wingbar

how true!
I can only speak for myself but I really don't care if I get a buck or not, but I do want to see deer when I hunt. This year I spent around 190 hrs in a treestand in archery and another 45-48 in rifle/MZ seasons. Yes I did kill a beautiful 11 pt 208# buck with my bow an saw about 25 other deer total. But that's alot of time in alot of trees to see just 26 deer. Averages out to about 1 deer every 8 1/4 hrs. Hard to hold even the most devout hunter's interst like that.
Something has got to change up here in this WMU

chickory

AR by itself will drop your buck harvests, even if you do not implement hr.
Of the deer you would hold over your first year... 20% of those will die from non-hunting causes. But if you do then you are growing your deer poulation in your state and you would increase the pressure on your habitat. If WV has plenty of habitat then you have nothing to worry about, if you can sustain higher deer numbers then by all means stop shooting bucks and there will be more around.

But I really doubt WV does have extra habitat laying around that your DNR or legislature says they would really like eaten by more herbivores. In general that is counter to most eastern states goals...

So what you will have to do is shoot more does, to make room for the bucks your going to protect. In most states who have a good recruitment rate already, you will be merely taking bred doe and kill them so they do not produce a fawn the following year. (when you used to kill a small buck, that was not a big deal).

Pa already bred 90% of thier does and 25 % of thier fawns in a decent time period and so when we increased our doe harvest we were doing wht our deer managers wanted...reducing the herd size. In our case, not just enough to make room for the few bucks we held over, but for the purpose of "balancing our habitat with the herd". They said our 1.4 million in 2000 was "twice as many as the habitat will support".

Soooooooooo..... your state is very likely in the same boat, your biologists will ask for cuts to the herd, and as a consolation they will offer you AR as a booby prize . Your not after all Mississippi or Arkansas with rich mississippi delta soil and long hot growing seasons. Your more like PA.

So look to pa,

since AR/HR we have dropped our buck harvests from 203,000 buck prior to AR, down to 165,000, then 142,000 down to a dismal estimated 110,000 bucks this year. Some hunters now can hunt for days in some areas and not see a deer, let alone a buck.

So for 93,000 less buck being taken in pa we have increased our 2.5 year old buck taken by 9,300. (From memory I think we harvested 52,000 before and 61,300 something after).

So in WV are you ready to send 93,000 hunters home with no bucks, just so 9,300 can say they got a 7point 2.5 year old instead of a 6 point 1.5 year old????????? [&:]

As one of our Game Commisisoners said "we are taking hte same old bucks we have been taking for the last ten years".

.....and a heck of a lot less of them.

cuernos1

You killed a 208 B&C and are complaining...??? Give me a break.. Do you really think that thing was a yearling?? 5+yrs at a minimum....

I saw more deer than that in Ohio and Pa... I hunted 15 times in Ohio and saw nearly a 2 bucks per hunt. With me not drawing on one... However I am looking for a 150 min...

How much scouting did you do..?? I can't imagine hunting that much and not seeing deer... Were your clothes in scent locked containers, you hunted the wind, did not booger up an area and go back, use the same trail and stand several days running etc..?? That is why I doubt when I hear folks say there aren't any deer...

In PA on my own farm I passed a ton of 6s and 8s and 9s and such...and nothing was 130 +... I did see on 140 class that did slip by....That said, have you read anything on deer management or cattle management.?? From the comments of wingbar and chickory is appears not so....I really do not think either of you have had a valid position on any of your comments...

I have been studying and learning about deer for over 20 years...and you know what I learn every year...Killing a spike or doe is way easy...A wall hanger who is older, nocturnal and switched on that is a challenge...

BTBowhunter

AR and the resulting increase in nice bucks has converted many initial skeptics. HR on the other hand has had mixed reviews. It seems that the too big WMU's has left some with thelegitimate concern that we have too many and too few all within the same WMU.

AR will probably stay, HR will likely me modified and we all pray that the WMU's will be made more realistic.

wingbar

cuernos: before you go off on another tangent and futhure embarrass yourself you may wish to go back and REREAD my post NOWHERE did I say I killed a 208B&C I said " a beautiful 11 pt 208# " (#=POUNDS today just like it did 20 yrs ago when you were earning about deer) and till you hunt where I'd do you may want to retract that tid bit as well!

Pat_Ely

My opinion is that the only way antler restrictions will work is if they restrict the size as in inches, I learned alot this past year working for an outfitter. I learned that a buck uses the nutrients the first three years to build body size. After the third year the body is full grown and the nutrients then go to the antlers. It was an unspoken rule even with the local hunters where I was to not shoot anything under 115". The doe population didn't seem to have anything to do with it. I saw alot of deer period and I am sure it wasn't a 1 to 1 ratio. When I scouted properties I saw 10-15 bucks on each property and atleast 5-7 of those were shooters, being larger than 115". JMO though. Pat

wvdeer4u

Pro line, WV isn't considering AR. The head biologist wants no part of that. If he wants more bucks or bigger bucks he will reduce the buck kill from 5 to 1 or 2. To much can go wrong with AR. I would love to have a one buck a year limit. I know people who shoot 2-3 bucks every year then might get a BB or two on accident in doe season now they've killed 4-5 bucks a year. Until the DNR chages their licensing fees they will not get rid of the extra buck or extra bow tag. They make Too much money from residents and way too much from nonresidents for those extra buck tags.

BTBowhunter

I agree that antler score is a better way to do AR but thats probably never going to fly in PA statewide and probably shouldnt on public land anyway.

I think that we all need to remember that AR was intended to allow some bucks to age for the purpose of a better breeding competition and that better racks were alwayspromoted as the welcome by product.
Pennsylvania will never be an Iowa, Illinois, Kansas etc. We can do better than we have in "the good ol days" and we have begun to prove that.

We need smaller WMU's and need to manage HR better and the AR we got aint perfect but it may be the best we can hope for.

MasonsRidge

West Virginia needs an antler restriction as well as curbing the doe kills in order to save their herd. Common sense tells you that West Virginian's are allowed by rules and regulations to harvest too many deer. Look at it this way for example, Pennsylvania has 3 times the land mass as West Virginia, PA has 3-4 times more hunters than West Virginia and PA has 3 times more deer than WV but PA can only kill (1) Buck and 3 does and West Virginia can harvest up to 9-100 deer? Like I said, common sense tells you that you can't continue killing all those deer in West Virginia an expect to see many in future hunts. West Virginia, hopefully will instill an antler restriction with the "NEW" DNR head that was recently selected.