The one on the right in top picture has been a 10 point narrow antlered buck for the last 4 years. The bottom two bucks are most likely his offspring.

Good morning. Nice looking deer. What is the goal of AR restrictions? I hunt south and am not familiar with it.

Verde

The purpose is to get all WT Buck deer to have antlers with less than a 13 in spread.

His offspring most likely dispersed far away, buck dispersal studies are pretty interesting.

It’s was the easiest way to protect younger Age class of deer as most buck will get past ears by 3 years old. There is lots of documentation behind it increasing age class,

If one really hates AR’s it’s not a hard process to work through the MLD program. Infact if one really cares about fostering genetics and deer health to produce above average deer for the area, MLD is best option

They have not dispersed very far in 350 acres. The buck in the first picture is at least 6 years old and still narrow antlered. But if you love AR's and what it does to the deer herd all the more power to you.

Glad I’m in a non-AR county. He’s target #1

A good looking youngster, two decent (one nice) middle aged bucks, and a thin 10 who appears to be mature. Case closed.

So did they jump into the high fence or born in the HF. Two completely different things. I never said I love AR’s I said if you hate them go MLD and you can shoot what ever you want, 5 months a year

Before AR’s here, if it had antlers it was going to get shot by DFW folks. Now the county has mature bucks and the lease hunters are few and far between. I’d call that success in many ways.

If these are in Bandera County….Bandera does not have AR regs

Very true, I am just showing narrow antlered deer don't all of a sudden get wide and what their offspring look like.

Wondering if those deer will ever be legal. Still young but…..

I don’t see how that is a testament to AR regs effect on wildlife when your posting deer from a non-ar county.

I could go to a ranch in Maverick county that have deer 20-22” wide and say “look, AR’s are working great!”


In the counties that needed AR’s you would never get a chance to observe 4 years of antler growth because there would be a 90% chance those bucks were shot as yearlings.

The intent of AR’s is to create a herd with more balanced age classes of bucks, not grow wide deer.

Balanced age class makes sense. It does seem it will also have a lot of narrow bucks breeding.
Verde

It’s the law of probability, majority will make it, but there will always be a few that don’t. AR’s started in areas with lower densities(like East TX) where age class was severally depressed. Hill country is the exact opposite, as most places are begging you to use all 5 of your tags.

NOT an Expert.
Antler growth tis more eighth, & mass vs spread.
They went ta 13" spread, (area lived), racks on deer i seen,
just got taller & more mass, basket racks.
Again, Not an Expert

I am kind of slow so you will have to excuse me. I raise Nubian Ibex Goats. So, I have been doing it all wrong for over 20 years. I have been getting rid of the Ibex that I thought were going to be inferior and just keeping the best males. So, what I really need to do is keep the ones that will never be any good and get rid of the ones that will grow into real trophy's. But I will have a "more balanced age class" I am glad I found this out.

Hah well in Anderson county there seems to be a lot of narrow racks around.

You cannot compare raising livestock in a controlled environment when you can pick both the dame and the sire to a free range population of deer.

It’s completely different. The only similarity here is that both scenarios have animals that are mating.

They are legal now Dave.

Bandera is a non-AR county

I can certainly agree with that statement. I have hunted there for over 30 years and the gene pool only got worse after the AR
garbage. I ran into a similar problem near Dublin/Deleon for years. We tried to cull the gene pool very hard for years with little success.
Both places I have passed on good Bucks, just to let them breed. Because of the AR crap we cant cull even mature bucks who will never
be in the legal limits. I have seen quite a few mature Bucks with good mass and tall tines, but not outside the ears. Perhaps we need a cull permit on the license?

Congrats you figured out how to manage a breeding pen. Let’s cut that fence down and let me put a couple hundred Boar billies next door.

Sure if you can control all dispersal in and out then you can document which doe’s buck fawns consistently out preforms her peers’ via same sire, so you know which does to cull

Getting rid of bad genetics in animals is no different in livestock, exotics or whitetail. If you keep breeding inferior genetics into the whitetail population, it is eventually going to affect them. Me not letting inferior Ibex breed shows up a lot faster than the AR experiment. But it is showing up. Most will not recognize it because it is a slow process, but it is affecting the whitetail population in the AR areas.