Antler restrictions at work !!!!!
 

My buddy Chas shot this buck at last light on the last day of the PA archery season. I would say that the PA antler restrictions are definatley working.

wow your friend did a good job! nice buck! i hunt in PA too. i bow hunt in Ross Township, Pittsburgh where i got a 9 this year,. But for gun i either go to armstrong county or up to the Allegheny National Forest. Where do you hunt?

Congrats to your friend. I hate to think of what kind of deer we would have around here with retrictions that would atleast stop some people from shooting the spikes and forkhorns here in WV.

Nice buck! Last year I had a nice 4 point which should have been a 6 but had no brow tines. Hopefully this year he's a nice 8 and still dumb enough to walk 40 yards next to an orange blob with a 7mm rem mag at the exact same side hill!

That said I hear some argue that if someone smokes the spike buck and never tags the 6 point then next year he is a nice 8. Oh well as long as I can sit in my spot on the monday after turkey day I'm a happy man!

nice deer congrats!... i like how his antlers wrap inside themselves

Antler restrictions work if done right and everybodies on board.
Do not have a gerneral open for any buck less than min at all, for at least 5 years.A longer doe season must be put in place.Old does and
any doe without a fawn.A clause must be put in the regs with drawings and pics stating To encourage hunters to take the old mature bucks out of the heard and leave the other bucks to do the breeding. It's hard thing to pass up, but it's an important step to take in proper game management. Otherwise it's all for not. Reward the hunters that do so, and the ones that don't, maybe take their buck tag away from them for the following season.Alot of clubs do this and it is the right thing to do. Yesturday I saw 4 very nice dominate legal bucks, but all had does with them.They didn't stick around long enough to really score them but I didn't care. Maybe they will breed them maybe not, but I look for the big ones that don't have any when in the rutting period. They are usally the big ones that are can still very dominate animals, but aren't as agressive in breeding activity because of older age.Aggresive dominant genes is what you want when starting over.So yeah hunters should be encouraged to pass on
bucks that have this for 5 or 6 years.
with does.

So what youre saying is before ARs were implemented no one ever killed bigs bucks in PA?.. how do people manage to kill big bucks on public land around here without ARs??? Happens every year.:rolleye0011:

So that is a great deer. Could it have been there without antler restriction? No way of knowing is there? I bet there are hundreds of hunters who were in the woods at the same time he was complaining about the lack of deer and not seeing anything they could shot due to the restrictions. How many in these economic times could have used the meat and could care less about the antler size.

Again it is a great deer and congratulate your buddy but one deer does not make the proof of the program statewide.

So penalizing hunters for taking deer you do not want them to is your way of encouraging more hunters. Sorry but that is not the way to manage a herd. You are managing for antler growth and not for quantity or quality of HERD. Being an antler hunter only means you are killing the 5% of the herd that got that large. How many of thos eimature bucks will get to the 10 or 12 point size? Probably only 5% yet you would penalize anyone taking something other than that. Sorry but that is wrong and PA will continue to have a deer population problem for many years to come. Meaning no deer of any quality or quantity. Continue to decimate your herd.

Bingo. I cannot see how taking a buck tag from someone would be the "right thing to do." "Right", as defined by people who just hunt for big horns. Don't get me wrong, I'd be as excited as the next guy to take a monster buck, but that isn't why I hunt...not by a long shot. I would have zero tolerance for an action by the STATE to pass laws just so more horn-hungry hunters can be satiated.

"QDM" (I always have to laugh at that term) laws or not, there will always be big bruisers in the woods to find, if that's your quarry. They may not be in abundance, but isn't that the way it's supposed to be? Isn't that what makes them special?

Manage for overall quality of the HERD, not the horns.

Nice looking buck but you don't necessarily need AR to get quality bucks