How many times have you chastised people for making blanket statements???? Yet, you turn around and do that very same thing. To prove your theory wrong, I'm a rack hunter....I kill as many doe as I can get tags for every year. I still kill my buck and it's usually a good one. Now, tell me why I'm such a bastard! I've let little dinks walk so greedy one-a-day wonders can drill them when they crest the ridge, but I'm just a greedy rack hunter it must be my fault. I have many friends that practice the same type of hunting I do....take some doe then kill a buck with a nice rack. We've been doing this since long before AR.

I was simply pointing out one of the unattended consequences of AR and last years archery harvest proves my point. Although there are more than 3 times as many antlerless deer than AR legal buck, archers harvested 31 K antlered buck and only 34 K anterless. Rifle hunters,on the other hand took 111K antlered and 289K anterless. If the archers weren't waiting for a racked buck ,they would have harvested at least twice as many anterless as antlered. That is one reason why implementing AR before the herd was reduced ,was a bad idea.

I won't argue that historically archers don't shoot near as any doe. BUT, we have been killing more doe than in previous years.....comparitively. It's tough to say that archers aren't pulling their weight when we can't know if they killed doe or not. A lot of guys hunt bucks only in archery and hunt doe with the family or friend or at camp in rifle. I prefer to kill all my deer in archery season and I try to get at least one doe out of the way the first week. If I have another doe tag I often save it for rifle season. I know many do the same. Last year I hunted a particular doe(piebald) that outsmarted me more than once. She's 3.5 this year and was as big as a house when I last saw her a couple weeks ago....again this year I will attempt to pattern and put an arrow through her. I like to have the option of hunting with more than one weapon, I hunt muzz and rifle....tags dictate when I kill what.

TX,I talk to alot of people every day and the subject turns to hunting often.From what I gather,most people really aren't that opposed to AR.Most can also live with a cetain degree of herd reductions.The biggest complaint from most people in this part of the state is the drastic herd reductions are taking place.Personally,I can take or leave this whole program.However,I can't stand being lied to and that's all Alt has done.None of his claims can possibly come true if his deer density goals are met.I live in the one area wherethe goals have been met and our hunting has suffered greatly as a result.

WOW. when i created this post i never expected this big of a result with reply's! Thanks guys keep em comin!

[font="Times New Roman"]I was very displeased and disappointed this past hunting season. I hunted Tioga County for 3 days and did not see 1 deer! I have been hunting there for a couple of years now and have always seen does. This was especially annoying for me because as a junior hunter (for now, I am 15) I had the tags to shoot any deer I wanted. Does anyone else out there realize how much BS it is to go out on opening day and not see a friggin deer??? Do not get me wrong, I believe in Dr. Alt's plan for bigger bucks and am all for trophy racks, but when does the madness end??

Alt's plan will not produce more big buck a trophy racks. Allowing a higher percentage of 1.5 buck to live one year longer only produces more big buck if the herd is increasing. If the herd is stable or decreasing ,the number of big buck harvested decreases, even with AR. Our buck harvest decrased by 30% in two years. in ARK. it dropped 40% after 5 years, and in Miss. it dropped 20%. BTW, in Miss. their AR plan protects 80-90 % of their 1.5 buck ,while in PA AR saves less than 50%.

Red, I kind of know what you mean. Our previous season was poor and I already commented I was not impressed with last year. But in preparing for this year we are already seeing the effects of a smaller herd. At the farm here in southern pa, we are seeing less deer this spring in the fields, I attribute that to last years zeal in guys taking 2 and 3 does just because they could. Now we have more guys coming by and asking to hunt because where they normally hunt the deer have "dried up"?

So more competition in the areas that do allow hunting, and yet the no access areas remain undisturbed and overstocked with deer.

Due to hunters shifting to meet the changing population we will be looking at more hunters on the farm and we have gone thru winter and spring seeing less deer. We have yet to see a buck. In my opinion the antler restriction has been way overdone with hype. We are not seeing anymore buck than before, and with less deer around we actually see less.

I know that there are still areas with lots of deer. I talked to a guy who still see's 20 deer in a field at night out in western pa, and he thinks things are just ducky. But eventually the reductions will catch up with him too.

From what I am seeing so far into this summer, I think my county harvest will drop in does and buck. And since buck harvests have dropped the last 3 years that ain't too cool. Here the habitat does not limit the population, we have skads of it, but they have said we can onlysupport 17 dpfsm ?????

I wish the PGC had never gotten caught up in the hype of horns. If other states chose to, thats thier perogative, but in pa we sent home a lot of hunters with decent bucks. And we have been harvesting more antlerless than antlered deer for many, many years, so nobody can say we were not doing our part to manage the herd before Dr. Alt began his reductions.

In a way, I am glad most of our deer biologists are abandoning the PGC and leaving. I hope we can hire a biologst that isn't so willing to lie or so hung up on the bigger better deal (BBD).

All I know is that I've been hunting in Pa for 26 years. When I first started as a youngster I'd see heards of deer 20,30,40 at a time, usually 90 to 100 deer spoted on opening day.Not enough time to glass them all, but hardly ever a buck amongst them. I'm sure some of these deer passed through a couple times, but you get the idea. As the number of deer I saw decreased the numbers of bucks increased. Why? I have no clue! All I'm comenting on is my experience. The last 7 years I have been more sucessful in shooting big bucks. I shot a 6 pointer in 1998, a 8 pointer in 2000 and a 9 point in 2002. The years in between I shot smaller bucks.
Last year I saw 2 young bucks by 8:00 am deer that I probably would have shot in previous years went free to get bigger. An hour or so later I was watching another small buck and a doe, when I turn and saw a shooter(just barely,but legal I'm sure, maybe a 5 or 6) sneaking out behind me. I turned to quick and he bolted away not giving a good shot I didn't shoot. I guess my point is that this AR restriction has only been in effect for a couple years and though we don't see 100 deer a day anymore we only need to see just one per tag. Alot of deer are still in Pa's woods we just have less access to them because people won't allow hunters or anyone for that matter on their lands. I'm going to wait another year or so to decide if AR a working as Alt said they would.

Many of those deer you saw years ago where repeats throughout the day.Regardless,I agree we used to have too many deer.What many people fail to realize is that our antlerless harvest has exceeded our antlered harvest since 1988.The best hunting I can remember in the last 23 years was from about 1994 till 2000. We don't need antler restriction but I'm glad we have them.We would cetainly see more bucks and bigger bucks if they were implemented on a herd that was being stabalized instead of drastically reduced.Do you realize that the owdd goals for every unit in the state except one is below 15 dpsm.I'm hunting in the only unit that has reached that goals and I guarantee you that none of Alt's claims can come true when these goals are met.I'm not against having less deer.I've been hunting less deer successfully for several years now.What I'm against is the reason behind these reductions and the ridiculous unsubstantiated dd goals that where set.