Even with one or two landowners not wanting to join in with around 4000 acres herd management will be an easier task than with half not wanting to participate.

Very true, but it looks like all are on board. One lease that borders me will kick anyone out that shoots a deer that is less than 4.5 years old.

Glad I'm not hunting there.

OK I'll chime in a little on this one.

Are the ARs working?

First we need to know the problem of Age structure of live deer in the herd.
That (AGE of the herd) was never provided by TPWD in their justifications for this.

If we could get that we might have a REAL IDEA of if these ARs work or not.

Their hokuspokus scientific justifications make it impossible to have a base line if it works or not !!

Ask THEM if it works!!
Ask to see the initial age structure of the live herd and the current age structure of the live herd.

Ya, See horns weren't the problem. But they are the barometer if it works or not. DOH!! HORNS DON't Count!!

Deer numbers don't count. THAT WASN'T THE PROBLEM either.
Yet it is the barometer if it works or not. NUMBERS DON'T Count.!!

DEAD DEER DON'T COUNT, either!!

While you're at it ask 'em why they can ingnore their criteria for expanding the ARs. And ask 'em what contiguous means.

[i] Criteria:
The criteria used for candidate counties were: the county currently must be a one-buck county, 60% of the buck harvest in the county must consist of bucks less than 3.5 years of age, and the county must have a contiguous border with another county in which antler restriction regulations have been implemented.





How is NETX "CONTIGUOUS" with the original counties.

On Edit: ????? More opportunity ?????
I got to tell my son that the reason he had to give up 3 oppotunities at his first buck (this weekend) was the because of the TPWD ARS. Thank 'em for that too. I will.

Sure they work. If your goal is to support trophy hunters only and tell the 13 yr old boy on his first youth deer hunt that he can't shoot a darn thing he sees. That's a great way to get these boys hooked on hunting. When I was a kid, we depended on hunting to add meat that a tight budget couldn't always afford.

What a bunch of elitest rich-boy hunting crap!

Anyone shooting a young deer on my place will never hunt on it again either.

they have no idea as to what the age percentages of bucks killed is for a county. We don't have check stations that every deer must be taken to.... so it's not really possible (and not real sure a random sample can be reliable)

Well I am a meat hunter also, but would love to shoot a nice one eventually also. My kids are loving hunting even though they have to watch the young ones walk. Does are plenty so they can shoot one of those.

And BTW I am in an AR county, and we only eat game we kill. No other meat is bought from the store except bacon. Hadn't gone hungry yet, and have stayed well within the rules.

I wish I could hunt some of the land adjoining you Helomech. Hunting is much more satisfying when you let the young deer grow, and shoot and eat the older animals.

I'm not rich or an "elitist". The only red meat my family eats is venison. I have voluntarily let legal bucks walk for years and lived on does and culls or spikes. My son (14) understands that there are regulations and that the biologists are trying to do what's best for the herd. He also has hunted out of state where there is a 4 pt restriction (one antler must have at least 4 points 1" or longer) and he had to wait for a legal deer. Is it fun for them, no, and I think that there should be a youth exemption but I have known folks who would shoot deer to fill their wives tags and the tags of the son's or daughter's that didn't even hunt so you would have that to try to enforce. As been argued on this forum too many times there are no easy answers but the ones who keep bringing it up and complaining crack me up with the constant whining. BTW, the lease we had in Hamilton got better every year under the restrictions and I see the potential for better on this new lease in Young county and even though I will probably not kill a buck this year or even maybe next I know that in 3 or 4 years my son will have a crack at a trophy. That is a pretty good deal and he will be happier with a nice 120 or 130 class deer than I would be with a 150.

Heres the way I see it: I am 39 years old and have been deer hunting since I was 8. I have killed many deer but have yet to take a buck over 16 inches wide. I would "LOVE" to kill a 20" buck. In fact, thats been my goal for the past 10 years. I know that the "only" way Im going to have a 20" deer on my place is to let my bucks bet past 2 1/2 years old. I have been involved in a Co-Op in our local vicinity for the past 7 or 8 years. We implemented voluntary "Antler Restriction" initially, and 2 years ago, our county implemented mandatory AR. We hold a couple of meetings each year and members bring their racks and jawbones. Here is a fact

1) 99% if not all of the racks that get me excited have an accompanying jawbone that says the deer was 3.5 yrs or better.

I hear a lot of criticism about AR. I hear about all these old mature bucks running around with sub-legal racks. To this I say that there is "more speculation and deercamp talk than scientific proof." I challenge everyone here to go the extra mile and save a jawbone from the deer you kill. Have someone who "knows" not someone who "speculates" look at it and age the deer. You will soon see the direct correlation between antler size (mass, spread, points) and age.

AR is not perfect and it occasionally will protect a sub-standard deer, but given the lack of field aging ability of "most" hunters, I think its the best tool at our disposal. The only "sure" way I can think of to allow harvest of "only" 2.5 year old deer or better would be to implement mandatory check in of any buck and have an experienced professional age the deer by looking at their jawbones without any consideration for antler size, and then fine those that came in with under-aged deer. Guess what, 99% of the fines would go to deer with less than 8 pts, and less than 13" spread.
And remember (and I have to remind myself of this sometimes) The fact that you dont see deer does not mean that they are not there. Absence of proof is not proof of abasence. Think about years ago when someone killed a really nice buck. Few if any had ever laid eyes on the buck. To some degree, having 10 wary older bucks rather than 2 only improves the odds of one being seen slightly. They are still very wary and mostly nocturnal except for the rut. Game cameras have changed things a bit, but even cameras set on 1 minute delays can easily miss a large buck lagging behind in a batchelor group.

My point is AR are just about the only "working" tool we have to allow bucks to reach maturity.

Thanks, hopefully my neighbors are truly on board, and not just saying they are.

are yall done with this or is there more?

YES THEY ARE WORKING...

Excellent post pharmvet.

We got on our Lampasas lease in the spring of '93. By the following fall, TPWD had dropped us from a 2 buck/4 deer county down to 1 buck/3 deer total. Talk about antler restrictions! We were sorely disappointed, until we saw what we had.

That first year the biggest buck shot was what we called a "6x6x6". Six inches wide, six inches tall, and six points. Maybe it's a good thing they dropped us to one buck, we thought. So in the following years we concentrated on taking all our does, particularly the big barren does, of which we had many. Some years we brought in guests to take even more, with the rancher's blessing.

Sure enough, over the years the herd has steadily improved. We've taken many wall hangers, including the biggest buck ever shot on the ranch, according to the rancher's wife who's lived there all her life. And I've seen bucks even bigger than that one.

Then about four years ago I started seeing more spikes. I tell the guys we need to somehow shoot more spikes. Bam, the next year TPWD puts us under AR and adds the spike tag.

Two years ago drought hits and I tell the guys we still have too many deer for the land, shoot all your does. Bam, the following year (this one), TPWD adds a doe tag and extends the season for does and spikes. I think they have my cabin bugged.

So far, imo, TPWD is 3 for 3 in the changes they've made in our county over the past 17 years. Sure, the bucks were already getting bigger before AR, but at least now we can take out the spikes too. This weekend I got in a little scouting. I had meant to put in a lot of scouting, but didn't need to. It's going to be a great year! Good luck y'all.

Alot of folks asume we can just kill a doe to get some meat and let the bucks walk. Like i mentioned earlier im glad it works for some people and i wish it was working for me. Sat in the stand fri, sat. and sunday and never even seen a deer! That never happened in over 20 years of hunting at my place! Tpw says it will get better but what am i to think of ar rules when this is happening and what other conclusion am i supposed to come to? My daughter wont hunt anymore and the wife is not far behind and honestly neither am i. Im a patient guy when it comes to hunting but cant stand it much more and for a nickel i might quit altogether. Gonna miss it but if i cant shoot any deer aint much sense in deer hunting. Maybe i can swing a lease next year!

Dude, you realize that biologists go to deer processors to get this info right? It may not be all of the deer taken, but it is a good representation.

I do not have any experience in those counties, but a close friend of mine is very pleased as they now have some large great bucks. Prior, they never used to see any. For his particular case the restrictions are working and he likes them. That may not be the case for others.

As mentioned before, statistics can prove about anything you want them to.

It would seem that it could only improve and prevent anything that moves from getting shot.

Another great example how they are "working" based on the wants as a horn hunter! Nothing about are they working as they were sold to the public, the unsubstantiated problems AGE OF THE HERD, breeding/fawning, etc. Success can't be measured, acutally. Ya, Goota know the age of the herd to start with to know (if something that was done) there is a change.

This is kinda like the current Presidential Administration claiming to "SAVE" "millions of jobs". They just pull a number out of the air, They have NO WAY of proving a job was about to be lost, and was "saved" based on their stimlus deals.

Dude, do YOU realize that AGE STRUCTURE is a made-up problem??

How good of a representation can processors/dead deer be of the AGE live deer in the herd??THEY DO NOT KNOW THE AGE OF THE LIVE DEER AT THE START OF THE SURVEY. (WORDS OF Mike Berger TPWD DIERCTOR) HOW can they possibly age these dead deer, and come up with an AGE of what is still out there ?

What percentage of the county process at home? Are all counties the same in this respect?
What percentage of the county took deer a processor in their home county?

They do their surveys for the first "x"(say 100) number of deer brought in.
Why did these hunter harvest their deer early in the season?
Lack of hunting time in the field? They want to wait for the rut to horn hunt?
Is hunting experience involved?

All they are measruing is hunter selectivity.

Fine COUNT 'em, but don't make up AGE stuff, AND THEN BASE A REGULATION ON THE STUFF THAT IS MADE_UP!!

Why don't they survey the Taxidermy shops?
Think they will have deer with more age on 'em? But that would skew the data from what they want to represent.

TPWD had a Review of their scientific Methods back in 2005. One of the comments was that Roadkill would be a more representative sample.

Is this only about the age of bucks? Do they age the does? They are part of the herd too. Where is the DOE DATA?

Not even reading that drivel...

That's where you don't get it PHishTX.

It's not just about "horns". It's about "herd". Horns are just a byproduct of healthy animals. Deer don't put bone on their head in any significant amount until there is adequate nutrition and age. When a deer is young most of the nutrition goes to bone in the body and muscle structure. The same with does. The body builds in size and weight until the deer is mature then the nutrition goes to where it needs to. A unhealthy deer or undernourished deer doesn't make big antlers either. None of your argument can stand up to the success of AR in most areas. Are there areas it isn't working? Probably and I'm sure in due time that will be adjusted. I also believe there is more to the problem in those areas then just AR regs. But the decision should be made due to the recommendation of biologists not the influence of hunters. That's trophy or meat hunters.

And by the way, it's not just in Texas and it's not just whitetail deer. Colorado's elk herd bloomed after they went to the four point rule on bulls.

So let me say it again for all of you who didn't read it the first time.

It's not about horns, it's about herd.

Where are these deer?
Does TPWD know about some "unhealthy or undernourished deer?

NOWHERE has TPWD suggested that "unhealthy deer or undernourished" was a reason in their presentations, for this regulatory change.

Again with you, argument with no evidence. The biologists have done studies. Have done surveys and looked at herd size and make up. They talk to land owners, look at range conditions and know what is needed for a healthy herd.

What do you have besides a weak argument?

I didn't say they were starving or dying off. I'm saying that the herd needs older deer to be a healthy herd. It works with cattle, elephants, elk, deer and humans. It's biology not cryology. Show me the biological proof TPW is wrong and then I will believe you have something to gripe about. Other than that you are just crying foul when no foul has occured.