Seadog, put up some pictures of these large mature less than 13" deer you speak of.

most of them will look like so....







...not mature, but tons of them

Unfortunately, I'm working offshore until January 14th or 15th, (weather permitting) and have few pictures available and a very low bandwidth to work with but will show what I have!!! I have maybe 1 young buck that shows promise of making AR's in the future!!!

Mature buck last year that looks VERY similar to a 10point I saw 1 time this year: (I believe that an offspring behind him)


A spike last year and this year:
last year ( I let him pass)

this year


some young ones last year:



some young ones this year:

young ones this year:



and the monster buck I killed:


I thought I was going to settle the argument that unicorns exist, LOL!!! Seriously though I thought it was deformed and had only 1 horn until I walked up and saw that it was just broken off!!! Sorry I can't show any more pics but this is all I have with me out here!!!

On the one buck you have here that you stated is mature, I just don't see it. I see a sway back but looks just like the way he is standing. Everything else I see on him point to maybe a 3 1/2 deer. Everytime I have asked the people that I have surveyed and talked to the all show me pictures of 2 and 3 year old deer they say are mature and will never make AR's.

About that buck, I have a lot more pictures of him at home and I saw him in person just before last year's bow season in person!!! I'm by no means an expert in aging deer but I know it is hard to judge in a game cam picture, especially in just one pic!!! After seeing him in person at 20ft from me, I judged him at 4 1/2 to 5 1/2!!! I had to delete a lot of pictures out of Photobucket account to be in this years pics!!!

I had to laugh at that Unicorn joke. It looks like the antler was broken off about a half inch off the brow. Is that right? Maybe my eyes are seeing things. I'll bet he made a fine batch of chicken fried backstraps and venison sausage.

Rifleman, I got a kick out of seeing that young hunter with his buck. He will never forget that, I am sure. Now, that is a trophy!

Merry Christmas!
Kell

Kell I'm offshore working until January 14th and when my wife went and picked up the meat at processors, she told me there may be some meat left when I get home!!! I told her to save the back strap for when I get home so we'll see!!! When have you known a wife to listen to her husband!!!

Good luck with that Seadog!

Thanks Curly!!! The wife went to the youngest son's college graduation in San Marcus, so I had to tell the step daughter to stay away!!! I'll find out if it worked or not soon enough!!! Hopefully I'll get a doe during that last weekend of ML season!!!

You know you can put a padlock on your freezer Seadog.

Too late now Curly!!! I was offshore when she picked up the meat!!!

Thats what I say!!!

I hope everyone interested in this subject will take the time to contact their State Representative and the TP&W Wildlife Commission. I am going to do so.

I have also recently come across some interesting information from Mississippi. Their data seems to support my observations that AR's don't have to be 13" to protect the 18 month old bucks. They have a program that is based on soil quality and their inside spread requirements are 10" to 12" depending on area. This seems enlightened to me.

Antler Restrictions in Miss.: http://www.mdwfp.com/xNet/Files/Wildlife/Deer/Website/Antler_Criteria_04-2007.pdf

Interesting how-to report detailing a buck management program for interested parties in Mississippi:
http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2427.pdf

Hey that sounds like a better plan than just the "blanket" AR rules we are forced with!!! AR's do work in some Counties as I have previously mentioned on several ocassions but they don't work everywhere!!!This program Mississippi has sounds like it may work in my neck of the woods!!!

Oh TPWD will just pooo po the other state's data/findings. Like they do spike data that doesn't follow their findings.

Been there done that.



They down play & repute other state "successes" and their available data.

BUT, Try to get the actual data from TPWD. (right SIG) TPWD is the SAME WAY.

Typical politician answer, a lot of words to confuse and no answer to a question!!! So twpd is right and everybody else is wrong? Then its an experiment in futility!!!

of course.... they can't properly manage the NFs and want to try to pass on the same mess to everyone

Their data has always been a mess. And they are now admitting it. Even their own data supports our notion that ARs/bag limits have hurt deer pops in several areas.

The next problem is the use of data collected at a regional level, then used at a local level. They know that, even admitted it when asking for more money for MIS and for redrawing boundaries on management units. This is one area Ido agree with Mr. Lockwood and others, they need more money to make any use of what little data they have since AR's; and to collect more and better data. But it's not coming, with a hiring freeze over the last two years, and at least a 10% across the board budget cut coming next year, its not in the cards.

I do like the phrase where he says "[Now for those of you who are well versed in statistics, you understand that it takes a very big drop in antler quality to get a “statistically significant” decline because of the highly variable data that you get when working with wild critters. So such results cannot be ignored.] " I am fairly well versed in statistics, and I agree. But they take the same very small statistical change where it's positive and herald it as a huge success for AR's.

There are very little, if any, truly significant statistically sound judgements that can be made from the bulk of the data they have right now.

The problem I have with it is. "They know it and admit it" has problems, yet they continue to use it to justify the ARs. !!!

Yes, but once they started with that data set, they are stuck with it. The report that you often quote showed the data problems as well, I can't think of the acronym now....

Shame on you...

Any AR-opponent should remember that !!!










WMI - Wildlife Management Institute