Hunting in a AR County, my thoughts

[blfx4]

I hunt in an ar county and I can tell you for a fact there are good and bad points.
One positive, have been seeing an abundance of young deer with potential, that normally would have been killed. My complaint is the fact that in the county you can harvest up to three does. Which means all trigger happy folks take every doe they see. For last few years does have gotten hard to come by. Which some may see as great, but this has greatly increased bucks fighting which almost every deer I have seen since thanksgiving has broken points and or beams. Also most all mature bucks disappear once the rut starts. To each there own, but until you see the whole picture it is hard to praise or condemn it. Just for all fairness I have owned this property for 14 years and my best two bucks were killed in 2004, 2005. This was before antler restriction was put in place.

[coop]

I guess I'm a little dense but I'm uncertain why there needs to be any restrictions on the size or age of a buck unless required by the land owner. Why should the state even care.

[Leon County Slayer]

It can be a challenge but I'm very thankful for it. We've owned or land and I've hunted it for 31 years now. For the first 20 or so years, we've never seen a buck wider than 10"'s or shot a buck over 3 years old. I'd say I've killed 8 deer over 13" the past 11 years with an average age of 4. Still very hard to find a 5 year old but the hunting is so much more fun and appears to have a much healthier mix of age groups.

[jshouse]

I guess I'm a little dense but I'm uncertain why there needs to be any restrictions on the size or age of a buck unless required by the land owner. Why should the state even care.

cuz it makes the bucks big and we all want big bucks

[Shinesintx]

Do away with antler restriction and implement land owner hunting only. That ought to get a rise out of ya.

[Javelin]

I guess I'm a little dense but I'm uncertain why there needs to be any restrictions on the size or age of a buck unless required by the land owner. Why should the state even care.

because the state wants a healthy deer population. used to be the average buck in most counties was 2.5 years old that makes an unhealthy and non sustainable herd. now the age structure of the herds is betting better. think of it as a town who's average age was 80. that town would be dead in 10 years. or a town whose average age of males was 16. there would be chaos.

one misconception is that the law makes more deer narrow racked that is not true and never will be true. it is a fact you cannot change genetic makeup of a wild population. what you can do is stabilize it and make it have better age structure.

[miket]

because the state wants a healthy deer population. used to be the average buck in most counties was 2.5 years old that makes an unhealthy and non sustainable herd. now the age structure of the herds is betting better. think of it as a town who's average age was 80. that town would be dead in 10 years. or a town whose average age of males was 16. there would be chaos.

one misconception is that the law makes more deer narrow racked that is not true and never will be true. it is a fact you cannot change genetic makeup of a wild population. what you can do is stabilize it and make it have better age structure.

How is a bunch of 2 1/2 y/o bucks unhealthy? Whether a buck passes his genes down at 1 1/2 y/o or 8 1/2 y/o is irrelevant genetically.

[txtimetravler]

Congrats on your deer.
Do you have any pics of the jaw? Or trail camera pics of him alive?

I like looking at old deer...especially if they got old in an AR county.

[Javelin]

How is a bunch of 2 1/2 y/o bucks unhealthy? Whether a buck passes his genes down at 1 1/2 y/o or 8 1/2 y/o is irrelevant genetically.

it's nothing about genetics. genetics should never even be brought up in hunting. you can't change it. think about the book Lord of the flies. when kids human or animal have no older mature ones around bad things happen. in deer 2.5 and 1.5 year old deer are not at their full breeding capacity so it can make the rut drawn out over a longer period and that is not good there are many other issues also.

[miket]

it's nothing about genetics. genetics should never even be brought up in hunting. you can't change it. think about the book Lord of the flies. when kids human or animal have no older mature ones around bad things happen. in deer 2.5 and 1.5 year old deer are not at their full breeding capacity so it can make the rut drawn out over a longer period and that is not good there are many other issues also.

I havent read Lord of the flies so I cant comment on that. But studies have always shown in every species I have seen, including humans, low male population and/or breeding capacity has practically no impact on birth rates. The other males always fill in. The bottleneck is always the females. I cant see how drawn out rut will happen if buck/doe ratios are close to being where they "should" be. Seems like buck/doe ratio would be a much better way top effect rut length.

[Etxbuckman]

I guess I'm a little dense because I can't understand why anybody that ever hunted east of 45 prior to 2007 would complain about AR's.

[miket]

Dont misunderstand me. Age certainly can effect health, predation, fawn recruitment etc. Doe age, not buck.

[Dale Moser]

How is a bunch of 2 1/2 y/o bucks unhealthy? Whether a buck passes his genes down at 1 1/2 y/o or 8 1/2 y/o is irrelevant genetically.

It's unhealthy when there are no 4 or 5 year olds.


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[bollomb]

It's unhealthy when there are no 4 or 5 year olds.


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I have hunted ar counties since the ar was put in place. Some years it seems like the best idea ever, some years you see no mature deer and it is something easy to put blame on. Personally my opinion is if this year the mature deer are lacking due to lack of rain 4-5 years ago. Again just my opinion, we have taken 2 mature deer on our place this year and had less mature deer on camera than in years past. Having said that we have a healthy display of other age classes on camera so the future is bright.

[coop]

because the state wants a healthy deer population. used to be the average buck in most counties was 2.5 years old that makes an unhealthy and non sustainable herd.

one misconception is that the law makes more deer narrow racked that is not true and never will be true. it is a fact you cannot change genetic makeup of a wild population. what you can do is stabilize it and make it have better age structure.

The state wants larger antlers to lure more hunters in the field. Especially out of staters. The bigger the antlers the more people will pay to hunt them which translates into more money in the state economy.

If 2.5 year old bucks made an unhealthy and unsustainable herd, whitetail would have been extinct before many on this site were born.

Also, I believe the only misconception is your understanding of genetics. If you continually have mature bucks carrying the narrow rack gene breading does, you will eventually have more and more narrow rack genes to pass on. If this were not the case, why do deer breeders look for and buy bucks with desirable genetics for their breeding programs. The same is true for any breeding program.

But you are welcome to your opinion.

JC