deaddeer

But, the results from Miss. where they measure the antlers from wild free ranging deer showed that rack sizes decreased in the areas with the best habitat. There is a definite correlation between the rack size of a 1.5 buck and what it will be in another 2 or 3 years , since it takes spikes and Y's that long to match the 1.5 6 or 8 pt. The rate of antler growth is a very important factor in a heavily hunted herd.

BTBowhunter

If you think about it we have had HR without AR for years in some of our northern counties. Certainly many of the HR opponents have been crying "no deer" or "too few deer" for more than a decade.

This is just a personal observation, but in that pre AR period in the ANF where my family has hunted for years, we also noticed an improvement in the size of bodies as well as antlers while the pure deer numbers decreased somewhat.

I'd bet that we won't be hunting under the present plan for an extended period. But I would also bet that AR will outlast HR.

With our sheer number of hunters, I can envision that AR is here to stay but you never know. If the feedback I've experienced locally is representative of the rest of the state, we may one day actually experience voluntary AR. It exists in many parts of the the midwest, why not here?

BarnesX.308

We have spikes and basket rack 8-pointers on our property at the same time and they certainly look to be the same age. I would rather the 8-pointer live to see what he would turn into in a couple years than the spike.

chickory

In Pa, AR and HR have been married in order to accomplish herd reduction on a scale needed to substantially reduce OW deer numbers.

People who are trying to desperately pry them apart are trying to have thier cake and eat it too. Which as we all know we can't do. Pa's deer management strategy is not cafeteria style, where you can pick and choose the aspects you like, and ignore the others. Don't work that way.

Pa has always had HR every season. We always shoot a bunch of deer and sometimes it is in enough volume to reduce the OW herd, which if you have been paying attention to deadeer will reduce the total herd for the next year. So the key that quicksilver is missing is that PA'S PLAN IS A COMPREHENSIVE HERD REDUCTION FOR THE LONG TERM, and Dr. Alt merely used AR as a carrot to get hunters to get aggressively shooting does. He promised if you do so the bucks will get bigger, there will be less of them, and the ecosystem will benefit, and it will benefit forest regeneration for Pa business's.

As dead deer pointed out all WMU's in pa except 2g ACCORDING TO THE PGC, are waaaaay over their DD goal and need reduced. And his comprehensive deer plan of earlier seasons, more doe harvests and restricting buck harvests so that hunters who cannot tag a buck will take a doe as a consolation prize and reduce the herd.

In Pa you cannot get away from Herd reduction. it is the backbone of deer management, and we need more seasons for doe and more weapons 'IF' we are going to get the deer herd down to what the habitat can support acording to Dr. Alt.

Deaddeer says that much of Pa (habitat and social issues) can support more than 12dpsm. I suggest you listen to deaddeer more.
(Deaddeer, mayb you should start a thread on social carrying capacity. Its obvious hunters are rejecting Dr. Alts ecologically extreme deer managment and would like to hear a more hunter friendly social carrying capacity implemented in Pa! This thread is an example)


You can whirl all around the point of the plan, but the meat and potatos of the deer plan is the REDUCE the herd to DD goals statewide of 12dpsm. Down from our present 25dpsm.

So as Dr. Alt said before the commissioners on Jan of 2004. "Get used to seeing less deer".

deaddeer

That is true ,and as a result 2 G has the lowest harvest rate and worst hunting of any WMU in the state. That is the exact opposite of what Alt said would happen. Actually 2 G was at it's OWDD goal when Alt was appointed in 1999 and five years later the hunting is worse than it has been in the last 20 years. That is what the rest of the state has to look forward to if HR continues.

If Alt's HR plan succeeds the reductions are intended to be permanent, not temporay as you infer.

BTBowhunter

For the record, I fully believe that HR is intended to be permanent and never attempted to say or imply otherwise.

It's here to stay, what isnt here to stay is the number of tags now being sold and the kill numbers we now see. The idea is to kill more than the herd reproduces till the goal is reached and then reduce the kill to sustain the population at desired levels.

deaddeer

If you belive HR is permanaent ,why did you make this statement?

No one said the number of anterless tags allocated would remain at 1M and I have said over and over again ,that as the OWDD is reduced , even lower harvests will reduce the OWDD even more.

How many hunters do you think will support AR when the buck harvest drops below 100? If archers harvest 20K buck , that will leave 80K AR legal buck for 800K + rifle hunters,for a success rate of 1 buck every 10 years.

ulysses

bt how long do we need to wait for those numbers to be adjusted/ We lowered the herd in 3A two yrs ago and again last yr .
Get Alt to adjust the numbers in 3A and I'll go away but don't expect me to as long as he won't, kill me off and others will still be crying foul by Alt