're hunting.

I am surprised that the amount of mistake kills has gone up. Not that people are getting better vision, but I thought less hunters were looking to shoot a small buck these days than back in 2002. For me, if I can't tell if it's legal or not, it's too small to burn my tag on anyway. That's just me personally, but I thought the mentality was changing across the state.

Oldtimr

There are the few that will pass on legal bucks, most will try to take any legal buck and nothing wrong with that, then you have those who shoot and check after it is down and hope for the best. Those are the ones that the WCO's have to concentrate on. You have to understand that many PA hunters were brought up into hunting when we had an embarrassment of deer numbers and they thought that easily getting a deer by going out and sitting against a tree and killing a deer was the way it was supposed to be. They were and are the ones who complained to anyone who would listen that PA was destroying the deer herd when HR kicked in, of course those same people shot as many deer as they had tags for which tells you a lot about human nature and holding back for anything that was bigger than 3 inch spikes was a foreign concept for a whole bunch of hunters. The hunters who knew we had too many deer went along with the program even if they didn't like it because they knew it was necessary and those who young when it started and have spent most if not all of their deer hunting under AR and HR have come to accept it and as you have seen our deer are in better condition. In the 70s and 80s if a 200 lb deer came into a butcher shop people showed up just to see it, now it isn't uncommon. I have lived long enough that I have seen the times when it was only the northern tier, the south central and part of the north west that was where hunters went for deer. Now there is decent deer hunting in all 67 counties in the state. I have also seen the damage to habitat caused by too many deer, browse lines where everything they could reach was eaten except the ferns. Wildlife management is not a perfect science, it takes some trial and error and adjustment but I think PA has gone in the right direction from my observations.

flags

My native CO tried it with mulies about 20 yrs ago and it was an epic failure. They dropped it after a few seasons. They did the same thing with elk though and it worked pretty good. For the most part spike bulls are off limits in CO and we have a lot more branch antlered bulls than we used to.

Personally, I hunt for meat so the amount of bone on an animal's head isn't important to me. If it is legal I will attach a tag to it.

BarnesX.308

I started hunting in 1982. I remember the days of seeing 50 deer a say. But none of them were bucks. At the old hunting camp, with 12 guys for 3-6 days of hunting, if they got a spike and a fork it was a good year. Anyone who was lucky enough to get a doe tag was pretty much guaranteed to get their deer.