Just remember,one man's truth is another man's B.S. !Just cause it comes out of your mouth don't make it right.The world is full of "experts" just like yourself that don't have a clue about the real world,just what they've been told or written on paper.

How many times do I have to explain to you that high grading has nothing to do with when the doe are bred, it has nothing to do with a change in the gene pool and it has nothing to do with a change in any other factors. It is simply the result of harvesting the best buck in each age class and leaving buck that are inferior for the rate of antler development to advance to the next age class.
But the studies don't prove that the spikes are the result of being late born and there is no study that shows late born fawns take 4years to catch up with fawns that are born 2 months earlier.

Once again you are intentionally trying to mislead hunters by trying to define the B/D ratio in a way that fits your agenda. The B/D ratio is defined the ratio of adult males to adult females. No where is it stated that a high percentage of female fawns should breed the first year. Besides Alt said we needed ARs to correct the problem of late breeding but it had no effect.
Try getting your propaganda right. Twenty years ago the PGC implemented bonus tags and the harvests for the next ten years kept the herd relatively stable. Alt created a crisis that didn't exist and as a result now we have politics more involved than in the last 30 years involved.

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Who implied that when the does got bred had anything to do with high grading? That is nothing more then more the misleading nonsense you post in an attempt to discredit others. You do that because your agenda doesn’t have merit.

I know what high grading is and I also know that in Pennsylvania our 1 ½ year old bucks, both the best and worst of them, are breeding during the rut and before the season the same as had occurred before antler restrictions. The only thing that changed with antler restrictions is that we now keep about half of our 1 ½ year old bucks alive at least a year longer then we once did so there are enough bucks to bred the does during the correct time and cycle.

Since nearly all of the bucks are breeding before they get harvested, just as always occurred there is virtually no chance of high grading or in any way affecting the genetics of the deer in this state.

If you really knew anything at all about the subject you would know that too. In fact I highly suspect you do know it but it doesn’t fit your misguided agenda so you use misinformation as a large part of your platform to discredit the management programs because it prevents you and your family from killing the first buck you see regardless of the number of points. Your opposition is all about what benefits you instead of what benefit’s the resource and that is pathetic.

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But the studies don't prove that the spikes are the result of being late born and there is no study that shows late born fawns take 4years to catch up with fawns that are born 2 months earlier.

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There are tons of studies that most certainly do prove that during many years a high percentage of the spikes are bucks that were born late. Of course harsh environmental conditions are also a leading cause of spikes on 1 ½ year old bucks.


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Once again you are intentionally trying to mislead hunters by trying to define the B/D ratio in a way that fits your agenda. The B/D ratio is defined the ratio of adult males to adult females. No where is it stated that a high percentage of female fawns should breed the first year. Besides Alt said we needed ARs to correct the problem of late breeding but it had no effect.

I am not misleading anyone.

I am simply pointing out that a pretty high percentage of the juvenile does should be bred and that juvenile bucks are not breeding mature so that all falls onto the adult bucks. In some areas, where hunters have typically harvested as many does as possible, it has not uncommon to have over 50% of the juveniles bred. In the area where we have typically under harvested the does and harvested as many bucks as possible though it was not uncommon to have fewer then 10% of the juvenile does bred with many areas even under 5%. In many cases where the juvenile does were reaching breeding maturity the bucks were not getting the adult does bred during the correct time because there weren’t enough adult bucks to get both the cycling adults and cycling juveniles both bred. The bucks don’t care if they are chasing an adult of juvenile doe when they are both in cycle at the same time, and many of them were and are each fall. That was a large part of why we needed more adult bucks in the fall then what we had prior to antler restrictions protecting some of the 1 ½ year old bucks.

The late breeding was a problem and it has improved even if you want to believe or admit it hasn’t. As the late breeding of the adult does is corrected it will eventually also result in more of the juvenile does reaching breeding weight during their first year and ultimately higher fawn birth and recruitment rates. We are already see that starting to occur in this part of the state.

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Try getting your propaganda right. Twenty years ago the PGC implemented bonus tags and the harvests for the next ten years kept the herd relatively stable. Alt created a crisis that didn't exist and as a result now we have politics more involved than in the last 30 years involved.

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There is no propaganda involved other then the horse puckey you and your supporters keep spreading.

You are correct that twenty years ago there was an attempt to bring the deer numbers into balance with their habitat and that higher harvests were the means to accomplishing that objective. But, the same public and political demands of today were heard back then too. The problem was that the Board of Commissioners in place at that time caved in to the yammering in order to get a hunting license increase and reduced the harvest long before the deer herds were in balance with the habitat. We, the hunters, and the deer got lucky though because we had a run of almost ten years with better then normal mast production and mild winters. That allowed the deer populations to increase more then nature typically allows for long term periods. Hunters got used to that and mistakenly thought it could go on that way forever, but nature proved them wrong and we are living with that mistake right now.

Alt didn’t create any crisis. It was the lack of harvesting enough deer for to long that created the crisis. The professional deer and habitat managers of this state saw that the crisis was looming on the horizon because the deer and their food supply where screaming that message, even though most hunters couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize it. Alt was just the messenger that was sent out to make the hunters aware of the potential for the crisis and deliver the message the deer were providing.

Thesadthing is that it wasalready to late to get it corrected before those hard winters, that nature sent our way, and the deer herds crashed from the resulting low fawn recruitment during theyears following those harsh winters.

I can also tell you with absolute certainty that there is no more politics involved in the deer management now then has occurred many times in the past fifty years and even longer. The only difference now is that the current Board of Commissioners refused to sell out the futureof our resources to appease the yammering of the hunters and politicians to get a license increase. I applaud the fact that we finally have enough Commissioners with the guts to do the right thing instead of selling out the resources by doing the wrong thing for the promise of a license increase.

R.S. Bodenhorn

You did in your next comment.

You are claiming the does are bred before the 1,5 buck are harvested . You loose once again.
While that may or not be true , you can't provide one study that shows it takes 3 years for a buck that is born 2 months late to catch up in body weight to a buck that was born earlier.

that is pure nonsense. the areas with the highest fawn breeding rates also had the highest adult doe breeding rates. The areas with the lowest fawn breeding rates are those WMU's where the female fawns do not reach 80 lbs. by jan and therefore do not have their first estrus. You know absolutely nothing about the correlation of breeding rates and the adult breeding B/D ratio.

Poor RSB was logged in for over half and hour and couldn't come up with a rebuttal to my post.

From what you are posting it certainly seems that it is you who has no idea what high grading is. High grading has nothing to do with when the does are bred it is all about what bucks are breeding the does and in the case of high grading it would be inferior bucks because the better bucks had been harvested prior to the breeding cycle.

Once again I will point out that we don’t harvest our bucks until after ALL of the bucks have had an opportunity to pass on their genes. THEREFORE, THERE IS NO HIGH GRADING IN PENNA.

Do you get this time, or is still over your head?

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While that may or not be true , you can't provide one study that shows it takes 3 years for a buck that is born 2 months late to catch up in body weight to a buck that was born earlier.

I don’t have the time to sit and look for the reports on the internet but I have many deer research journals that show that late born male fawns are more likely to be spikes. There are also several recent studies that clearly show that spikes, many of which were late born fawns, will catch up and even surpass the bucks that had a jump start with their first antlers.

Those studies do indicate that some smaller will not catch up and surpass the once larger bucks until they are three to four years old. But, we were talking about antlers until you just attempted your switch to body weight once you realized you were wrong about what the studies say concerning antler development. What is that any way, more of your flim-flam artistry?

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that is pure nonsense. the areas with the highest fawn breeding rates also had the highest adult doe breeding rates. The areas with the lowest fawn breeding rates are those WMU's where the female fawns do not reach 80 lbs. by jan and therefore do not have their first estrus.

No it isn’t nonsense at all.

In a high percentage of the counties, where the breeding data came from, it was very clear that there weren’t enough bucks to breed all of the cycling does. It was clear since during the years when a higher percentage of the juveniles were being bred in November more of the adult does weren’t bred in November as they should have been. It was also very clear when 35% of the counties across the state experienced a decline in both the adults and juveniles being bred at all during the five year period prior to antler restrictions.

It is true that the areas with the lowest fawn breeding rates are the poor habitat areas where fawns don’t gain weight as fast but it is also true that we are now that the habitat and previous late breeding cycle is starting to be corrected we are also starting to see more juveniles being bred. Many of these juvenile does are also being bred in November during the same time period or just slightly later then the adult does instead of that not being bred at all or months later as it used to be.

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You know absolutely nothing about the correlation of breeding rates and the adult breeding B/D ratio.

Oh really?

I have been collecting that data for over thirty years now so I figure I know a good bit about that correlation. I would even post the data that shows that correlation but that wouldn’t be appropriate when you take such data and twist it into what you think is going to help in your law suit.

At this point I will just leave it at the data clearly shows significant improvement since antler restrictions.

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Poor RSB was logged in for over half and hour and couldn't come up with a rebuttal to my post.

The time I am logged in has little to do with coming up with rebuttal to your nonsense. Even while I am logged in I don’t just sit in front of the computer. My phone rings rather frequently this time of the year. Then I will often not only spend time answering that call but sometimes need to make other calls concerning the follow up to the in coming call. As a matter of fact I have talked with two of my deputies on the phone within the past hour, and while I was logged into this site.

Are you that desperate in your attempt to make it sound like you know what you are talking about? The fact is your arguments and misguided agenda are losing more and more credibility every day as even more research comes in proving just how wrong you are.


R.S. Bodenhorn

Rsb, Pgcs data CLEARLY shows decreases in embryo counts per doe, as well as no improvement in breeding window and actual decrease in percentage of adult does bred. This is ALL counter to what the program was supposed to do.

If its your contention not enough data were compiled per area to show true stats comparable to previous years data, then you are saying flat out pgc is flying completely blind. I guess that would make USP's lawsuit legitimate and no so stupid after all.

We are sticking to a completely failed plan that is not supported by data compiled, and its not supported by the hugemajority of our states hunters. Its actually kind of scary for our sport to have people like you who blindly support a bottomed out deer plan and would undoubtedly support it no matter what, even if it meant half the deer we have now for no good reason. From your perspective the ONLY failure could be allowing reasonable numbers of deer where they can and should be. As far as too few? Apparently to you, there never could be, and the maleffects of that to our sport or anything else, not even given a second thought.

Sorry, but time for a change of direction.

Rsb, your support of the very extreme viewed current ecoweiney commissioners who have the majority of the board currently is quite comical.

There is absolutely nothing beneficial, responsible or acceptable in what they have done and the extremes and lengths theyve gone to in order to cater to their close allies within the "obtuse" conservationist organizations.

That wasnt the case previously, and hopefully their grasp on the throat of our wildlife management can be pried loose soon. They are the worst detriment to the sport of hunting. Our numbers dwindling at over double the national average during they peak of this sham program shows this vividly.

A shift in where the majority of the data came from between before and after antler restrictions certainly doesn’t mean their isn’t enough data in each unit to have proper management within the units. The shift in where the majority of the data came from only biased the total statewide results but since we manage by wildlife management unit instead of statewide that USP argument is just as goofy and invalid as your is.

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We are sticking to a completely failed plan that is not supported by data compiled, and its not supported by the huge majority of our states hunters. Its actually kind of scary for our sport to have people like you who blindly support a bottomed out deer plan and would undoubtedly support it no matter what, even if it meant half the deer we have now for no good reason. From your perspective the ONLY failure could be allowing reasonable numbers of deer where they can and should be. As far as too few? Apparently to you, there never could be, and the maleffects of that to our sport or anything else, not even given a second thought.

The present deer management certainly isn’t a failed program. It is the first time in a long time that the deer populations were even close to being within balance of the long term food supplies. It is the first time in decades that the habitat has had any opportunity to show any improvement that would allow for increasing deer populations in the future.The present management planalso uses more scientific data from the deer and thier food supply in developing the management direction then has ever been used before. That means the deer themselves are telling the professionals when there are too many deer, the right amount of deer or if deer numbers can increase. Surely you don't think the deer areproving false information about their breeding and reproductive ratesjust to trickthedata resultsdo you?

Today's deer management objectives and stylesare positives for the future instead of the negatives you seem to think they are.

The problem is that many people, like you, simply don’t understand how nature works, orthe message the der themselves send,so you have it in your head that the lower deer numbers are from over harvesting the deer. In reality though the low deer numbers we have today are the result of having far too many deer for far too long, and the deer themselves have proven that to be true.

The deer populations crashed because hunters and politicians demanded that deer be mismanaged with populations that were too high for toolong in the past. We are now paying for that stupid mistake, and no matter how much yammering people do about not enough deer the only thing that is going to correct the problem is working with nature instead of against it.

R.S. Bodenhorn

Once again RSB,what is your definition of significant improvement ? If it is sacrificing 50% of our yearly harvest for a few bigger sets of horns(which by the way is highly debatable) them that may be your definition but not that of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of hunters across this state.If the program you speak so highly of is so sucessfull,why are our license sales decreasing at 2.5 times the national average ? If it's so sucessfull,why the lawsuits,the audits,and the complete and utter chaos it has caused among the ranks of hunters in this state ? If it is so sucessfull,why must you defend it strongly ? Could it possibly be that you don;t have as much faith in it as you put on,or have the pencil pushers,the big whigs,and tree huggers numbedyou to reality ?