Buckstopshere

I have two "food plots" already....for humans. Most call them vegetable gardens! ;D And that's more than enough "gardening" work for me! But I'll think about it.

Yeah, Burmjohn, it was pretty cool. I have been watching off-and-on this same bachelor group all summer. I think they are mostly two-and-a-half year olds, but maybe they are just yearlings. It is so hard to tell. Up on top of our ridges here in Allegany County, many two-year old bucks do not grow very large racks because since the farming has all but left the area, the fields have little minerals left....well, with the exception of oil and gas.

Then, 10 minutes later, this guy hit the overhanging branch.

I think this is the same buck that was working the branch, two minutes earlier.

This morning I checked a trail cam and when I was going in, spooked eight bucks in the adjacent field, no more than 50 yards from where my camera was set up in the woods. I was in luck, a couple of the bucks hit the scrape and the overhanging branch before going in the field.

Right you are Doc! That is the real, traditional aspect of hunting that has become marginalized by the "growing-harvesting-monster" worshippers that has become so tyrannical. I have the greatest regard for Dr. Kroll, but have to take issue with his conclusions in the above quoted piece. "Also, younger does usually produce fewer fawns, so maintaining control of the population is not as difficult in the future." As time goes on, having a young doe age structure allows you to better take advantage of improving nutritional conditions and overall genetic makeup of the remaining herd." I disagree. Instead, let the old doe walk, shoot the young ones. The old does will produce more deer for the future. And if you want to upset your local rut activity, shoot a couple old does and see what happens. We are talking about hunting wild deer here with a real deer season and real hunters with limited time and wherewithal. And you know what he is implying by "improving nutritional conditions." Fewer deer. A myth to create an "uber deer." Where is it all headed? These scientists... Secondly, "If you have been doing a good job of culling bucks, the younger does are the ones most likely to have been conceived by the higher antler quality bucks you have left to breed. Wait a minute. Who is doing a good job culling bucks? Is anyone in NY or Pa. doing "a good job..?" What and who determines a good job? More fodder for hunters to talk out their butts. It appears that Dr. Kroll is writing about Texas and the huge parcel-controlled high fence hunting that is there. Who is going to set the standard for which bucks to cull and which bucks to let walk...especially if everyone with a rifle, bow or shotgun can only shoot bucks with three points or more, no matter the age? This is the real world, not a scientific laboratory. That article is proof why scientists should only advise. It's like the atomic scientists at Roswell writing about nuclear disarmament treaties. The culling of whitetails in real wild hunting situations is a myth because it is too difficult to discern age, size, strain, and most of all...that mysterious and most oversold idea in this AR debate... genetic potential. Who here knows genetic potential when they see it? None of us would know it if it bit us where we sit. By the way Doc....got any extra pills?

Good article. Thanks for posting!

"First hand experience is what matters, everyone in an AR WMU that I know personally, including me has had positive results." What's positive results? There are thousands of organized deer hunters in Pa. who have had to suffer..."first hand experience"... under ARs for eight years as I have, and they are all not happy campers. Since I hunt there and talk to Pa. deer hunters all the time, they do not spend much time talking about "positive results" because there are so darn few.

Excellent Tony. Well said.

Man, you are getting more cynical.....but it's hard for us to tell the difference! ;D But at least the NYSDEC, to their credit does not seem to fall...hook, line, and sinker for the latest, greatest and most fashionable deer management craze like some other states have. The DEC may be frustratingly slow at times to implement new ideas, (from crossbows to ARs) but maybe we should count our blessings.

Even though it may seem counter-intuitive, the DEC reacts and implements the former scenario (bump the permit numbers because a high kill means a high population.)

Right now on the poll there are 42 for AR and 44 who were not all for it...not what I would call a sweeping endorsement, especially after all the pro-AR propaganda, oversold rhetoric, and grandiose promises.

The only thing I put in scrapes now is my own scent. I pee in the scrape about every two weeks or so...(no I don't hold it that long. I find other place to pee in between times..lol) I am going to experiment with the overhanging branch though. I think that there is a lot we don't know about the overhanging branch and there are a lot of possibilities there.

Very good video...but man that is a little deer! Looks like a big rabbit!

And it is easy to break apart the main sections in the hind legs, or haunch. I use my fingers and separate the main cuts; the top round, the bottom round, the eye of the round, and the sirloin. Hardly need a knife on the back legs. Also, once I make my main cut down the backbone, it is easy to peel the backstraps back to where they are connected to the ribs. Hardly need a knife there either.

It was quite a few years back, but when I took a deer to the processor, the box of meat I got back was pretty small. Now I know by cutting it up myself, whether buck or doe, how much I get. I am not implying deer processors are unethical, they might not trim off all the meat. We grind our own burger and slice jerky too. I really enjoy it.

If it came down to the last week of the archery season (as it often does, lol!) and you were on stand and an eight-point buck in full rut came into shooting range in front of your stand... there are darn few of us who would not let that arrow fly. How many of us would say to ourselves, while at full draw, "I shouldn't shoot. That eight-point might be a year and a half old deer, and what would my AR buddy's say, if I shot a yearling?" How long do you think you are gona live? Drag that eight-point buck out of the woods and be proud of it! Is it better to eat tag soup? I share my venison with family and friends as a celebration. Share it with the kids so they will be hunters when they grow up. Tag soup is a difficult bowl to pass... Crazy. How many of us can truthfully tell the difference between a yearling and a two-and-a half year old on the hoof, in a hunting situation? I've killed better than a hundred of them and I still can't tell until I split the lips for sure. There is a lot of variables in whitetails...just like people. Some are small for their age, a few are huge for their age. But where I hunt the tendency is to shoot the buck with the most points. I think that needs to be changed in some parts like here where we are overrun with dinks. Reminds me of a farm pond where all the bass that are over 12 inches are kept. What is going to happen? The pond is going to be full of dink bass... Same thing happens in the deer woods, but on fast forward in the pond. And erussel: I feel your pain (knees!) lol But I just can't resist saying that sometimes our grandiose schemes carry consequences and have outcomes that we did not forsee...such as AR's.

I just want to say, "Thanks!" to you guys. Great thread. Very enjoyable read and good points on both sides! and maybe...just maybe deer hunters are beginning to turn the corner and get back to what is real....just nice to hear it said so well.

Excellent scenario, Furman. And it happens all over AR-land, hundreds if not thousands of times. No wonder, after years of AR, antler size on state land in Mississippi dropped like a stone.

Comparing states and not range, topography, strain of whitetails, geography, land use, and other factors is like comparing apples to oranges. Why not compare Florida to Iowa...? Too many variables. For one thing, Allegheny County, Pa. (not spelled right...it should be Allegany County, ha.) is an urban County in Pa. and contains the Pittsburgh Airport. I have flown into it a bunch of times and positively drool over some of the large hilltop acerage surrounded by housing complexes and knowing that there has to be huge sheds on those hillsides. Now let's compare that Allegheny County to Potter or Tioga County. There, it is not unusual to shoot an antlered six-point that is a yearling and weighs dressed about 100 pounds, or less. The Potter County Enterprise, a weekly paper has printed a deer hunting special for years and has a weigh-in contest. Usually, of the 100+ bucks that are brought in and weighed on the same scale...many are around the 100-pound mark. And since AR's have been established in Pa., there has been no noticeable change in the pool in antler size or weight, other than what you would expect from the change in the law (no smaller than a six-point.) But they are still yearling bucks. The old 2003 report, just after AR was first established and before Mr. Alt, was driven out of Pa., has been revised and alluded to earlier on this thread. Read the new 10-Year Whitetail plan 2010-2018. It's on the Pa. Game Commission website. It refutes the conclusions made on the old 2003 report. One quote from the new Pa. study is very telling: "An expanding research base supports the position that antler restrictions will have minimal impact on future antler development of Pennsylvania‘s deer herd." My two cents worth: if there is some great statistic to "average" all the bucks killed in Pa., maybe they are right...maybe they are right. But to paraphrase: all deer hunting is local. And in the vast woods of Northcentral, Pa., mostly state land, I have seen and believe that the size of the "future antler development" is going to go down...like in Mississippi. But in the semi-urban, highly managed, AR protected where few hunters dare tred, posted, patrolled, and controlled tighter than a drum, where deer can barely be called "wild," and passed on for years, no doubt, there will be some bonadide "monsters" grown and then "harvested" by some very lucky and well-heeled hunters.

Ha! We are getting old...the truth hurts....ouch.

I haven't noticed a big drain in the batteries...or my wallet (lol) between the video option and the photo option, at least this time of year.

It's such a good scrape, even the turks can't resist hitting it! Turks_at_scrape_8.10_.AVI

Here's another doe at the scrape. Doe_at_scrape_.AVI

Activity is really picking up at this scrape! Doe_pees_in_scrape...fawns_and_buck_8.5.10_.AVI