RE: ARs must be working
 

All I can say I know what I saw, and what I have seen over the last 22 years. To me they look like they are working.

RE: ARs must be working
 

People are just afraid of change. They want everything to be the same as when they first started hunting. The antler restrictions are working in other states and will do what they are supposed to do here. And yes they already are working. I saw 3 small bucks this year by 9:00 am and all were within 75 yards,. One of them stood 15 yards from me watching 3 doe for a good 25 minutes. My point is is that not only are the young bucks able to age, with that age comes more smarts. It is easy to kill young deer because they don't have the experience to evade like more mature bucks. So yes in a couple more years we will have larger,wiser and more muture bucks in Pa. We won't be killing as many bucks because they will be smarter bucks.

RE: ARs must be working
 

MC

I see your point, 10 mature bucks might be taken. More than likely they won't all be taken (harder to harvest mature bucks) - maybe only 5 (?). Additionally, maybe before AR those 10 mature buck and the 10 spikes get taken. Lots of ifs and maybes, guess we'll just have to wait and see.

RE: ARs must be working
 

Agreed - i think the next 2 or 3 years should determine the result of AR.

Lots of people mentioned monster bucks this year - my guess is that most of those monster bucks would have been legal last year. I shot a nice 9pt this year - I am fairly certain that he would have had at least 3 pts on one side based on his rack. We'll see what happens.

RE: ARs must be working
 

I think a lot of people look over the fact that many deer might have been passed just due to the fact that hunters were unable to identify whether it has 3 points or not. Just because it was legal last year does not mean it would have been killed. Hunters now have to take more time to identify their target than in years past making for more lost opportunities. Also, most of the objective to AR is to harvest more does as well and that seems to be working too from I understand. Overall, the one fact that will hopefully make AR more successful in PA than it has been in other states is that hunters can only harvest one buck. I think any time you can save any additonal percentage of the buck population and build a better age structure while harvesting more does and bringing your buck to daoe ratio closer you are taking a step in the right direction. We'll see what happens in years to come....TGK