slugman

Since Alt is retiring , will guys take Bradley Campbell off our hands ?

MA Jay

I hunt private land in PA and think Alt was the best thing to happen to the deer herd in my years of travelling to PA. Over those years I watched the opening day massacre of anything that moved turn into a hunt where guys actually looked for small bucks to pass up to take does. During archery season went from seeing mostly does and a few spikes and a fork horn or 2 to more true "racked" bucks with more very healthy young bucks .. and still saw a lot of does, just slightly less.

Over all the "herd" in my area is slightly less .. but that is a difference of seeing 25 deer a day on stand to 15 deer a day just a lot more healthy looking and with larger racks. The averge doe 8 years ago was 88 lbs .. this year it was 105 lbs. There were 2 buck with more than 6 points taken 8 and 9 years ago .... this year and last we have taken 4 each year.

This is on my "farm", and I don't hunt the state game lands anymore. Drives of 20 + people wanting to kill anything brown was the problem on state lands in the area I hunted. Still is if you ask me.

Anyone in the world could hunt the same farm as me .. you'd just have make it past the first 30 seconds of "get the hell off my land" and then have the smarts to have a 6 pack of beer and Dale Earnhardt hat in your hand!

chickory

Glad to see Gary go, his misleading and used car salesman tactics are no longer needed. I mean how long can you really go, until hunters catch on to your hype. (apparently about 5 years).


AR is no more needed in Pa than HR was needed statewide. There we plenty of bucks in pa taken before Dr. Alts extreme views came to town. AR was only in place to appeal to hunters lesser natures, and keep them in the game while HR is accomplished.

Go to deer management not run by special interests, and there is no need for it. Pa should not be a state driven by wannabe trophy hunters.

AR is great if you want to practice it voluntarily, if its a heavy handed state mandate then its not all right.

quiksilver

So as to not further offend Ulysses and Deaddeer, I will not comment.

With respect to Dr. Alt, I would like to extend a personal thank you. For the past 13 seasons, I have toiled with and argued over this topic. I've lost (and gained) hunting partners over it. Finally, along comes Dr. Alt, who codifies a sensible quality deer management program. For the past three years, my hunting has gotten better and better, resulting in the best conditions I've ever experienced.

January 1, 2004 will mark a day when Pennsylvania will make a decision which will ultimately alter the future of hunting as we've came to know it. Hopefully, the powers-that-be will stay the course and continue forth with the status quo.

Don't let a quiet minority tip the balance away from sensible management.

ulysses

quickie: you're taking for granted Alt's management was sensible, the stats just don't prove it. Show me where they do and I'll not only shut up I'll quit posting. Very little of what he offered as results 5 yrs ago has become reality. About all that did was to lower deer numbers. Sure a spike in the amt. of 2 1/2 yr old bucks accured but that only happened because of AR. I really have no problem with AR and have posted that I'd even favor buck tags going to a lottery system by WMU. It is the HR I so dispise,and some here seem to confuse the two.
I will say this about AR, just how serious is the PGC about seeing it? when they still allow kids an service members among others to kill spikes an ys? WOW now that's some sensible deer management!
The true minority are the AR lovers, not the vast majority of AR haters.

as for the comment of putting me an deaddeer on the deer management board PPPPPPPPPlease do

Pa Trophy Man

Dead Deer, the AR goal is to allow the bucks to become bigger to increase competition for breeding rights (Yes, and provide bigger racks for hunters). Like you said, say you have a herd of 30 buck and 60 doe with no AR. So lets say only about 10% of those thirty buck reach maturity, that makes for a greater chance of smaller less genetically superior deer getting to breed and pass on their poor genes. Not only is that going to make for smaller racks in the future, but its going to make for the bred does having less fawns and fawns in poor health which is still decreasing the herd. Im all for cutting back on the HR but killing all the young bucks isnt going to fix anything. You want the strongest most dominant deer doing the breeding, that goes for buck and doe. Keep the ARs around(while cutting the doe tags) your going to have the biggest, strongest, most dominant bucks doing the breeding with a greater number of doe-which is going to increase the health of the fawns making for a stronger herd in the future.

quiksilver

Very well stated, trophyman

I'm not saying that the current management plan isn't without flaw. Obviously, letting kids and servicemen shoot spikes and y's is questionable. Is that grounds for scrapping the whole idea?? certainly not.

AR's are better than No AR's... that is my position, plain and simple

Charlie P

If shoot a only 6pt and better don't you open the same door? Especially in the first few years of the plan.

Let's talk genetically inferior bucks, the plan in Pa has absolutely no plan to cull genetically inferior bucks does it? In the 4 pt area or better what do you do about a buck that never grows a rack bigger then a six?

ulysses

AR is better than no AR, I agree let's get some meaningful restrictions though:
1. put a buck tag on any male deer, works in states that have it that way.
2. Put antler deer permits on a lottery by WMU


The vast majority of hunters see no problem with AR it is Alt's idea of needing to make room for all the bucks it saves by killing off the doe they don't like. What he bases his numbers of "saved buck in each WMU" on is anyone's guess. This is the problem,and Alt would not address it because of politics by the timber companies and the Auduobon Soc.. He flat out lied or tried to keep that hidden from hunters to appease those same interests that made him so dispecabl!

rybohunter

In all honesty charlie P, the number of bucks that will never grow more than 6 pts is very small. And since most people don't follow the rules anyways, odds are that 6 is going to be shot before he passes his genes on for too long. Plus there are kids, disabled and military who can shoot what they want.