salty

ummmm let me check my memory,


so the small bucks can grow to be big bucks?

no... thats not it..

maybe so my wife will stop nagging....

nope,, not it either..

doctariAFC

Ok. Small bucks grow into big bucks by you passing on them, don't need legislation to make that happen.

A prsonal desire is not a viable reason. If you think it is, I am sorry, salty, but your priorities as a hunter and conservationist are FUBAR.

Our number 1 priority is to the game herds and the resources first, personal desire falls somewhere near the bottom of the reasons list.

Support your position through facts in the priorities that are well established by conservation principles.

salty

Doesn't matter, I am only 1 person in the crowd. When NY goes AR statewide you can either follow the rules or move to NJ

doctariAFC

Well, don't count it passing. Opposition is too high across the State for it to pass. The largest County Federations are already on record as opposed (including every Federation in Region 8 and 9).

So I wouldn't pop the kool-aid just yet, salty. 30,000+ sportsmen and women are against it (organized sportsmen and women). That number is growing (opposition)as the debate heats up.

tsoc

So every one wants to talk about healthy but no one wants to talk about naturally occurring.Thats self serving and convenient!So if we are killing 75% plus of the antlered deer who are 1 1/2 years old whose interests are we serving? Certainly not the deer herd,our management has been to accomodate the hunter for years with no regard for the natural order of things.You can write 2 page threads and talk until you are blue in the face but no one can refute that we are no where close to the natural order of things.We have been all about maintaining an opportunity for most to shoot a buck any buck with no regard for the true nature of any animal population.So who is manipulating the population?The AR side or,I want to be sure I can shoot a buck side?
Are some arrogant enough to think that their way is better than the way things would naturally be? Without hunting wouldn't the mortality of doe's be equal to the mortality of bucks,factoring out the rigors of the rut and the naive nature of 1 1/2 year old bucks.Would mortality's emphasis be so skewed toward a particular age class?
The answer to all these things would be of course not!
We currently manage for hunters not for the herd.If you don't believe AR is a step closer instead of a step back,you are seeing what you want to see!
I for one am not afraid that I will not take "my buck".I have imposed antler restrictions upon myself for many years,because I am more interested in the way things naturally occur.If I eat a tag I eat a tag,I don't need to kill the most vulnerable age class of buck in the woods to keep my manhood in tact.

tmeservey

doctori-I'm sure if you watch North American Whitetail Institute Dr. Deer segments or talk with the Drury brothers or talk todeer managers with "masters degrees" orask men and women that manage buck/doe ratios and give buck populations a chance to grow up,we do see stronger results in health and quality. The numbers might not be out there but common sense says it's definetely possible. Minerals,dirt, food, water, all play a major part but letting the fittest surviveto be breeders helps the whole picture if we must get technical. Having habitat is a must but we can grow quality bucks and deer where I live, maybe not like cNY or WNY but we could if they got a chance to put some age on.. Columbia county where I hunt was studied and picked to be one of the primest counties in the state to have the potential to grow big deer. Are they talking big deer???? Very few if any. Last year one buck grossed 150 and it was a freak to see Our deer aren't reachingany age. Wealso haveto many hunters hunting this county(overhunting) which manyof us can relate to and thismakes animal quality almost non-excistent!!!!!

I think we are diving way to deep here in this whole subject of AR.

My question is what is wrong for us to want to see and shoot more quality animals where we live. Will antler restriction help us see more bucks and bigger bucks.Will the probabilities be higher. Yes they will.In 3J where I bow hunt the pilot program has already helped this. This year we already saw more 2.5 year old 8-10 pointers harvested and we saw more 1.5 year olds walking in late bow season that would of been arrowed and dead.I personally saw the same 1.5 year olds still walking at the end of gun season a major rarity!!!!I know most of these 1.5 year olds are now alive because of AR. Next season I will be siked to get into the bow stand!

There will always be deer and they will always survive BUT I would love to make my quality of hunting better because naturally that is a big reason I hunt, to see deer and hope for better deer. Is that wrong, is this greedy or just my human nature? We should all want a chance to see larger deer. Like I stated before, what did deer populations untouched look like. Probably absolutely beautiful!!!!! I could not even imagine. I would love to see just a smidge of that.

tmeservey

And Doctori, you need to face reality here, we do need some type of restrictions to make bigger bucks. This will not happen if the state doesn't step in.Yes, passing on small bucks makes big bucks....this will never happen if there isn't a law.Bucks get slaughtered in our region never to reach there second birthday and from our deer cams and local harvest reports this season I would have to say 80% of the 1.5 year oldswere shot.Hunting and deer age could be improved.

tmeservey

tsoc--your post was right on and you said it better than I could have said it. It's hard to write in a rush!

doctariAFC

To be honest, I don't watch TV shows to get my information on deer, or hunting. I work with the professionals from Albany on down, including the citizen advisory boards which are involved in the process of deer management and harvest goals. TV shows are there not to inform you but to market products their sponsors make. I tend to rely more on information from the biologists, insight from the outfitters and hard work with the citizen planning boards. But that's just me.

There is nothing wrong with your desires. Everyone would love to harvest a trophy buck. Reality is that not everyone will, which is what makes the trophy buck a trophy.

You state we may be diving too deep into AR. I believe you haven't dove deep enough into it. Everything we do has cause and consequence, and before we start messing up nature, we had better dive even deeper than I have already before we make a decision that will without question bite us in the arse.

Yes, the results in the pilot areas APPEAR to be positive. But, was this due to higher AR, or, the reduction of hunting pressure, which had the biggest affect? I ascert that the latter had a bigger impact - lesser numbers of hunters in the woods means more deer will survive. But this isn't the right way to go, driving hunters from the woods, because now we are crippling our own abilities to effectively monitor and maintain the deer numbers properly. It takes money, money to enforce the laws (through ECOs on patrol, and lawyers prosecuting poachers, etc), money to compile the information (data entry personnel, biologists analyzing collected info, biologists and interms conducting field studies, etc). And when you reduce the number of people spending money on licenses which directly fund the activities (and I haven't mentioned land management and habitat monitoring or those associated costs, either) needed to successfully fulfill our responsibility to conservation, we have shot our foot off due to desires to see larger deer. Nothing wrong with the desire, but it does conflict with conservation priorities (the herds come first, your desire comes last).

How about we close deer hunting for two years across the board? That'll let the deer mature better than an AR ever would? The only way AR delivers expected results in the wild is through just that, reducing the number of hunters = more mature deer. WHich of course, decimates the CF, reduces our clout to protect our rights, puts many thousands out of a job because no one is buying anything.

Delve deeper into this. The deer deserve our utmost dilligence, do they not? To say we're diving too deep into this does a major disservice to those animals you perport to love so much. I personally believe the deer are worth far more effort than what you have put forth.

doctariAFC

We tried the naturally occurring thing. This happened before hunting seasons were put in place. We, defined by nature, are predators. And it is natural for us to prey on animals. But without control to maintain a "healthy balance" we darn near pushed many of these species to the brink of extinction.

Further, you say we do not want to go natural? Ok, do you remember anything that was taught to you in school about the predator-prey relationship? Or are you making stuff up as you go. Natural predation demands preying on the weak and the young, the healthy and mature. If youwant natural, we would all be shooting buttons, spikes and forks, as these are the weakest part of the herd.

Keep it coming, I can kill your arguments. anyone of the ones you choose to present. I can do so with basic science and historical fact. But, this is fun, and I sincerely hope at the end of the day you actually learn something beneficial.

And where the heck did you pull that 75% of antlered deer number from? The agency in charge of collecting harvest information cannot get an accurate count of the dead each year, and they haven't conducted any field surveys and aerial counts in well over a decade.

Please, let's not make up numbers to suit your own beliefs. You cannot back that up at all.

Here, I'll kill your claim right now.

2005, DEC estimated the total deer herd was nearly 1 million whitetails across the state.
2005 Buck harvest was @ 89,000 across the state. If this is 75% of the antlered deer, this means the entire population of bucks in NYS was @ 111,000.

Which means the balance of deer are anlterless. This makes a 10:1 antlerless to antlered ration.

The ratio of antlered deer vs antlerless deer is estimated between 2 and 2.5:1 (antlerless v antlered)

Get the picture? Your numbers are so far off base it isn't even funny.