Why don't the guys that are so pissed about ARs just find another place that does not have them? Before I stopped hunting ET years ago you would come back to camps and see all kinds of deer hanging up fawns young bucks and old deer as well made me sick so I moved on. I think the ARs are good keeps the good old boys from blasting every deer that walks by. Not all are like that but there is a chit load that are. If you don't believe that put a 2 1/2 year old buck with a 15" spread or a mature doe which one does he shoot guess?

My grandfather owns a 350 acre place in an AR county that we have been hunting since 1988. We never really kill more than one deer off the place because any more than that would just be wasteful to us and my grandfather only bow hunts, with a recurve at that. I only bow hunted from 2005 through 2008, and my Dad hunts there occasionally, so I have accounted for the majority of deer taken off the place.

Deer numbers started to rise noticeably around the year 2000 (oddly enough this is also when the hog invasion began) and are currently at roughly three does to every buck and one deer for every 35 acres. About one or two mature, two or three immature bucks and 4 to 8 does could be on his place at any given time or about 8 to 12 deer at a time on his property. This land is composed of half thick bottomland woods, half pasture.

Deer taken at his place are as follows:

1988- 15 inch 8 point- alone
1993- 14 inch 8 point- with three does
1995- 17 inch 8 point- alone
1996- 20 inch 8 point- with three does
1998- 9 inch 6 point- alone
1999- 15 inch 8 point- with 12 does and one giant 12 point buck that I had to pass on because this is back in the good old days when it was a one buck county.
2002- 10 inch 2x4 freakish 6 point- alone
2004- 18 inch 9 point- trailing 4 does

2006- AR take effect...

from 2006-present I have passed on two decent 8s, three fork horns, and two 6 points that I would have been more than happy to have taken as my yearly buck but that would not have gone 13 inches or were too close to take the chance. Anyhow, this is how it breaks down from there.

2008- took a doe for meat
2009- took a doe for meat
2010- killed a freak horned spike x 4 with the spike growing down the side of his face, a broken back leg, and a hole through his back... A cull in other words... I had passed on him th eday before and figured I'd put him out of his misery. He ate good though.

And then this year, 2011-

My dad kills a 14 point 19 inch wide monster this weekend. The biggest deer ever taken on my grandfathers place to date. we even had a trailcam picture of him.

So it breaks down like so...

1988-2004. 6 deer that would make AR and two that would not were taken. Thats a 3 to 1 legal to not legal ratio over a 16 year period with a deer being taken about every other year.

2005-Present

One over 13" buck, one culled spike, two does were taken, and I have passed on 7 "illegal" bucks...

Do the math to fugure out why I absolutely despise AR for what it had done to out hunting at my grandfathers place.

Well I would but 1). its what I can afford and 2). its close to home!!!

Like I said Seadog not all are like that and I understand whereI some like to stay close to home.

Change the rules for a few years to protect all mature bucks so that they may live to breed and make folks ONLY shoot does and unbranched antlered bucks. See who gripes then.

I would complain bc that is unnecessary as well. Any form of mgmt needs to be property specific.

Well that makes sense. It is a given that the first 2-3 years under ARs are going to be lean for mature bucks as they will need time to mature. If your place is like mine you will likely have an opportunity at good mature buck/s every year now.

I hear y'all's arguments but to me they don't make sense. I think almost any qualified game biologist would agree they don't make sense. In the vast majority of counties the ARs are a simple way to accomplish two things that were in dire need of being accomplished:

1)More does being taken; and

2)More bucks being allowed to reach maturity.

Again,there is no perfect system but I'll take this one. IMO we could do without the "spike" rule but in reality that was a sop to you "meat hunters" who think it's a sin to shoot a doe.

You guys are acting like AR's made the deer disappear when that is just stupid.

And yeah you guys yearning for the "old days" are just hopelessly living in the past. The "old days" mentality almost wiped whitetail deer and a whole lot of other game from the face of the earth.

Carry on.

Mission accomplished then!!!

1)More does being taken: I saw 3 in hunting the month of October; and

2)More bucks being allowed to reach maturity.: I've seen 3 mature bucks that I can't shoot, (12 to 12.5" spread).

I'm sorry that I didn't realize that!!! And to think that Tyler County did this in only 3 years!!! Now I must apologize to all of you AR lovers out there!!!

I hear you and Curly talking and if that's the way it is in your county then maybe you consider communicating and working with TPWD instead of just villifying them.(You'll note I didn't say every county.) Remember,they are human beings too. In fact,if not for the deer releases they made in the '70s much of east Texas would have no deer.

And just from being on here I note Curley's boy killed a dang nice deer and he has another dang nice one on camera. So it ain't all bad....

Yep he got him a good un! ARs are not the end of the world but debating about them is so much fun!

Yes NP, it is very frustrating when I see 3 good mature bucks, 4.5/5.5 yrs old), that I can't shoot at because they are too narrow!!! On the lease road by my stand, I see a lot of buck tracks of differing sizes so I know that there are a lot of deer there of different ages and then have people tell me that the reason for AR's is because we have "shot out" our County!!!

[and as Curly says debates are fun]

Cross over and take out your frustrations on those 12" deer...it's more fun than you think.

NO, I will not go to the darkside!!!

I'm a qualified wildlife biologist and environmental scientist and my arguments make perfect sense to me. The ARs were put in place to achieve a goal that TPWD feels is necessary to acheive. I do not agree with their methods in this case. The intentions are noble enough, but they have taken a far too restrictive approach. Bag limits work just fine for regulating the harvest of white tailed deer.

Thats what I've been saying all along!!! Thank you!!!

So the math shows 60% of deer taken were 2.5 year old for a certain county, so they put AR's in these counties? So was everyone of the deer in this 60% bucks? I mean the way I see it, if the norm of bucks getting shot were 2.5 I assume the masses basically will just switch their focus to 3.5 year old deer. I don't know if that is what they are wanting but dont really see how that helps anything.
My place I hunt is small and we see a lot of deer move in and out every year. 1 thing that is the norm is most of the 2 year old deer are small 6's or fork horn 4 pt, and some basket racked 8pts. Now when they hit that 3 year mark they are right at 13" or maybe 14-15" legal deer. So I guess what I'm getting at is if AR's are wanting to save the 2yo deer so they can make it to 3yo I guess mission accomplished.

IMO the reason 60% of deer were 2.5 is because they are immature and dont know any better. How many of you at any given time on any given day can see 3-4 immature deer while hunting? Well if you only hit the woods 2 or 3 times a year or do a day hunt 1 time a year, I don't think most of those people really care how old a deer is, and on top of that most people would rather shoot a buck than a doe. It's way cooler to say you shot a buck than a doe no matter what the size is.

AR's are not going to change people to trophy hunters no matter what rules they put in place. All you are doing is forcing people to make mistakes in the
field, then making another mistake to cover up what they just did.

The advise of changing where one hunts to a non-AR county is utterly ridiculous. I used to hunt in the hill country, a presently non-AR county. I loved the hunting that place, and others similar to it that I hunted in the past. We always had family land available to hunt in what is now an AR county. But I chose to take a break from that place for several years and hunt the hill country. I gave up hunting in Hill Country several years ago, and went back to hunting the family land. The decision, at the time, was based on us having our first child. I needed to save the money i was spending on the lease fees, corn, and fuel to get there and back. A notable amount of money spent per year! The family land was free access, and more than two hours closer to home. So I was then free to spend more money in improving the habitat, and less money on just getting there.

Once I made the move I found that hunting the place where my grandfather was born and raised actually had a much larger appeal. The deer are fewer, and on average have smaller racks. But the much fewer deer I have taken off that place, by choice, have meant much more to me than any larger buck I took off of leased land in the past.

I came back to this family land with a management strategy, to only take mature bucks and be very choosy about any younger deer and doe taken. In that time I can count the number of deer taken on one hand. That's a conscious decision on my part, and I have never regretted it. Since I am basically a landowner now (one day at least a portion of this land will be mine, and I am currently my Mom's representative on the place since she has no interest in the place), I have more of an interest in the place than just hunting anyway. I enjoy the new found interest in "our" place. What I do not enjoy is TPWD having gotten in the way of us doing what we want (within reason) on our own land.

I have done little research into the origin of antler restriction laws. But I can bet they were largely influenced by south, central, and west Texas landowners/biologists/hunters/lease/landowners/representatives (take your pick). People who suffered no ill effects since the laws do not apply to them, and wouldn't anyway due the the vastly different nature of the hunting in that region of the state. So of course they were on board for it! Another aspect, it would create more demand for the hunting rights in these areas as people who do not like AR's seek out areas not under the influence of them.

The bottom line to me is this....If people want to kill smaller/younger deer, then they will suffer the consequences of having a smaller/younger herd on average. This is a situation they create, and evidently are willing to live with. So why force them to change their views on hunting, and possibly deter them from taking to the woods at all? The people that want to take mature deer, and see the results of their patience pay off in the long run will get rewarded in time. We know the implications involved in our choices, leave that to us, THE LANDOWNERS.

Now, in the county I hunt, we went from limits of 1 buck and two doe (with LAMPS permits), to 2 bucks and 2 doe (w/LAMPS permits. One of those bucks being a spike or unbranched on one side. I am still confused as to how TPWD allowing hunters to kill an immature buck along with a mature buck is going to improve the age structure of the herd? That itself is freaking ridiculous! Age structure is how this pile of excrement is being to sold to us, right?

I can see many ways that limits/laws could have been changed to improve the herd, and been much more effective than this carp we've had forced upon us. None of which I would agree with as a whole because it would force "management" on people/landowners who don't want it.

To those who love AR's. You could practice management whether AR's were in place or not. If you didn't like the rack size/age structure of you herd, you could always go south or west in search of larger/older deer. Just as I did years ago when that was what I wanted. It is also a pretty safe assumption on my part that acre for acre, there are probably more landowners in east tx who hunt their own land than leasers, when compared to south/west/central Tx. A MUCH larger percentage of the land in those areas is leased for hunting rights.

So naturally, people that lease land to hunt, and have always leased land to hunt, will have a much different perspective on this than those who do not lease land. More of the leasers will hunt in non-AR counties than not. And if this is the case, then any argument in public domain will be skewed to the AR-in-favor crowd. it's demographics plain and simple. My advice is EVERYONE step back and take an honest/objective view of things, then enter the fray. I have seen both sides, and have formed my opinions based on that.

I aggree with ^^^^

That's the exact mentality that has so many people in East Texas pissed off.

Why is it "cooler" to shoot a buck than a doe? What is cool about shooting an unimpressive buck?

You always have something to remember a buck by when memories start to fade, I'm young and cannot remember all the does I've shot, but have antlers laying around of every buck I've shot (somewhere) and can remember all the details for each deer.

Same reason rifleman said, I bet you can walk into anyones garage or trophy room and I bet that person can tell you where those said antlers came from. same reason people pick up sheds or stop on the side of a road and take a picture of a dead buck that was hit by a car.

Just across the river on HWY 7 W. Loco Creek bottom in the Seed Tick Community.

And I can guarantee you that these people are meat hunters. Don't lie to yourself, you're not a meat hunter, youre after the antlers.

based on what?