We hunt in an AR county, I'll shoot a spike for meat but only if its a 2yr old or older deer. No real reason that I apply to that other than a yearling simply doesn't yield enough meat to make it worth the effort and expense.With AR's our buck numbers across age ranges are exploding. Doe? Not so much. We saw a steady increase in both until a few years ago when TPWD changed the rules to allow doe during the first few weeks of rifle season. Sine then we keep getting more bucks every year, but the doe population seems to have plateaued.

So my suggestion to TPWD would be to take a closer look at the buck/doe ratio in our area and see if our experience is isolated or if it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.

I will say this on AR's though. I was not thrilled when they implemented them in Freestone county. Not because I didn't think something needed to be done. I just didn't like that we were already management minded on our place and their rules might inhibit us from taking a deer that we truly felt wouldn't damage the herd. But we are a smaller parcel among other smaller and larger parcels, and over the years I've seen the place go from the 70's when the "brown is down" mentality ruled, into the 90's when we actually started seeing more deer, better deer and got fully on board with management practices and habitat improvement, to now when I see enough deer to literally have a dozen or more a year named with that many or more filling out the ranks that constitute what I consider the herd in our immediate area. I have truly witnessed a complete turn-around in how things are done and the effect it has on the population. However, I do not feel the system in place at this time is perfect either. Every change they make in the rules will have an effect, and I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far on this most recent rule change.

Antler restrictions. It seems like we are selecting for small or narrow racks.

I would like TPWD to mandate a re-education class for everyone who believes this

Taking every deer over 13” regardless of age has to effect an effect on future deer size.
Deer are like virtually same as livestock when it comes to genes and breeding. Anyone who raises livestock knows that you don’t use small inferior genes animals to breed you females. If you do you end up with small inferior livestock. Cattle, sheep, goats, pen raised deer. Doesn’t matter. AR rules might work on a large ranch along with age restrictions and light hunting. But can’t work in a broad sense. Most leases have to many hunter. A lot of small leases have a hunter for about every 50 acres. All of the hunters are paying good money to hunt and most of them are going to shoot every 13” deer they see.

Yes, because the average texas deer hunter can accurately age deer on the hoof.


Also, the spike study was done at the Kerr WMA, is a high fenced property and its findings go against every other subsequent study....Including the study done by the University of Mississippi.


What retort do you have next?

I would like TPWD to mandate a re-education class for everyone who believes this

There are 85,000 members on here total. Last year 600,000 people hunted deer in Texas.
I don’t think people who post on here make much of a dent. There were 400,000 buck deer killed.
I am friends with a guy that processes around 4000 deer in Stephen’s county which has AR rules. He says the MAJORItY of bucks brought in are young 13 to 15 inch deer.just barely over the AR limit. Most hunters paying for a lease are going to shoot the first legal buck they see.
As for THF I think there are a lot of management minded hunters on here but really not that many post on here about age of deer. Maybe a couple hundred members.

So every deer at the processor pre-AR where even younger deer less the <13….

Why are there any genetic 13”+ ability deer left after decades of that….

Exactly. Pre AR these deer were getting shot at 1.5 because “most hunters paying for a lease are going to shoot the first legal buck they see”. Now they are at least making another one or two years.

Exactly. Pre AR these deer were getting shot at 1.5 because “most hunters paying for a lease are going to shoot the first legal buck they see”. Now they are at least making another one or two years.

There are 85,000 members on here total. Last year 600,000 people hunted deer in Texas.
I don’t think people who post on here make much of a dent. There were 400,000 buck deer killed.
I am friends with a guy that processes around 4000 deer in Stephen’s county which has AR rules. He says the MAJORItY of bucks brought in are young 13 to 15 inch deer.just barely over the AR limit. Most hunters paying for a lease are going to shoot the first legal buck they see.
As for THF I think there are a lot of management minded hunters on here but really not that many post on here about age of deer. Maybe a couple hundred members.

So every deer at the processor pre-AR where even younger deer less the <13….

Why are there any genetic 13”+ ability deer left after decades of that….


Don’t compare low fence deer management to centuries of livestock selective breeding and management , they aren’t even comparable. Show me one low buck that’s bred 100’s of does in his lifetime. DMP excluded. A buck that makes it to 6 years old might of bred 5-7 does in his lifetime, add in the fact he dispersed as yearling probably from 2 miles to more than 23 miles away, and then factor in that his buck fawns will do the same and disperse as far or further from their birth place…..

No AR's for youth hunters 16 and under.