JerseyJim

There is nothing wrong with trophy hunting at all! What I don't like is trying to take away from another hunters experience by making him hold out for a bigger buck when thats not what he wants! I think any antlered buck is worth taking! Looking at the antlers on the wall makes me smile every time! I'm proud of those bucks! I hunted some of them very hard! Just because thier antlers aren't huge doesn't make them any less of a crafty animal! If taking mature bucks only is what makes you happy then all the power to you! Thats not what makes me happy and why should I pass up on what makes me happy so you have a better chance at seeing a mature buck next year? If we let them all grow to be once in a life time bucks then they wouldn't be once in a life time bucks anymore! They would be par for the course and no different then todays 2,3,4,5,6 pointers! Again there is NOTHING wrong with hunting for the bigger older deer if thats what you want to do. There is somthing wrong with trying to restrict what other hunters can hunt so you have a better chance of seeing an older buck! There is definetly something wrong with making a youth pass on any buck when that buck could and most likely would hook him on hunting for life! My first deer was a small 4 point and is still my favorite hunting memory!

VA HEAD HUNTER

jersey jim

i totally agree with you 100% about all of that. and if a younger buck is what you want to harves then thats fine. i dont think ar's are the answer to anything. its not going to make any difference in deer numbers one bit. taking the pressure off the animals is the only way to establish bigger numbers. here in va i can let the smaller bucks go all day long and wait for the bigger more mature bucks and does because i have managed the farm the right way i believe and i have seen the rewards for that. i know that it is going to be alot harder to do so if i was hunting public property or land that alot of other people hunt but im not. i take out the right animals from the gene pool that need to be taken out so that the more mature bucks can breed thier does and so that i keep good stock on the land. the deer on the farm are comfortable there and have everything they need to eat and drink and thickets for bedding and hiding and the biggest factor which is lack of hunting pressure. the hunting pressure is what needs to be addressed in pa not the size bucks you can kill especially since there is no scientific fact anywhere that says all mature bucks have big racks. there are mature bucks that never get past tall spikes and there are immature bucks that have an awesome set of antlers at the age of 2. i dont agree with the restrictions and think its really sad that the people that are going to suffer are the younger generation because of that. we dont have that problem here in va because of the sheer numbers of deer we have but va did something this year that is going to cause problems and that is game checking over the phone. before you had to tag your animal in the field and check it in at a check station but now you dont have to. you can wait and call it in so alot of people arent checking the deer in and dont get in trouble if they get stopped without a tagged animal cause all they have to say is i was going to check it in when i get to a phone. but thats another topic. but like i said cutting down on the pressure will be the answer to the problem not ar's

MasonsRidge

I'm from West Virginia and I bought my lic. this past hunting season for Pennsylvania and will continue to buy them. I saw more deer in one weekend in Pennsylvania than I saw the last 5 years in West Virginia. I'd rather sit 6-8 hours in my treestand and see 100 deer, and don't care if half of them are does or spikes than sit and see nothing like in West Virginia. I think by instilling the antler restriction to 3-4 points per side is and was a great idea. West Virginia needs to do something as for restrictions before it's too late because their herd is going quick.

White-tail-deer

We are all HUNTERS!!!

rybohunter

Well what if a person chooses to seek a "trophy" becuase shooting a 1.5 forky is no challenge to them? Some guys believe it or not are pretty good at this hunting thing and to shoot a little one means nothing to them. I don't see how they can be torn into for making something more challenging, thus more personally satisfying. I'll shoot as many does as I can, but when I shoot a buck, its going to be a nice one for my area.

AR's aren't about growing trophy deer, if you think they are you don't know anything about getting bigger bucks. They are a tool to help change a bad mindset of PA hunters of shooting every single buck they see regardless of size, as well as trying to get a larger group of bucks into an older age bracket. If PA didn't have this mentality and the majority of hunters who have killed dozens of bucks, or those who can fairly easily get a buck wouldn't still promote shooting any one, just becuase it IS a buck, then we wouldn;t need AR's.

wingbar

Ry: why force any hunter that is happy with a spike to pass on it? Just so that spike MAY grow into a buck someone else thinks is a trophy?
Can't the trophy hunters still pass on small bucks without AR in place if they so choose?
One thing horn hunters always say" I kill as many doe as I can to help the herd an pass on little bucks" well then they should be happy with just killing those does every year and the big rack buck they earn thru their superior hunting skills occassinally.
IMHO a horn hunter has no more right to ask a spike hunter to pass than a spike hunter has to tell a horn hunter to pass on those does.

chickory

I think it would be intersting to ask this queston after the January meeting.

For a few people, they are waiting to see what happens in Jan.

It will have a lot to say in the question of whether to spend the money for a license next year.

vtbuckrulrss

well, i can see snipers babysitter must have left for the day for that childish comment to appear. snipe, at least the only wood i would try sucking on is a maple tree. whose, wooddy, i mean tree have you been sucking the sap out of?
Rob, sorry for yelling, but exactly what i hoped would not happen, did. the reason that i phrased my question as i did is to have people in your state, and those who hunt it, get a bearing as to how people feel about hunting pa after the ar's have taken affect. like i said, i know guy's that will never go back. some guys in this post have said that they like it there now, and definetely will return. that was the entire intent of the post. but, we can see how quickly this has gone downhill. we already know from numerous posts how the instate guys feel, that's why i was hoping to get very little response from them, and asked for no pa responses. it would have been a lot easier to get a count on the yes i will return's vs. the never again's if we didn't get all the extra comments, answering each.
and as far as shaking the trees, trying to get everyone worked up, and never having even hunted there before, there is a more mature answer to that. they are considering trying that bunch of hogwash( ar's) in vt., and i am fighting it heart and soul to not go down that path of destruction. our herd is not at the saturation point that pa had, and we don't have the biological need for it, which is the only true reason to do a qdm plan in the first place. sao every bit of input i can get which can give me an ideas of loss/gain of hunting licenses helps. oh yeah, rob, the big deer, vs. the little one question? what am i shooting with? big one of course! but i don't see how that goes along with the original question?
pat

CattNY

I use to hunt with a very good hunter when I was younger. This man was well respected in my area for deer hunting. He shot several bucks in several States. Some were big, some were spikes. He was happy with all of them. Some days we use to hunt real hard. I shot some small bucks in thickets that he previously shot Trophies. He use to tell me that my spike or 4 pointer was the same as when he use to shoot his trophies. He told me it came out of the same area where trophies hang out and the only reason it wasn't bigger, was because of luck. My point is this: Any buck can be a challenge. He also told me that trophy bucks will make mistakes, especially during the rut. How is a rut crazed trophy any smarter than a 1.5 year old buck. Lastly, I don't think that it has been proven that AR puts more trophies in a particular area. If there is proof, I'd like to see it. People say it is common sense, I say it is non sense. Out!

VA HEAD HUNTER

cat your right any buck will make a mistake but the point is this . if a mature buck of age around 5 lets say, i doubt he made too many mistakes in his lifetime. a buck doesnt get 5 by making mistakes. and yes the rut does change their patterns with all the chasing of does and sparing with other bucks for the right to breed the does but what do you think it does to the deer numbers if everyone shoots smaller bucks? especially if they havent even been given the chance to become sexually mature enough to breed the does? simple math will explain that question. and yes i agree that a trophy is whatever it means to that specific hunter. but its not like we are talking about a state that has hundreds of deer running wild around evryones stand. obviously there is population issues in pa for the state to do restrictions so again how is a smart thing to do to shoot deer that are not even given the chance to reproduce? i just dont understand the arguments in pa. and also i read somewhere in one of these posts that someone stated that pa hunters are not trophy hunters and that they were not taught to be until the hunting shows on tv glamourized it but thats a bold statement to speak for the tens of thousands that hunt the state. even if that was true as a whole it still doesnt excuse the fact that everyone that goes in the woods to deer hunt is going for 3 reasons. 1 the experience, 2 the meat, and 3 the big boy. i dont know anybody out there that can honestly say that they would let a monster walk to shoot a doe or a smaller buck. come on thats just crap.