BTBowhunter is the smartest person on this board. His remark about not shooting unless you identify a deer cracked me up. Next, he will tell me, the two other cardinal rules: Always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and treat every gun as if it is loaded. Thank you BTBowhunter, us hunters never took hunter training and we needed to be reminded of this. You cracked me up... keep it comin'. Do you have another smart answer. I can't wait til your next one.

I can say I've never heard a neutral non hunter say that deer, bear etc is just too big or too old! I have heard and seen them react with outrage, snickers, or just a disapproving shake of their head when some nimrod shows off a tiny rack, small doe or worst of all a bear cub. I beleive that most of the nonhunting public would be supportive of management that is in balance with the habitat and promotes the long term health of the resource.

THATS WHAT ALT CLAIMS HE WANTS TO DO!!! BIGGER ANTLERS ARE A BY PRODUCT!!!! ( a welcome by-product I might add)

DD please give us your source for those BB harvest numbers.

Cattny if you re-read the posts leading up to that little pearl of wisdom you will see that DD took something you said that made sense....

and turned it into a different arguement.....

wasn't trying to insult the intelligence of this group, just trying to get the "spin doctor" back to the point you made which was a good one!

Now that is just plain silly ,since a non-hunter wouldn't know a 100 lb. cub from a water buffalo or a small 2.5 Y buck from a 6 pt. 1.5 and you probably wouldn't know the difference either.

If you don't know the source of the BB harvest, you are admitting you don't know squat about deer management in PA. The anterless harvest always includes at least 21 -22% BB. All you have to do is multiply the anterless harvest by 22% and you get the Bb harvest.

AR does not produce bigger antlers . The 1.5 buck saved by AR will not have bigger antlers than the 80K buck we carried over in 2001 ,prior to AR.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse. As BTBowhunter would say, "I go on and on", but I have a new perspective on ARs. I live in NY and hunt both NY and PA. I will not stop hunting PA, I just don't like ARs for my own reasons. But, I was recently speaking to two well known hunters in my State who stated that they were both going to hunt PA this year due to the ARs. They are anticipating big bucks. These two men never hunted PA before but will now due to ARs. Another Advantage of ARs, more out of state revenue for trophy hunting. I don't totally agree with ARs, but since we all play by the same rules, I don't have a problem with them now. I am now changing my opinion. So. BTB doesn't have to say it... I go on and on and on....

I guess I'm just silly! How could I think that someone who lives here in PA and doesnt hunt would know what a deer looks like. Just the other day a nonhunter told me he saw a water buffalo in his trash. Now I know, it was probably a bear cub.

Guess I'll have to call you up to age my deer from now on too! Are you available to guide bear hunters? sure wouldn't want to shoot a water buffalo by mistake.

The bb harvest? I'm so glad that you're sure you can take numbers (yes they were correct then) that were formed under different circumstances and assume (we all know what that spells) that it will be the same now. It may be close and it may not, but, as you have so often done before, you took a statistic out of context that may or may not apply to the present circumstances and stated it as a fact. Lets adopt a practice here of labeling these little pearls. How about "FADD" (Fact Accoding to Dead Deer). I'm sure that when it's proven that the professionals were wrong and you were right we'll all appreciate knowing we heard it here first.

Can I have your autograph?

The composition of the anterless harvest was not effected by anything Alt has done. If you knew what you were talking about,you would know that Alt ask us to pass on BB ,but that request had no effect on the anterless harvest. We are harvesting more BB than we have ever harvested before and that reduces the number of 1.5 buck that can be saved by AR. Alt claimed Ar saved 38K 1.5 buck, but we harvested 30K more BB,so what is the net effect on the number of legal buck available the following year?

You can argue all day about this whole mess.Some areas have too many deer while have very few.Some people are seeing bigger bucks,some are hardly seeing any.That crap has been going on for as long as I can remember.The difference today is that we have definable goals that Alt has set.While setting these goals,Alt also made some gutsy predictions.No Alt supporter has yet to answer any of my questions.Please tell me how the herd has not been reduced when alt said we had an 8% reduction in 2001 followed by two of the biggest antlerless harvests in history?Also,please explain how we will have more and bigger bucks when the herd is reduced to below 15 dpsm?This is important guys because this is the final goal.Mathematically,how can it happen.It can't.There is no possible way.Maybe some of you don't believe it will happen.Maybe some of you won't let it happen on your property.How many of you will?How many here are willing to take the herd down to those levels?Please,for the last time just tell me how we will have more and bigger bucks under these conditions.Last,for you habitat experts,explain why Cameron county has been below it's deer density goals for over ten years and there is still no sign of the habitat recovering.How long will it take?If you can't answer these questions,how can you possibly support this program?

I do agree that AR's may make controlling the population a bit more difficult. BUT.. if you remember... and you should.... It wasAlt who pointed out... way back.... at the begining..... when all this started.... AR's were not goiung to be put in place the first year for just that reason. It would go against trying to reduce the herd which was the number one goal. 4 pts or better were not implimented state wide for the same reason too many bucks would be saved in ohter areas. Most of the state got three points, the more fertile west got 4pts AR's were what the hunter would get in return for the sacrifices necessary with reduced deer numbers. Pretty smart and correct. You sound like Bush and company still trying to tell us WMD's are in IRAQ. But please don't expound on that. That's a whole other topic (though parrallell in many ways)! Juniorpc.

AR was not implemented the first year,2000 and the herd increased by 1.6%. AR was not implemented in year two, 2001 and the herd increased by 1.6% ,AR was implemented in the third year ,2002 and the herd increased by 1.6%.

Alt said before Ar could be implemented we had to harvest 70 K additional doe to make room for the 38K bucked saved by AR. We shot 16K less anterless in 2001 than we did in 2000 ,but Alt implemeneted AR in 2002 anyway and the herd increased by 1.6%. So AR added additional deer to the overbrowsed habitat,the exact thing HR was implemented to avoid.


Then he compounded the insanity by implementing AR in SRA counties. Sounds like dumb and dumber to me.