Quote:

and compare two states that are HUGELY different in terms of habitat.

But are they really that different? Wouldn't quality agricultural land in Lancaster county PA be basically as good as the habitat in Pike county Illinois? I believe this thread was started to show that the PGC is not factoring in quality ag land as being able to suport much higher DD than contigious forest land.
Yes, that seems to be the case. There has been a pronounced shift in deer hunting everywhere towards harvesting mature bucks. I think this was slowly becoming more prevalent in PA, even before the institution of the AR's. Our knowledge of deer behavior and hunting strategies has increased dramatically in the last two decades. Not to mention the phenomenal growth of bowhunting. Know that I am not opposed to the concept of AR's. I disagree with the method. It would be hard to argue that APR's are not protecting a significant portion of yearling bucks, butI have concerns for the long term effects as witnessed in several other states. After reading as much as I could about them, I still believe a spread restriction would be more effective, and possibly avoid some of the potential negatives inherent of a point based system. I'm afraid as more and more hunters toss in the towel in PA, and everywhere, that we will reach a point where those of us that remain will be left with the task of harvesting a large amount of deer/ hunter, or risk being replaced by another method.I strongly disagree with the extent of HR accomplished at the state level. There were places it just wasn't needed to that extent. I feel that the PGC is not going to intentionally allow the herd to increase significantly, but that it eventually will on it's own, due to lack of hunter participation. We already are seeing growing numbers of hunters unwilling to shoot does. When enough hunters give it up, the rest of us will have a daunting task ahead of us, to try and manage a herd with much less manpower than we had a decade or two ago, and then we will have real problems. One more reason the PGC needs to factor hunter satisfaction back into the equation. Lose enough hunters, and all of their "progress" will be for nothing anyway.

I couldn't have said it any better myself. While Alt denigrated the hunters of PA I doubt that anyone can cite any state where the hunters reduced the herd as much and in such a short time period as the PA hunters. Many states have multiple buck harvests and and as high as 5 doe/hunter antlerless harvests and still can't reduce their herd. Pa hunters have done what the PGC ask them to do and now have the worst deer hunting in over 30 years, thanks to the mismanagement of the PGC.

Fair question. I only have enough knowledge here to hit the high spots but with that qualifier, I'll do my best.It seems that the diference in mineral content and soil quality is a huge factor. The environment is far more fertilein Illinois. Crop yeilds are close to double per acre on average and the resulting quantity of high quality agricultural forage makes for a very well fed herd. I don't know much about the Lancaster area but I do know that I've heard of corn crops approaching 300 bushel per acre in the best parts of Illinois. Around where I live, 100 seems more like the norm


We agree on a lot of things here. I wholeheartedly agree that a spread restriction is a better method. I'm not sure it would have been the best way to start in a culture where almost every hunter described his buckalmost exclusivelyon point count for decades. It's how we were brought up. We were also brought up in a culture that somehow valued aharvested spike more than an adult doe. I would favor a shift to a spread restiction in a heartbeat. I'm also not completely satisfied with HR as it has been handled. I do beleive that much of the NC habitat has crashed and will take years to recover.The same scenario has played out in the ANF wher I have spentmany hunting hours over my lifetime.

If you havent read it yet, get your hands on a copy of the August issue of North American Whitetail and read Dr Kroll article on page 105. It puts a new and different perspective on the results of the AR studies in Mississippi. It points out some reasonableconcerns that could place doubt on the conclusionsfrom the study.

That being said,when HR was instituted, the PGC had a history of being very slow to adapt to any change. Caution is generally a good thing but the PGC really drew out any change to the status quo. Along came Gary Alt and his immediate sweeping changes. Most sounded good at the time but he also said that he wasn't sure they would work and we had to be willing to adapt. The sweeping changes were made, Gary Alt couldn't take the heat and ran for cover. I'm not a big Alt fan but he was the guy with the cojones to make rapid changes when something didnt work. At first, he seemed willing to admit AND correct mistkes. Remember theyear we had a last Saturday doe starter?Alt publicly declared it a disaster and it went away immediately. Now he's gone and it seems that we have a plan that definitely needs refining and the "stay the course" mentality has returned.

As for hunter satisfaction, I think we will have to agree to disagree here. I don't see the dissatisfaction you seem to see. I admit that I live in an area that still has high deer populations but my camp is in 2F where the herd has been reduced. It is there that we see a remarkable improvement in body size, antler size and in the average number of fawns per doe as well as an improvement in the habitat. The browse line is much less detectable in many of my old haunts. Hunters I encounter in 2F all acknowledge that there's less deer but they seem content with the tradeoff.

I do NOT mourn the loss of the one day (now more like half day) nimrods from the big woods. A slightly smaller punkin army in the woods on "buck Monday" as many of us geezers still call it isn't a bad thing IMHO. It is interesting to note though, that PA's decline in hunting license sales is squarely in line with national average acrossthe nation that includes all the states that arent experiencingsimilar changes to their deer herd.

As I first said in this post SS, we seem to have some common ground after all

That is absolutely not true. Kroll exposed his total ignorance of what caused the decreased rack size in Miss. The study Kroll referred to were computer models and the results from the kerr study in Texas. Kroll did not review or consider the actual results from harvest studies that were conducted after ARs were in place for 4 or more years which showed that high grading was responsible for the decrease.
That is a flat out lie. Pa license sales were increasing until hunters experienced the effects of HR. then resident adult license sales began to decline along with junior and out of state license sales. You simply say whatever supports your agenda even if it is a flat out lie.

Reminds me of a line an old timer used to use at the gun club when someone spouted a tall tale.

It's yer story son, tell it like ya want to!


Oh really? Well here's just a few links to folks who disagree. It took about 2 minutes to find hundreds of articles and studies documenting a nationwide decline in both hunting and fishing license sales. Here's just a few


http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages...year_trend.htm

http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/200...ational-trend/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23860020/

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/h...ory?id=2749871

http://jimbuie.blogs.com/journal/200...e_dramati.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0927/p01s02-ussc.html

http://www.alliedsportsmen.org/Jax090405a.PDF

http://www.savingourhunting.com/why.html

http://newsok.com/article/3103063

http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Inside_FandG/funding_materials/AP_Fosters_new_funds_050107.pdf

That makes you either delusional or a liar. I personally don't think you're delusional but maybe.....

Screaming Steel,

You posted some fair observations and questions. I tried to answer the same way. You can see for yourself what BB did with it. I do my best to respond to any arguement reasonably and respectfully. That courtesy went away when sparring directly with Bluebird years ago. Trying to be civil where he's involved only seems to furher encourage him to attack and distort.

If you have a bit of time, look at some archives posted by Deaddeer, ddeer and deerfly.You mightfind theminteresting. I will note however that you won't find much under deerfly. At the time he was banned as deerfly, his posts were so ioutrageous that a mod felt compelled to delete a hundred or so of his posts along with several entire threads that he hijacked.

http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/v...a=511&q=159015

It only took me a few seconds to find the only link that matters and that is the official license sales from the PGC. Anyone can see that junior license sales were increasing until the effects of herd reduction became evident. Adult sales increased slightly and then declined at a much faster rate than before the plan was implemented.

[/size]I see you are continuing with your deceptive methods and ways of using out of context snippets selected from various reports and articles in your attempt to deceive people into supporting your misguided agenda.[/size]

I will help point out of the ways you do that.

You claim that Alsheimer said this:

Alsheimers article recommended a doe harvest of 29 DPSM while in the same article stating that most habitats can support 35-40 DPSM.


That really is not what he said at all. Even though you wish his comments supported your goofy agenda it just isn’t being truthful with the factual context of what he was saying.

Here is what he really said and where you pulled your deceptive snippet:

Quote:

“The proper number of deer per square mile of deer habitat will vary by region.

Quote:

In our farm rich area of New York State ,biologists would like to see no more than 35-40 deer per square mile.”

[/size]


As everyone can see he most certainly never said that most habitat can support the number of deer you want believe to believe he said. In fact when using the entire context of the article what he said does not support your conjectures in the least.

Then you post this comment:
[/color]
Kroll also claimed PA had shown,"some amazing results" which is also laughable when you consider their is no data that shows ARs increased the rack sizes of 2.5+ buck


Certainly no data shows that the rack size didn’t increase for 2 ½ year old bucks. No one ever said the rack size would increase for the same age bucks. The rack size for any particular age class is based on three factors. Those three factors are age, but since we are talking about bucks of the same age that is a mute factor. Then comes nutrition and that will affect the rack size of bucks of the same age from one year to the next, especially in the 1 ½ and 2 ½ year old age classes. Genetics is the third factor to affect the antlers and that will have little bearing on the antlers of 1 ½ and 2 ½ year old bucks unless they can be compared to bucks of the same age within about a week and living in the same habitats.

The fact is I never heard any of the professional deer managers claim there would be any difference in the antler development of bucks of the same age. If you have anything that suggest otherwise such please provide a link to it so we can see it.

You also made this comment which I beleive needs some further clarificationbefore it would be anything other then another misleading misrepresentaiton of the truth.

[color=#0000ff]and that we are harvesting fewer 2.5+ buck than we did in 2002.


Though that particular comment is true for last year, and onlythat one year, it is still very deceptivein that itdoesn’t really tell the whole truth of the historical facts.

Since Doctor Alt had been advocating the need of protecting more of the 1 ½ year old bucks since 2000 it appears that the state had started to experience some voluntary movement in that direction from the hunters.

I will post the number of 2 ½ year old bucks in the Pennsylvania deer harvests for the past fifteen years to show that point. Remember while viewing this that many people were pushing the QDMA message in the mid 1990’s, Doctor Alt started advocating the protection of younger bucks in 2000 and antler restrictions did not begin until 2002.

Years……………….2 ½ and older bucks harvests
1993.……………………….34442
1994.……………………….27460
1995.……………………….31732
1996.……………………….24883
1997.……………………….32836
1998.……………………….34749
1999.……………………….38942
2000.……………………….37261
2001.……………………….43855
2002.……………………….52607
2003.……………………….61994
2004.……………………….62399
2005.……………………….57961
2006.……………………….59528
2007.……………………….48048

Now to help even more people see the way the number of 2 ½ and older bucks in five year averages over the past twenty-five years. This data is in harvests per square mile of land mass.

Years……………….2 ½ and older bucks harvests
83-87.…………………….0.65
88-92.…………………….0.68
93-97.…………………….0.68
98-02.…………………….1.07
03-07.…………………….1.29

I think it might also be of some interest to point out that many of the bucks that should have been available for harvest since 2005 died within days of being born following the harsh winters that limited the survival rate of fawns born in the spring of 2003 and 2004.

[size=2]R.S.Bodenhorn

And there you have it folks! The only facts that matter are the ones that Bluebird posts !

Aint it funny how he launchedanother tiradeabout Dr Kroll's article in North American whitetail when all I did was suggest that another member read it andconsider Dr Krolls perspective on the Mississippi antler study. I guess we are all supposed to simply accept what BB posts without question

RSB

I have to commend you for your patience in posting factual material in the face of Bluebirds agenda.

Seeking out the real story and the real context of the quotes he provides can be an exhaustive task. Weeding out the distortions is simply tiresome. I tried to keep up when he was on here in the past under his many aliases and have since run short of patience with the constant onslaught. That has caused the quality of some of my responses lately to decline and I regret that. It has become difficult to resist the short way out when I know that a well thought out, well documented post will simply lead to another twist.

I thank you again for your patience and professionalism. It's an example worth trying to folow.