ACEarcher
01-01-2009, 11:30 PM
One vote for big bucks
Woods and Waters Intelligencer Journal
Published: Dec 31, 2008
15:50 EST
By P.J. REILLY, Staff Writer
•••
Anyone who wants Pennsylvania to become a true trophy whitetail state, raise your hand.
(My own arm is pointing skyward right now.)
I'm not talking about having a decent number of 120-class bucks running around.
I'm talking about having a legitimate shot, every time you go into the woods, at crossing paths with multiple bucks scoring 140 or better, and a very real possibility of bagging a Boone & Crockett class deer scoring 170 or better.
This is the type of hunting that trophy whitetail states such as Illinois, Iowa and Ohio offer.
Under the current deer management program and hunting regulations, Pennsylvania never will become a trophy whitetail state.
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There are just too many hunters here with too many opportunities to kill non-trophy-class bucks.
I'm not saying this as a criticism of the state Game Commission's management program, because, as the agency's chief deer biologist — Chris Rosenberry — told me, the program is not intended to produce trophy bucks of the caliber I'm talking about.
And I'm not suggesting that antler restrictions haven't improved the quality of our bucks. I'm saying they haven't led to a substantial increase — if any — in true trophy bucks.
And the only way I see that happening is if we limit the number of bucks that can be killed each year.
Yes, I'm suggesting that Pennsylvania, in an effort to produce a good number of true, trophy-class bucks scoring 140 and up, issue buck tags via lottery drawing — a move that would mean hunters would not be guaranteed a tag every year.
Let the stoning commence.
Jerry Feaser, the Game Commission's spokesman, said the agency actually considered this idea prior to 2002, but it was decided instead to raise the bar on bucks, as opposed to limiting the opportunity to hunt for them.
I am not a deer biologist, nor do I play one on TV.
Who I am is someone who has hunted throughout North America.
I have been to places where there are lots of big bucks, and Pennsylvania just isn't one of them.
In 20 years of hunting private property in Chester County during every season the state offers, my best Pennsylvania buck measures 126 inches.
I've hunted a total of 15 days in the Midwest over the past three years and I've shot three bucks that all score over 140.
Consider these statistics from the Boone & Crockett Club's record books.
From 2000 through 2007, Pennsylvania had 13 typical bucks entered, with the largest measuring just over 173 inches.
During that same period, Illinois hunters entered 259 typical bucks, with the largest scoring just under 199.
Illinois, in fact, placed 109 typical bucks in the Boone & Crockett record book from 2000-2007 that scored higher than Pennsylvania's top entry from that same period.
Pennsylvania has a total of 32 typical Boone & Crockett entries from all time, with the state record measuring just under 185 inches. That buck was killed back in 1974.
One hunter in the past 22 years has registered a Pennsylvania buck with Boone & Crockett that scores within 10 inches of that record.
And no hunter has cracked Pennsylvania's all-time top-10 list of typical Boone & Crockett bucks in 13 years.
Meanwhile, in our neighboring Ohio, 13 typical bucks scoring higher than Pennsylvania's all-time state record have been registered just since 2000.
Given these numbers, where are you going to go if you are a deer hunter interested in trophy antlers?
Pennsylvania just doesn't produce a lot of true, trophy-class bucks.
That doesn't mean there aren't any out there.
What it means is, the odds of tagging one here are extremely low and there are plenty of places where the odds are better.
Antler restrictions were instituted in Pennsylvania in 2002. Those rules did nothing to help grow the bucks that were killed that year, but from 2003 through 2007, five typical and seven nontypical bucks were entered in the Boone & Crockett record book.
From 1998 through 2002, nine typical and seven nontypical bucks were entered.
So under the current antler restrictions, Boone & Crockett entries actually have decreased.
Large areas of Pennsylvania have the food and cover and the genetics in the deer to produce trophy racks.
What our bucks lack is a reasonable chance to reach 4.5 and 5.5 years of age — the peak years for antler development, according to many experts.
With 900,000-plus hunters combing the woods with rifles for two weeks every year, it's easy to understand why bucks don't live long here.
(Yes, I'm leaving out the archery season, because data shows the majority of our bucks are killed in gun season.)
From 1990 through 1999, Pennsylvania deer hunters killed an average of 169,326 bucks per year. From 2002 through 2007, that figure dipped by 22 percent to 132,847.
But does that necessarily mean 22 percent of bucks are being saved every year?
We all know deer numbers overall have dropped since the 1990s. So it only stands to reason that the buck harvest would drop as well — with or without antler restrictions.
My point is, it's likely that a vast majority of the bucks we spare as 1.5-year-olds are simply being shot as 2.5-year-olds.
And you don't produce more true trophies that way.
The Game Commission ages thousands of hunter-killed deer every year. When biologists record the age of an antlered buck, it's listed either as a 1.5-year-old or as "2.5-year-old and older."
So there is no data to indicate if there are more 3.5-, 4.5- and 5.5-year-old deer now than before antler restrictions.
What if the Game Commission only issued 200,000 buck tags each year, compared to the 900,000-plus that are sold now?
Illinois this year issued just under 350,000 gun tags — some for bucks and some for does — via lottery, and the state is 10,000 square miles larger than Pennsylvania.
Illinois further limits the opportunity to kill bucks by restricting the use of each gun tag to only one county. Also, no rifles are allowed and the gun season only lasts seven days.
In Iowa — another state where rifles are banned — tags also are doled out via lottery and only about 190,000 hunters head afield for the gun season.
In North Dakota — the toughest state in the country in which to get a firearms deer tag — it can take five years or more to draw one of the state's 150,000 gun tags because they are so limited.
So hunters in these states each year kill far fewer bucks than Pennsylvania hunters, but the bucks they do kill tend to be far bigger than ours.
Bucks in these states have a good chance to grow and reach maturity because the opportunities to kill them are restricted, and because hunters who draw licenses to kill bucks know there are a lot of mature bucks running around, so they tend to voluntarily pass up small, young bucks.
If Pennsylvania limited our buck-hunting opportunities, I think you'd see our count of Boone & Crockett entries escalate.
But I don't think that's going to happen in my lifetime.
And is this even a direction a majority of hunters want to take?
If you've had the same idea as me or if you think it's the dumbest idea you've ever heard, send me a note, including your name and phone number, so I can verify who sent it.
I'll publish verifiable comments in a future column.
E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com (preilly@lnpnews.com)
Link to article http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/232030 (http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/232030)
Just something I found very interesting. I thought I'd pass on to all of you.
Woods and Waters Intelligencer Journal
Published: Dec 31, 2008
15:50 EST
By P.J. REILLY, Staff Writer
•••
Anyone who wants Pennsylvania to become a true trophy whitetail state, raise your hand.
(My own arm is pointing skyward right now.)
I'm not talking about having a decent number of 120-class bucks running around.
I'm talking about having a legitimate shot, every time you go into the woods, at crossing paths with multiple bucks scoring 140 or better, and a very real possibility of bagging a Boone & Crockett class deer scoring 170 or better.
This is the type of hunting that trophy whitetail states such as Illinois, Iowa and Ohio offer.
Under the current deer management program and hunting regulations, Pennsylvania never will become a trophy whitetail state.
Related Stories
Woods and Waters upcom... How young is too young... Buck Tales 2008 Church plan clears ano... Joy and fear on openin...
There are just too many hunters here with too many opportunities to kill non-trophy-class bucks.
I'm not saying this as a criticism of the state Game Commission's management program, because, as the agency's chief deer biologist — Chris Rosenberry — told me, the program is not intended to produce trophy bucks of the caliber I'm talking about.
And I'm not suggesting that antler restrictions haven't improved the quality of our bucks. I'm saying they haven't led to a substantial increase — if any — in true trophy bucks.
And the only way I see that happening is if we limit the number of bucks that can be killed each year.
Yes, I'm suggesting that Pennsylvania, in an effort to produce a good number of true, trophy-class bucks scoring 140 and up, issue buck tags via lottery drawing — a move that would mean hunters would not be guaranteed a tag every year.
Let the stoning commence.
Jerry Feaser, the Game Commission's spokesman, said the agency actually considered this idea prior to 2002, but it was decided instead to raise the bar on bucks, as opposed to limiting the opportunity to hunt for them.
I am not a deer biologist, nor do I play one on TV.
Who I am is someone who has hunted throughout North America.
I have been to places where there are lots of big bucks, and Pennsylvania just isn't one of them.
In 20 years of hunting private property in Chester County during every season the state offers, my best Pennsylvania buck measures 126 inches.
I've hunted a total of 15 days in the Midwest over the past three years and I've shot three bucks that all score over 140.
Consider these statistics from the Boone & Crockett Club's record books.
From 2000 through 2007, Pennsylvania had 13 typical bucks entered, with the largest measuring just over 173 inches.
During that same period, Illinois hunters entered 259 typical bucks, with the largest scoring just under 199.
Illinois, in fact, placed 109 typical bucks in the Boone & Crockett record book from 2000-2007 that scored higher than Pennsylvania's top entry from that same period.
Pennsylvania has a total of 32 typical Boone & Crockett entries from all time, with the state record measuring just under 185 inches. That buck was killed back in 1974.
One hunter in the past 22 years has registered a Pennsylvania buck with Boone & Crockett that scores within 10 inches of that record.
And no hunter has cracked Pennsylvania's all-time top-10 list of typical Boone & Crockett bucks in 13 years.
Meanwhile, in our neighboring Ohio, 13 typical bucks scoring higher than Pennsylvania's all-time state record have been registered just since 2000.
Given these numbers, where are you going to go if you are a deer hunter interested in trophy antlers?
Pennsylvania just doesn't produce a lot of true, trophy-class bucks.
That doesn't mean there aren't any out there.
What it means is, the odds of tagging one here are extremely low and there are plenty of places where the odds are better.
Antler restrictions were instituted in Pennsylvania in 2002. Those rules did nothing to help grow the bucks that were killed that year, but from 2003 through 2007, five typical and seven nontypical bucks were entered in the Boone & Crockett record book.
From 1998 through 2002, nine typical and seven nontypical bucks were entered.
So under the current antler restrictions, Boone & Crockett entries actually have decreased.
Large areas of Pennsylvania have the food and cover and the genetics in the deer to produce trophy racks.
What our bucks lack is a reasonable chance to reach 4.5 and 5.5 years of age — the peak years for antler development, according to many experts.
With 900,000-plus hunters combing the woods with rifles for two weeks every year, it's easy to understand why bucks don't live long here.
(Yes, I'm leaving out the archery season, because data shows the majority of our bucks are killed in gun season.)
From 1990 through 1999, Pennsylvania deer hunters killed an average of 169,326 bucks per year. From 2002 through 2007, that figure dipped by 22 percent to 132,847.
But does that necessarily mean 22 percent of bucks are being saved every year?
We all know deer numbers overall have dropped since the 1990s. So it only stands to reason that the buck harvest would drop as well — with or without antler restrictions.
My point is, it's likely that a vast majority of the bucks we spare as 1.5-year-olds are simply being shot as 2.5-year-olds.
And you don't produce more true trophies that way.
The Game Commission ages thousands of hunter-killed deer every year. When biologists record the age of an antlered buck, it's listed either as a 1.5-year-old or as "2.5-year-old and older."
So there is no data to indicate if there are more 3.5-, 4.5- and 5.5-year-old deer now than before antler restrictions.
What if the Game Commission only issued 200,000 buck tags each year, compared to the 900,000-plus that are sold now?
Illinois this year issued just under 350,000 gun tags — some for bucks and some for does — via lottery, and the state is 10,000 square miles larger than Pennsylvania.
Illinois further limits the opportunity to kill bucks by restricting the use of each gun tag to only one county. Also, no rifles are allowed and the gun season only lasts seven days.
In Iowa — another state where rifles are banned — tags also are doled out via lottery and only about 190,000 hunters head afield for the gun season.
In North Dakota — the toughest state in the country in which to get a firearms deer tag — it can take five years or more to draw one of the state's 150,000 gun tags because they are so limited.
So hunters in these states each year kill far fewer bucks than Pennsylvania hunters, but the bucks they do kill tend to be far bigger than ours.
Bucks in these states have a good chance to grow and reach maturity because the opportunities to kill them are restricted, and because hunters who draw licenses to kill bucks know there are a lot of mature bucks running around, so they tend to voluntarily pass up small, young bucks.
If Pennsylvania limited our buck-hunting opportunities, I think you'd see our count of Boone & Crockett entries escalate.
But I don't think that's going to happen in my lifetime.
And is this even a direction a majority of hunters want to take?
If you've had the same idea as me or if you think it's the dumbest idea you've ever heard, send me a note, including your name and phone number, so I can verify who sent it.
I'll publish verifiable comments in a future column.
E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com (preilly@lnpnews.com)
Link to article http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/232030 (http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/232030)
Just something I found very interesting. I thought I'd pass on to all of you.