AS an archer you would in fact see more big buck with AR ,provided the herd remained stable. But that was not the topic of this thread. The point was that due to harvesting the best of our 1.5 buck, the average 2.5 buck will be smaller in an AR herd compared to a non-AR herd and you personal observations do nothing to refute that claim.
In fact, the results are so obvious based just on simple common sense I wouldn't know why anyone would even try to refute it.

As I said before, this is America, and it is your right to be wrong.


I dont need any credentials to question the fact that you are appointing yourself as an expert and that you are attempting to discredit a wildlife management professional who has support of the majority of his peers.

It's no different than questioning my mechanic for criticizing a diagnosis by my doctor or not asking a roofer what's wrong with my car!

You said it all NJB!

I never claimed to be an expert, but thanks for elevating me to that level.

You have taken a lot of cheap shots but you have yet to produce one study or report to support your claims. Where are the articles that show that the majority of wildlife managers support Alt's plan? To date I have yet to see one report or article by a noted deer manager that supported Alt's plan.


Alt has made many claims about his plan that are not supported by independent research. He even used the results from Miss. to show we would not have high grading in PA ,when the field data from Miss.shows that high grading occurred in the areas with the best habitat. He claimed that AR would double the number of 2.5 + buck but the 2003 harvest showed AR only increased the number of 2.5+ buck harvested by 9.4 K, which isn't even close.

You are certaily entitled to your opinion ,but until you can support your opinion with facts, your opinion is worth no more that your mechanics opinion about your doctors diagnosis.

I don't think AR is the perfect answer either. However, it does save some young bucks. How many button bucks are shot as does, though? The more doe tags you issue, the more buttons are shot. I know the state is aware of this situation becasue they have had "consider letting that button walk" articles in the game book. I personally think the choice should be left to the hunter. I'm done shooting spikes and 4-points myself but, if I see a nice 4-point on the last day, it would be nice to be able to harvest it. I guess I'm just used to the old rules. Another thing - I've seen some heavy, high and wide 4-points and I've seen some basket rack 8-points. There are no easy answers.

You are absolutely correct that there are no easy answers, but Alt tried to use AR as an easy answer to sell herd reduction. But,as you pointed out ,herd reduction means harvesting more buck as anterless deer which offsets the benefits of AR. AR also means harvesting a higher percentage of our 2.5 buck, which also offsets the benefits of saving more 1.5 buck when it comes to improving the age structure of the buck population. AR allows more buck to live one year longer so there will be more 2.5 buck, but those buck will be samller than the average 2.5 buck in a non-AR herd.

Alt sold his plan based on promises he couldn't keep and it remains to be seen how hunters will react when they realize Alt's promises will never come true.

John, I hate to disagree with you here, but NJ's statewide stats completely contradict your friend's observations (and I can provide them for you ). His bussiness may be booming, but are all the bucks really from zones with AR's? First let me say that I don't think it's entirely because of AR that fewer big bucks are coming from the zones with antler restrictions, but the fact is that more big bucks, and the top end bucks are coming from zones without AR's. I do think AR's play a role in fewer bucks coming from those zones, but it's mostly because we can kill so many bucks.

No matter how you try to spin it, antler restrictions put more pressure on bucks with 6 points (or 8) or more, soley because hunters must pass the smaller deer and wait on one that fits that criteria. The guy that would have shot the spike that came along first, now must wait on an AR legal deer, and instead of shooting his spike and getting out of the woods, he sticks around long enough to get the AR legal buck.

In NJ, that factor, which may seem insignificant in areas where one buck is the rule, becomes very significant when compounded by the fact a hunter can do that very same thing 6 times each season. It's common sense, and it's been proven in numerous recent studies done by biologists on the leading edge of this debate in the south. Now, add in the additional buck loss from aggressive antlerless harvest that result in an increased number of button bucks being killed to fulfill EAB requirements, and you have a decrease in buck fawn recruitment, which in turn means fewer 1.5 year olds the following year. So basically, what we have is a situation where an increase in pressure is being placed on bucks with 6 points or more, and increased pressure is being placed on button bucks (not intentionally), so bucks are being reduced on both ends of the age scale. The only real protected class is the 1.5 yr old, sub 6-point bucks. And usually, most of them are killed when they reach the legal criteria. There most likely are more deer graduating from 1.5 to 2.5 yrs old at first, but after a few years of increased BB kills, there will be fewer 1.5 moving to 2.5, soley because there are fewer 1.5 to begin with. And with more pressure being placed on 2.5 yr olds (and hunters killing more 2.5 yr olds), even fewer deer will move from 2.5 to 3.5 yrs old.

In heavily hunted regions, where pressure is intense on bucks (like Pa and NJ), you get no net gains in mature (3.5 yr old+) from AR's, and if BB are not carefully protected, you get a net loss after a few years. That is the reality of antler restrictions in some places.

John, hunters like yourself who place a higher standard on the bucks they kill, and hunting near pockets of restricted access are the largest contributing factors to bigger deer being taken in NJ. It certainly isn't anything F & W has done, AR and EAB included.

AR's can work great in situations where hunters can more tightly control what is harvested, but in heavily hunted areas (and where hunters can kill so many bucks) they have not delivered the promised goods. That fact has been proven, and widely discussed, by hundreds of Gary Alt's peers. And I'm sure that is why they are all watching Pa.

Could be that we will end up with no net gain in 3.5 and the BB kill is also a concern. The bottom line is that we also need a culture change. We need to get rid of the "it's just a spike but at least I didn't have to settle for a doe" mentality. We also need to encourage voluntary passing of BB's. Hopefully, as time goes by more hunters will buy into the mindset of letting immature bucks and BB's walk in order to wait for a more mature buck. In the meantime, shooting a doe, hopefully a mature doe, helps keep the herd in balance and puts venison in the freezer. The positive results we've seen in such a short time have changed attitudes among many hunters I've talked to.

Lets face it, there will always be some that can't accept any change at all. The Unified crowd has been telling us that the sky is falling for many years now and yet the herd keeps increasing. I find it really curious that some of that crowd b!tches up a storm about the BB kill but admits to intentionally killing bunches of em. Sounds to me like sour grapes from hunters without the commitment or talent it takes to shoot a mature deer be it male OR female.

Here's just one example:

Not a statement I'd normally criticize except that it comes from someone who says the antlerless kill in general and especially BB kill is way too high .

I'd call that being a hypocrite, plain and simple[:'(]

You simply can't win the debate unless you misrepresent the postion of others. We don't intentionally kill BB, we simply decided that it was necessary to harvest any legal deer in order to control the herd because we were not getting the opportunity to harvest mature doe. What you can't seem to comprehend is that the average hunter doesn't want to go 6 or 7 years without harvesting a buck, just so the buck he does havest is one year older. Then there are those hunters like those in my group who have basically given up buck hunting and have now become just deer hunters . There is no real incentive for us to protect BB since we will just be saving them for someone else to harvest. We'll take a buck if one happens to walk by, but we aren't going to be on stand an hour before shooting time with the hopes of getting a buck. Bucks simply aren't as important when you are 60 compared to when you are 20+.

Oh, someone else pulled the trigger did they? EVERY deer kill by a hunter is intentional. You could describe it more correctly by saying that you didn't care enough to take the time to determine what you were shooting beyond the fact that it was a deer or you decided in advance that it didn't matter if you killed some BB's as long as you got to shoot something. i think the answer is in the rest of your statement....



OK you believed were doing the right thing to control the herd........... but wait, aren't you the spokesman for those who believe Alts OWDD goals are way too low? I guess that only applies to other people.

I'm beginning to get the picture now....





Translation: the good of the resource means nothing to us. We'd better get ours before someone else does.



[quote] We'll take a buck if one happens to walk by, but we aren't going to be on stand an hour before shooting time with the hopes of getting a buck. Bucks simply aren't as important when you are 60 compared to when you are 20+.

[quote]



Translation: My sport is no longer worth much of my time or effort and Alt's making it harder for me.







Translation: Our group doesn't want to go 6-7 years between bucks so it's the PGC's job to make it easy on us.

Oh and by the way, the average hunter went that long before AR!

Once again, a perfect example of a tired, mediocre hunter who won't change, or expend much effort to pusue his sport and doesn't really care about much else beyond his own little world.

If I get that tired or lazy, I should hope I have the good sense to give it up and start golfing.