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 didn't say they were starving or dying off. I'm saying that the herd needs older deer to be a healthy herd.

um DUDE,... what percentage of deer do you feel make the trip to the processor? 63.745 w/ tolerance +/- .001 . I saw 8 go straight from field to freezer last year....YOU tell me what their ages are.

Helo and Hoytman, you 2 seem to be on the same page, but from prior posts you are both hunting smaller tracts of land, less than quarter sections. In your cases the it would be for your benefit to try to get all of your neighbors on the same page to manage a larger area. That can be the snow ball in hell situation.

For most of the anti AR comments I still have not heard a solution except to get rid of it. Is that a solution or just forget it "we want to shoot whatever". Which actually might be a solution, if all of the less than 13" bucks could be killed off in one year the "bad" genes would almost be wiped out. I would not want to be hunting in those areas for a few years. I would guess the deer population would be way down for quite a few years. Or the TP&W could spend millions importing record rack breeders and get our license fees up and over $100.

Now now 7mag, this has been an enlightening discussion. I heard through the grapevine that in the future TP&W will also have counties where you cannot shoot a deer over 18" wide. That is when I want to see the ship hit the sand!

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.

Hopefully this was in jest, but it would definitely help grow bigger antlers.

Reminds me of the old lady in church, preacher was against drinking, she said AMEN, against gambling, AMEN, against fornication, AMEN, against drugs, AMEN, against tobacco, AMEN, preacher said it was a sin to gossip.... she gets up and leaves, said the preacher quit preaching and went to meddling...

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?

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.

This makes no sense. The younger deer are the healthiest deer. If TPWD is concerned about "herd health", then they should make sure no deer lives to be 2 1/2!

If anything, judging deer from the processor would OVERestimate age. You have 2 types of hunters, those that are selective with age, and those that aren't. So those that aren't just shoot any deer. Those that are, shoot OLDER deer. So it would be skewed to older deer.

If they are seeing a bad trend with that data, you better believe the full data set would be even more in the favor that deer taken are too young.

You can argue all you want about stats, but I bet even the VERY BASIC knowledge of stats that I have and work with on a daily basis is better than yours. You wouldn't know a p-value from a Mann-Whitney U nonparametric if it bit you in the arse. And you are the one trying to say that a scientists stats are wrong.

With so many chithouse biologists, I figured this was as good as all of the other suggestions.

Shoot I know older hunters who have hunted all their lives who don't know how or are too busy or too lazy to process their own meat. I know one who wants to shoot mature deer but when a half way decent rack comes out judgment turns south.

And for all the complaining I still don't see any evidence offered for the "don't work" side of the argument. The state has plenty of "does work" evidence even if you guys refuse to acknowledge it.

Your wasting your time vernon, you will never convert em.

You have to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything