Antler Restrictions VS Limited Buck Tags

[Buckfever]

We have a park over here that has antler restrictions of 4 points/side and a 1 buck limit for the park. It's a very consistent producer of quality bucks. It's just that the trophy mentality sets in and managing the herd becomes a problem.

We have a program with an earn a buck requirement and no buck limit(The 2 buck state limit applies). I definitely see more quality bucks in the earn a buck program, because mostly they never get hunted. If a guy is lucky enough to get a doe, he's less likely to hold off for a good buck, thus since fewer good bucks are typically seen, less good bucks are taken and I get to hunt the thick stuff and see even more of them.

Without the buck limit neither program works. I would have taken 8-9 more bucks last year, without the 2 buck state limit.

I mean can you imagine if IL didn't have a buck limit?
I'd have to designate the spare bedroom as ncbowman's room from mid October through November.

[ARO]

rick, of course i hunt whitetail deer to kill some bucks, i would lying if i said i didnt. i also shoot does every year also, and hunt or trap just about any species i can, its just too much fun!

it makes me laugh when i hear guys go on hunts, and say its all about the hunt, and getting an animal is just a bonus, if i dont shoot a whopper, my tag will go unfilled.
well then its not all about the hunt, its about trophy hunting. if it was all about the hunt, you would be happy to harvest any animal.


antler restictions work if you want to have more mature bucks, remember all you are trying to do is protect 1 1/2 years old bucks, most of which in maryland are spikes and 4 points. this is the age when they need to be protected, because they are not very wise and easily harvested. once a buck is 2 1/2, he's 10X harder to harvest. at 3 1/3 and older they are pretty much noctural, and only a mistake on there part will get them killed, or rutting activity.
i think a 4 point on one side restriction would be a good idea for maryland.

[freedomrules3]

You gotta limit the number of bucks, Md system is silly. 6 buck tags, 2 with each weapon. someone who hunts bow and gets a buck, hunts muzzleloader and gets a buck, then hunts rifle and gets 2 bucks with his 2 doe earn a buck to get the second. you have 1 hunter taking 4 bucks and only 2 does , this happens frequently i think.Its a horn thing, the "gotta shoot a buck syndrome"

I've hunted for 34 years now mostly deer hunting although earlier in my hunting days I hunted nearly everything. For I would say the first 30 years all I wanted was to shoot bucks, any bucks , if it had horns it was going down. I shot does after the bucks were harvested . I hunted the first 18 years in WV, where they had a bucks only season. the herds were mismanaged for years and the hunter mentality was bucks, bucks, bucks. I suppose it was more of a bragging thing to be able to say "yep I got my bucks this year, a 6 and a 3 pointer". believe me i wasnt alone either, everyone hunted nearly exclusively for bucks. they had a seperate 3 day doe season and had very limited numbers allowed , I think it was 2 does at the time. The herd was 22:1 i'll bet maybe worse. The dpsm was probably 50 maybe more.
Through the years I finally realized the only way the herds would be managed properly would be through the hunters not the states. of coarse you can only remove the number of does allowed by law.

now the states have gone a full 360 with the mentality that the world is better off without deer. I believe 5 years ago i could have killed at least a doe probably 1 out of every 3 times afield . with the 30 doe and 6 bucks crazy limits here it has taken its toll and lowered the odds imo. I still have antler awe only I now take a different stance. I enjoy seeing bucks in the wild and don't see nearly as many as i should , mostly due to my first example (4 bucks 2 does) . I would rather let anything but something i want to get mounted on the wall walk now. I simply think there is a huge difference in a buck and a does taste and especially tenderness, so I nearly always shoot a doe over an average 12, 14 inch buck that its horns will go in the shed and the table fare will be less than desireable. It is now after 34 years about the hunt or the solitude .

I am a greedy sob lol and if I had my way I would do the following for Md

1) A 2 year moratorium on any bucks
2) After 2 years you can take 1 buck any weapon for the next 2 years
3) After that I would allow 2 bucks , 4 does must be shot before the second buck and the second buck must be 4 points or more for the next 2 years. 8 does total every year .
4) rotate 2 and 3 every 2 years.
5) make feeders and atvs illegal
this is what i would do.
It is all about the hunt for me but now I dont have the pressure of shooting bucks like i once held onto. I know that the odds are slim for me to even get on a buck I would shoot but thats fine. like I said I'm greedy lol but I assure you if Md followed my plan everyone would be happy , well maybe not everyone thats impossible but i know we would have bigger bucks.

[ncboman]

buckfever said:

I mean can you imagine if IL didn't have a buck limit?
I'd have to designate the spare bedroom as ncbowman's room from mid October through November.

lol. ;D

Rick, I like the 4 pts on one side method but I'd allow the first buck killed to be 'any buck'. That would allow for kids, newbys, meat hunters, and Todd to kill a buck if they wanted.

Making deer hunting too restrictive could backfire and the end result would be far worse. You know what happens to an unfished farm pond? You wind up with way too many stunted runts and not a single lunker. I've seen the same thing happen with deer.

ps,

for maximum antler size, the entire herd should be balanced and below the carrying capacity of the land. The only way to achieve this is by killing a substantial portion of the herd each year.

Personally, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by not killing more deer, in fact I think you're hurting yourself. I've seen the browsed out woods there and the land isn't keeping up with the deer. You should thin em, bucks and does, if you want big antlers.

[freedomrules3]

Buck , you would have to put on a room addition .

after the first 2 years moratorium , every year would have an " any buck" tag. on the 1 buck a year it could be any buck . on the 2 buck years , the first would always be hunters choice, only the 2nd restricted. we actually need to catch up , our ratios are getting out of hand. I just don't think the way to get the ratios more normal is by devestating the does, but its done by bringing the buck count up . I went out tonight with Barb, drove and walked a good bit. saw maybe 30 deer , not a single buck.
by taking does yearly and less bucks the ratios will get more normal. i dont believe deer have to be super low around here with all the agriculture but it is still high , plenty of food but at the expense of farmers. i also wouldnt want to see it get so low its a struggle to even see a deer.

[ncboman]

You only saw doe because the bucks aren't moving much until the velvet comes off. ouch!

Besides that, I think the buck groups up there may be very large for some reason.

Didn't you see a huge number of bucks in a group one day last year? I'd be on the look for the same pattern in the same place each year. You may be able to key on the best bucks this way.

of mention, I think the farmers shoot the deer in the fields during summer. The deer wouldn't avoid the fields like they do otherwise. I was amazed at one place at the sandy road. The woods was full of tracks and deer sign but I never saw them in the big field.

[campkingmd]

Rick Im Not sure exactly why your not seeing quality bucks, and feel like the only way to kill a trophy animal in MD is to do a antler restriction or bag limit adjustment.

Do I think it would help absolutly, do I think its neccesary not at all.

I doubt the DNR would give us such liberal bag limits if they didn't think the deer population warrented them. As far a as the ratio goes were we hunt its probably 3/1 or 4/1 I see alot of young bucks every year

Like I said in the other post as far as how many bucks we can take in MD, 90% of the Md hunters would be happy taken 1 buck a year any size let
alone one that would make the MD book.

IMO very few hunters will ever shoot 6 in a season, maybe, just maybe 1% of the hunters have the time, property, skills or knowledge to do it anyhow and of that 1% 75% of them probably hold out for a more quality animal reducing his kills to one or two a year.

[freedomrules3]

hmmm maybe because i dont have feeders lol..... maybe i just suck . I see a few very nice bucks yearly. I also see lots of great potential with the genetics in place. I think my scenerio i had above about the 4 bucks and 2 does killed happens way more than you think. up to about 3 years ago, i did it most every year. i think you underestimate the antler awe hunters have. see i call antler awe the inability to shoot once a buck is spotted and legal. we also get some De and VA hunters coming on by before season and hunting on their private properties and checking them in their other states too , I've heard of it a few times but back then I could have cared less . It happens though . the ratios are more out of proportion than you think they are too, I'm around 365 a year I see it.

"IMO very few hunters will ever shoot 6 in a season, maybe, just maybe 1% of the hunters have the time, property, skills or knowledge to do it anyhow and of that 1% 75% of them probably hold out for a more quality animal reducing his kills to one or two a year."

I agree and disagree lol. i agree that it would be very difficult to take 6 bucks , but the guy who is hellbent on trying to do that can easily take 4. they may not be anything special but bucks nonetheless . I'm basically just asking a scenerio , MD will never manage their herd to full potential anyway. They simply could care less, I've been to the local meetings a few times and the cards are stacked against the hunter to have much say in anything including the amount of timbering and recreation use that takes place. I always dressed in camo to represent the hunter and every meeting I attended they taped for some reason ;D
I fought for years the fact that in the Chandler Tract they allowed recreation use of atv's and had newly banned hunters vehicles from riding back there like i did for 15 years. found a warning ticket on my truck that stated i was no longer allowed to use the roads since we hunters were destroying them (exact words too) . they never mentioned the fact that all the road holes were from logging trucks parked to take their loads, and they never repaired the roads afterwards. they still blamed it on hunters trucks even after I told them "I can show you everywhere they loaded the timber , we didn't destroy the roads." I was promised twice that we would be allowed to drive back there just during seasons but it never came about.They would much rather sell permits at the campstore , that number has gone up yearly to over 2000 a year now. just last year they had to close the atv trail for repairs , at the cost of the taxpayer, they tore the hell outta the roads just like i told them they would , its what you do on an atv when rec riding.not to mention all of the renegade trails they have made (clearing throat) . this is how much they care and I doubt they barely ever step foot in the woods when determining the bag limits. so i don't ever expect them to do anything about it , they could care less.

why do you go to Wis every year if its so good around here, which it could be . why do i spend time in Ohio ? Its because they manage their herds better and the chances are better at getting on a big rack in limited time, otherwise I would spend that money on a new treestand etc . If Ohio allowed 6 bucks a year , in 2 or 3 years I would have to go elsewhere because it wouldn't be "special " anymore. Just seems to me that most all the big buck states have 1 or both of 2 things in common , either limited bucks or antler restrictions . we got big bucks despite the fact that we have such liberal bag limits, just think if they managed them right.

[ARO]

the reason you did not see any bucks in the fields, 95% of the 2 1/2 old bucks and older are hard horn now. once they loose there velvet they are a different animal all together, and usually dont frequent fields until dark.

[BillCartwright]

I think for sure restricting the number of bucks harvested helps grow bigger bucks. When we had a 2 buck limit here in Kentucky nearly every hunter would shoot the first set of antlers they seen and then wait for a bigger buck.

I also believe the timing of firearms season has an impact. Illinois and Ohio have their firearms seasons after the rut. Kentucky does not. If Kentucky did, I think we'd really start seeing some bruisers.

I don't like antler restrictions myself. We have some QDM on some of our state WMA's and where it has protected smaller bucks from getting whacked, I can't say that I've fully seen large affects by 15" spread limits. Many of them put down on private ground bordering public.

[ncboman]

billcartwright said:

I don't like antler restrictions myself. We have some QDM on some of our state WMA's and where it has protected smaller bucks from getting whacked, I can't say that I've fully seen large affects by 15" spread limits. Many of them put down on private ground bordering public.

Bill, I think the KyDNR isn't serious about the antler restrictions, certainly not as serious as Illinois. My experiences in Ky made me think it was more of an honor system, easy to slip one out, whereas my experiences in Illinois made me become very aware. I saw several guys get tickets and saw one guy get royally chewed out for violating the intent of the program with his barely legal buck.

Go up to JE Panther Creek sometime and the difference is marked. The rules are strictly enforced and the actual deer checkin helps a great deal.

Up in Illinois the surrounding property owners support and profit from the antler restrictions so there's little sneaky stuff there either. Unfortunately, I don't think the same holds true in Ky at this time.

The gun hunt after the rut is probably just as helpful as ar but an unbelievable number of quality bucks come off JEPC each year considering the acreage and surrounding terrain. It takes a determined effort by all the major players for ar to work, otherwise it's just wishful thinking.

[campkingmd]

Rick I understand what your thinking but my point is we really don't need it.
Heres some stats
Maryland deer hunters harvested 93,868 deer this season, a 7.6 percent increase over last year. In addition, hunters bagged a record 59,229 antlerless deer (58,373 white-tailed deer, 856 sika deer). The 2004-05 antlerless deer harvest climbed by 9.5 percent from the previous record set in 2002 and exceeded the 2003 figure by 19.6 percent.
Their are aproximatly 80,000 hunters in Md thats an average of 1.1 deer per hunter and less then .3% of them shot a buck. You will never convice biologist or DNR that we need any restrictions.
In 3 hunts I have seen 4 does and 7 different bucks , I drew and let down on 5 of them( I call that a catch and release) . So like I said very few hunters will ever max out there bag limits.

Why I hunt Wis every year is because they are genetically bigger, period. A buck here at 3 1/2 might be 115 to 125 class out there a 3 1/2 year old buck can will be a 130 to 150 " buck. You can see a hand full of 2 1/2 year old bucks out there that are 125 130 in a weeks time. I can see the same amount of bucks here in that age group but none will be an animal I want to harvest.

As far as feeders go I love to use them for trail cams and late season does, I rarely ever hunt them until late season. I have never even seen a buck I wanted to harvest over a feeder.

[freedomrules3]

"Their are aproximatly 80,000 hunters in Md thats an average of 1.1 deer per hunter and less then .3% of them shot a buck. You will never convice biologist or DNR that we need any restrictions."

I believe 30% of the hunters shoot over 90% of the deer myself, many hunters just don't have what it takes , I've seen many a hunter go home from the chandler tract empty handed . I'd say 90% of them do.

"In 3 hunts I have seen 4 does and 7 different bucks , I drew and let down on 5 of them( I call that a catch and release) . So like I said very few hunters will ever max out there bag limits."

"As far as feeders go I love to use them for trail cams and late season does, I rarely ever hunt them until late season. I have never even seen a buck I wanted to harvest over a feeder"

these two sorta go together . not saying your hunting a feeder because I know better, but feeders keep them in the area and take away some of the wild instincts away from them. 20 to 25 years ago you would never hear of a feeder ( or cwd either) yet today it seems to be more the norm where its legal. its also a simple formula, bucks may not feed at the feeders much but does do and where does stay bucks go when it comes time . maybe I'm just too damn old fashioned , but I also believe they promote disease.

the deer here and Wis are different species. we do have some northern whitetail mixed in here but its not the norm. I just think here too many people are fixated on shooting any buck and they seldom reach maturity. In other big buck states hunters are simply pickyer and for a good reason too .

[BillCartwright]

I was reading in my latest QDM book on one study where QDM was placed on some particular areas. Over the course of a couple years they seen the harvest of 1.5-2.5 year olds go down as they had hoped, but during the same period the harvest of 3.5 year olds and up did not increase. The harvest of older deer stayed about the same as it did in years past without the QDM.

The conclusion to the study was that QDM does help young bucks reach older age, but it did not necessarily mean they get replaced in harvest. It was not a one for one so to speak.

I had been seriously considering going to some sort of QDM on most of my 2800 acres. At this time I'm not sure what direction I would go in, but likely a point restriction since it is easiest to judge.

[Twanger]

For me, it's simple.

1) If you don't shoot little bucks they will get bigger, and so will their racks.

2) It's very hard, nigh impossible, to improve genetics in public hunting areas.