4 pt. minimum whitetail units

[NWBREW]

Not all four pts. are mature animals. Some could be and are 2 1/2 year olds. I do not believe it will have ANY effect on the older mature bucks. It will just give younger bucks another year or two to grow. There is not and has not been a law that you could not shoot a larger mature animal.

I cannot remember the last time I shot a buck smaller then a 4pt. and I tag out every year AND hunt a unit without pt. restrictions. YES....I pass on smaller bucks almost every year. 

Are you hunting private land?  You're talking WTail correct?  If so can an old Muley hunter follow you next year.          

Both Public and Private. Yes, whitetails. 

[DBHAWTHORNE]

Not to rain on your parade, but if those "bigger bucks" you claim are going to be the result of this experiment are shot before the rut, how does that equate to 'bigger  and older bucks" at breeding time when they are needed?

This point is pointless. Why would the percentage of overall bucks being killed before the rut be any higher under the 4pt rule? It wouldn't. Why would hunters suddenly become so much more effective at killing older age class bucks? They won't. (certainly more older age class bucks will be killed but it's all relative to the number that are available to kill)

 Realistically, there will probably be more older age class bucks around to do the breeding. this being said it doesn't matter a lot in regards to genetics passed on. A 1 1/2 year old buck can pass along monster genetics just as well as a booner. However, the herds are definitely healthier when you have the older age class animals breeding.

 And if all the bucks that are genetically inclined to grow larger racks are taken out before the rut, who's gonna be left to breed, and what will be the result? Again...see comments above....."all" the genetically inclined to grow larger racks will not be taken out before the rut..there will be more available as a result of this rule.Smaller racked bucks will breed and the result will be bucks with genetics for smaller antlers, because having smaller antlers (less points) will become a trait that allows survival through the breeding season.Most 2 1/2  year old whitetail in WA have at least 4 points on one side and probably 99.9 percent have 4 points to a side by 3 1/2. As I said earlier I have only seen two whitetail  2 1/2+ with less than 4 points in my 15 years of hunting here. So again this is going to have little impact. 

As was pointed out, if you want to shoot a big buck, you have to pass on the small ones. Some don't care about antler size so they shoot what ever they see first. This allows the big guy who was following the little guy the chance to slip away and survive to breed. Now all hunters are forced to wait and that big guy following the little guy gets shot because he thought it was safe when the little guy wasn't shot at. FYI....the largest majority of 4pt's are "little guys"...small 2 1/2 point bucks....also...if that guy were allowed to shoot the little guys that is now illegal to shoot then he would most likely be shooting a yearling buck...you can't really determine the antler genetics of a 1 1/2 year old buck in the wild so that buck could carry better genetics than the older bucks in that area...again...moot point.

I do think this rule will work temporarily, probably just long enough to be put in permanently, then it will start to go downhill, just like what happened in Pennsylvania.

The only thing that has gone downhill in PA is the feelings of some hunters regarding the 4pt rule. However, the overall results are promising.

The overall results have gotten better. Lets take a look. The rule went into place in 2002. Lets start with 2004 so we can see what happens early on...actually lets look at what happens 2004-2008:

2004-2008: Typical B&C Bucks- 7
2004-2008: NT B&C Bucks- 7

Now what happened later one: ? 

2008-2011: Typical B&C Bucks-  16
2008-2011: Non-Typical B&C Bucks- 6

Looks like it got better to me.  I might also add that P&Y number went up significantly but I don't have those exact numbers on me right now. I might also add that all the 2011 bucks probably haven't been entered yet.

In fact prior to 2004 there were only 29 Typical B&C entered.....in over 100 years of recorded history  . Since 2004 there has been 23 Typical B&C entered...Even if I consider that there used to be less interest in entering I would still say that is a major improvement.

For the same time period there were 15 Non-Typicals and since 2004 there have been 14 Non-Typicals entered....so again I would call that a major improvement.   


A Pennsylvania radio telemetry study found that about 50 percent of the state’s yearling bucks survive the hunting season; and of those, nearly 90 percent are available the following season. Seventy percent of those 2 1/2-year-old bucks are taken by hunters, but almost all of the remaining 30 percent survive yet another hunting season, offering hunters an honest chance at harvesting a 3 1/2-year-old buck. That was almost unheard of prior to the adoption of the point rules.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

The only thing that has gone downhill in PA is the feelings of some hunters regarding the 4pt rule. However, the overall results are promising.

The overall results have gotten better.

Really DB? Then explain this.

http://blog.pennlive.com/pa-sportsman/2010/01/angry_deer_hunters_on_pennsylvania_game_commissions_agenda.html

and this

http://www.nrahuntersrights.org/Article.aspx?id=4416

And here's where I got the idea that antler restriction focus effort on the older breeders.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/speciesinfo/moose/pdfs/interior_moose_news_fall_2011.pdf

Here's the money quote......."Antler restrictions are not intended to create trophy animals, but actually place more pressure on larger animals."

Lastly, here are the harvest stats for Penn since they kept them. What happened after the antler restriction went in? The harvest has dropped dramatically. Look at 2001 and then what happened next.  The first year drop-off is expected and explainable. There were less legal animals available because of the restrictions. But why did it keep dropping? After all you are now protecting those little bucks. If this system worked as advertised, the numbers should have started climbing the second year. But they kept dropping. No wonder Penn hunters are PO'd.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=625882&mode=2

As for those B & C bucks you mentioned, what was the cost? You didn't mention if any were taken before the restrictions so I'll say none to give you a best case scenario. You showed us 36 B & C bucks over 9 years, and that works out to 4 per year. But the overall harvest has been about 150,000 deer less per year. Do you think those 150,000 hunters who didn't get a deer each year really care that 4 Booners were taken each year? Do you think the state might be selling less licenses now? Do you think it's good for hunting as a whole to have 150,000 disappointed hunters each year and 4 happy ones? Look for similar results in Washington.

[huntnnw]

 

[huntnnw]

"As for those B & C bucks you mentioned, what was the cost? You didn't mention if any were taken before the restrictions so I'll say none to give you a best case scenario. You showed us 36 B & C bucks over 9 years, and that works out to 4 per year. But the overall harvest has been about 150,000 deer less per year. Do you think those 150,000 hunters who didn't get a deer each year really care that 4 Booners were taken each year? Do you think the state might be selling less licenses now? Do you think it's good for hunting as a whole to have 150,000 disappointed hunters each year and 4 happy ones? Look for similar results in Washington."

ONCE again its PA!! and we have 2!!!! units out of the WHOLE state with this rule!! there is a boat load of other area to hunt!!

[WAcoyotehunter]

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/speciesinfo/moose/pdfs/interior_moose_news_fall_2011.pdf

Here's the money quote......."Antler restrictions are not intended to create trophy animals, but actually place more pressure on larger animals."

The "money quote" is from AK regarding moose???  Really??  I would think the money quote would be the line right before that "The main purpose of antler restirctions is to maintain hunting opportunity and longer seasons."

[WAcoyotehunter]

ONCE again its PA!! and we have 2!!!! units out of the WHOLE state with this rule!! there is a boat load of other area to hunt!!

yep- it's worth a shot in two units.  I was at every meeting and in the stakeholders group that supported this change.  I think it will be good for the herd, hopefully the folks here that are in opposition can live with a few years of change in two units...

[huntnphool]

ONCE again its PA!! and we have 2!!!! units out of the WHOLE state with this rule!! there is a boat load of other area to hunt!!

yep- it's worth a shot in two units.  I was at every meeting and in the stakeholders group that supported this change.  I think it will be good for the herd, hopefully the folks here that are in opposition can live with a few years of change in two units...

 Just out of curiosity, how much private vs. public land is there in those two units anyway?

 Is this going to benefit the majority of hunters if it works or is it going to benefit only those that has access to private land?

[Chesapeake]

There is alot of good reading about point restrictions on the web. You can google "do antler point restrictions work?" and get all kinds of stuff to read.

The main thing I take from all of it is that statewide and other widespread little reasearch, just toss a dart at the board and see where it hits, approaches to it typicaly fail in the eyes of the average hunter. Well thought out and researched smaller scale restrictions with active management typicaly succeed in the eyes of the hunters involved.

Its yet to be seen if what WDFW is trying with these few units will be a success or not.

This is a good read:
http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2427.pdf

[bearpaw]

The only thing that has gone downhill in PA is the feelings of some hunters regarding the 4pt rule. However, the overall results are promising.

The overall results have gotten better.

Really DB? Then explain this.

http://blog.pennlive.com/pa-sportsman/2010/01/angry_deer_hunters_on_pennsylvania_game_commissions_agenda.html

and this

http://www.nrahuntersrights.org/Article.aspx?id=4416

And here's where I got the idea that antler restriction focus effort on the older breeders.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/speciesinfo/moose/pdfs/interior_moose_news_fall_2011.pdf

Here's the money quote......."Antler restrictions are not intended to create trophy animals, but actually place more pressure on larger animals."

Lastly, here are the harvest stats for Penn since they kept them. What happened after the antler restriction went in? The harvest has dropped dramatically. Look at 2001 and then what happened next.  The first year drop-off is expected and explainable. There were less legal animals available because of the restrictions. But why did it keep dropping? After all you are now protecting those little bucks. If this system worked as advertised, the numbers should have started climbing the second year. But they kept dropping. No wonder Penn hunters are PO'd.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=625882&mode=2

As for those B & C bucks you mentioned, what was the cost? You didn't mention if any were taken before the restrictions so I'll say none to give you a best case scenario. You showed us 36 B & C bucks over 9 years, and that works out to 4 per year. But the overall harvest has been about 150,000 deer less per year. Do you think those 150,000 hunters who didn't get a deer each year really care that 4 Booners were taken each year? Do you think the state might be selling less licenses now? Do you think it's good for hunting as a whole to have 150,000 disappointed hunters each year and 4 happy ones? Look for similar results in Washington.

You are actually confusing a lot of facts. I talked to a PA Game Commissioner to get more info. I learned that the insurance companies lobbied hard to increase doe harvest to reduce vehicle collisions in numerous eastern states. The overall harvest is most likely down in recent years because many more does were taken out of the population in previous years and now there are fewer deer breeding.

But you have a smaller deer population producing larger deer due to the 4 pt rule.

[BOWHUNTER45]

this is very true Bearpaw...my whole family lives in Pa and they are very unhappy on how the dept went about harvesting to many doe ...The problem is when they first started that program they were letting them shot doe while buck season was going on ..it made for one big slaughter...but the problem they have let it go on way to long and they have seriously wiped out some does...but on a better note they have produced some dandy bucks ...So I guess it comes down to doe to buck ratios ..I am not kidding when I say when I was a kid and if I did not see 100 + deer opening morning I did not see any... I mean so many damn doe that you had trouble getting a shot at a buck ...and I also must say that sometimes I would see 50 doe or more and never see one buck ...Pa hunters are used to seeing a sheet load of deer and I think they miss not seeing what they usually see.. ALOT OF DEER !! But do you want alot of deer or bigger bucks ...I do not think you can have both to produce bigger bucks ! Just like over in the N.E  We are far from lacking whitetail ...During turkey season I see hundreds and hundreds of doe ..Almost like we never had a deer season or a winter kill ...They need to thin some more doe out of the N.E part of our state....

[bearpaw]

Here in 121 we have a different scenario. It's not that we have too many does, we really have too few bucks.

Like WACoyote, I was also on the whitetail group.

Due to heavy winter kill and heavy predator losses it appeared to me that our deer numbers were at about 40% of previous years before the 2 back to back hard winters. Rightfully the WDFW commission cut back on doe permits to let the herd grow.

But when you cut back on doe permits it places more hunters after bucks at a time when herd numbers are already low. The only sensible thing to do is also cut back on buck harvest to prevent further destruction of the buck/doe ratio. By cutting back harvest of both bucks and does, the herd will recover faster and with a better buck/doe ratio.

I am uncertain if it's a good long term rule, we will know more in 4 more years, but for reducing the buck harvest immediately it worked well and that was my intention in supporting the rule.

There is a lot of private land and there is a lot of public access in these units. Because the public land gets hunted harder, and there are no crops on public land, I would say there are definitely more deer on most of the private land. However, the Clayton transect which I think is in a mostly private land agricultural area, had about the worst buck/doe ratio. It's also more open country in many areas so that could also be why it has a lower buck/doe ratio.

[Seabass]

The 2 units with the antler restrictions are 2 of the biggest public lands untis in the state. I was at all of the meeting as well...every one of those long winded late nights in a steamy faigrounds building filled with mosquitoes in Clayton.

DB's is the only response I have heard that has any data to back up his argument. This rule has only been applied to 2 units and it has only been one year since implementation. I supported it and believe it will improve our herd quality. I have plenty of scientific evidence from around the country that proves it will help. I'm not saying it is the fix all for everyone to have an opportunity at a booner but it will help.

Deer are deer regardless of where they live. Obviously there will be some differing variables but the animals on a realtive basis are still the same. When I was volunteering for the QDMA (Quality Deer Management Association) I was exposed to tons of whitetail research. I had the opportunity to listen to many discussions and debates on topics ranging from genetics to nutrition from some of the leading whitetail experts in the country. When it was all said and done they always came back to one key when it comes to "herd health" and that was age structure. Applied to both bucks and does.

I keep hearing the complaint that antler point restirictions put too much "pressure on the older age class of bucks. That's not true because antler points and age are not synonymous but the older age class is exactly the age class that should be harvested. Any white tail expert will tell you that harvest should target bucks 4 1/2 and older if  herd quality is your objective. Easier said than done becassue 10 different hunter's have 10 different objectives and you can't legislate education. In other words you can't make a rule that states an age class for harvest because 90% of the hunting public can't tell the difference between a 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 year old deer. The last harvest data I saw from 2 years ago in units 121 and 117(average age of buck harvest) was 1 1/2 years of age. So we were killing the wrong age class. It's not hard to see the outcome if we kill the young bucks and the old ones die off.

So this is where antler point restrictions come in and also why we fought so hard to make it 4 points rather than 3. It's the next best thing that can be enforced. The antler point restriction will allow for more bucks to survive hunting season. Some of those bucks will be older and some will be younger but after a few years go by there will be more bucks than before. PERIOD!

[DBHAWTHORNE]

The only thing that has gone downhill in PA is the feelings of some hunters regarding the 4pt rule. However, the overall results are promising.

The overall results have gotten better.

Really DB? Then explain this.

http://blog.pennlive.com/pa-sportsman/2010/01/angry_deer_hunters_on_pennsylvania_game_commissions_agenda.html

The reason it was "the worst deer season" is because of an over-harvesting of does that was motivated by money rather than management. The four point rule had nothing to do with this.

and this

http://www.nrahuntersrights.org/Article.aspx?id=4416

 
Did you actually read the majority of the comments in the article above.. they actually prove my point not yours... Most of the people are calling for them to continue protecting the yearlings with 3 or 4 pt restrictions and to cut down the harvest of does. 

And here's where I got the idea that antler restriction focus effort on the older breeders.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/speciesinfo/moose/pdfs/interior_moose_news_fall_2011.pdf

Here's the money quote......."Antler restrictions are not intended to create trophy animals, but actually place more pressure on larger animals."

Your cherry picking an article that actually talks about one of the benefits of antler restrictions you then draw some baseless conclusions from this in your original post. The fact is the 4pt minimum will simply shift the pressure from 1 1/2 year old bucks to 2 1/2 year old bucks (for the most part). This will ultimately result in raising the buck population.

Lastly, here are the harvest stats for Penn since they kept them. What happened after the antler restriction went in? The harvest has dropped dramatically. Look at 2001 and then what happened next.  The first year drop-off is expected and explainable. There were less legal animals available because of the restrictions. But why did it keep dropping? After all you are now protecting those little bucks. If this system worked as advertised, the numbers should have started climbing the second year. But they kept dropping. No wonder Penn hunters are PO'd.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=625882&mode=2

It kept dropping because of an overharvest of does. I can understand how you might draw the conclusion that 4pt restrictions will have some kind of impact on genetics but I can't for the life of me understand how you have drawn the conclusion that the four point minimum is what's responsible for this increasingly large drop in harvest. Certainly you will have an initial drops in harvest but eventually that buck harvest should rise or remain steady if all other things are kept the same...in this case things didn't remain the same...they overharvested the does and that is what you see with the harvest numbers.

As for those B & C bucks you mentioned, what was the cost? The cost was simply passing on some of the younger bucks which increased the overall buck numbers and had the side benefit of creating more record class animals. You didn't mention if any were taken before the restrictions so I'll say none to give you a best case scenario. The deer that I mentioned were killed in the periods given. If I were to enter a deer today that was killed 50 years ago then that entry would be recorded as 1962 not 2012...so the numbers you see are correct. You showed us 36 B & C bucks over 9 years, and that works out to 4 per year. But the overall harvest has been about 150,000 deer less per year. Do you think those 150,000 hunters who didn't get a deer each year really care that 4 Booners were taken each year? Do you think the state might be selling less licenses now? Do you think it's good for hunting as a whole to have 150,000 disappointed hunters each year and 4 happy ones? Look for similar results in Washington. I "think" it is important to manage your does properly...which they didn't... It still boggles me how you come to the conclusion that antler restrictions lead to an overall drop in deer numbers like PA has experienced. For one, there is absolutely no studies that show this as the case and secondly it literally makes absolutely zero logical sense to assume such (because you are actually protecting animals with antler restrictions and thus raising the overall population available for future harvest....which is the overall goal of the current Whitetail APR's here in WA) 

[DBHAWTHORNE]

The only thing that has gone downhill in PA is the feelings of some hunters regarding the 4pt rule. However, the overall results are promising.

The overall results have gotten better.

Really DB? Then explain this.

http://blog.pennlive.com/pa-sportsman/2010/01/angry_deer_hunters_on_pennsylvania_game_commissions_agenda.html

and this

http://www.nrahuntersrights.org/Article.aspx?id=4416

And here's where I got the idea that antler restriction focus effort on the older breeders.

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/speciesinfo/moose/pdfs/interior_moose_news_fall_2011.pdf

Here's the money quote......."Antler restrictions are not intended to create trophy animals, but actually place more pressure on larger animals."

Lastly, here are the harvest stats for Penn since they kept them. What happened after the antler restriction went in? The harvest has dropped dramatically. Look at 2001 and then what happened next.  The first year drop-off is expected and explainable. There were less legal animals available because of the restrictions. But why did it keep dropping? After all you are now protecting those little bucks. If this system worked as advertised, the numbers should have started climbing the second year. But they kept dropping. No wonder Penn hunters are PO'd.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=625882&mode=2

As for those B & C bucks you mentioned, what was the cost? You didn't mention if any were taken before the restrictions so I'll say none to give you a best case scenario. You showed us 36 B & C bucks over 9 years, and that works out to 4 per year. But the overall harvest has been about 150,000 deer less per year. Do you think those 150,000 hunters who didn't get a deer each year really care that 4 Booners were taken each year? Do you think the state might be selling less licenses now? Do you think it's good for hunting as a whole to have 150,000 disappointed hunters each year and 4 happy ones? Look for similar results in Washington.

You are actually confusing a lot of facts. I talked to a PA Game Commissioner to get more info. I learned that the insurance companies lobbied hard to increase doe harvest to reduce vehicle collisions in numerous eastern states. The overall harvest is most likely down in recent years because many more does were taken out of the population in previous years and now there are fewer deer breeding.

But you have a smaller deer population producing larger deer due to the 4 pt rule.

 

Sitka identified the symptom (poor deer harvest) but incorrectly diagnosed the problem (over harvest of does rather than 4 pt rule)