Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Trying to Legislate Antler Restrictions into NY

Are the doe tags plentiful in the area to be impacted by AR? If so, why would a 1-2 day hunter worry that he can't shoot a spike? I usually see more does that bucks.

I'd have to agree with that.

Horseshyt ! NYDEC biologists have done numerous studies and concluded our deer herd is perfectly healthy just the way it is. Their official position is that antler restictions are completely unnecesary for the health of our herd.

True dat.

The purpose of hunting is, and always has been to maintain a healthy deer herd, not making sure there's a spike buck behind every tree so everyone can get a buck. It's our responsibility as hunters to maintain the herd. A healthy herd. Too many spikes, and too many spikes being killed, isn't a balanced herd.

They do it to develop a more balanced deer herd.

This is not done for the trophy crowd. It's done for the betterment of the herd.

Wrong. My purpose for deer hunting was always to kill deer and fill my freezer with meat to feed myself and my family. The States purpose for setting seasons and bag limits is to keep deer numbers within the carrying capacity of the habitat. PGC failed to do that for many years and allowed their herd to become grossly overpopulated, hence the reason the massive herd reduction initiated by Gary Alt became necesary. Bigger bucks/antlers was just the carrot Alt dangled in front of hunters noses to get them to go along with the massive herd reduction.

I've seen wildlife management issues end up being regulated legislatively and it never goes well. I don't know why legislators think they are better equipped to make wildlife management decisions than the game department professionals of their respective states.

Why bother with a game department if management is going to be done by legislators or in some cases, the ballot box.

There was a time you could see strings of 50+. But that would be before almost all here times. Back in the late late 80's early 90's in the big woods you could see 30-40 with a small Buck usually. And occasionally a nice one would show up. And rarely a big one. I grew tired of it and moved S. By then the Deer had naturally migrated in that direction to more abundant feed.

For a long list of reasons, I believe that AR are essentially anti-hunting.
The most recent bit of evidence: that the legislature here in New York is behind the current effort, the same folks that brought us the SAFE act.
The DEC is not involved and does not agree.
It is disappointing, in the extreme, that the QDM and other selfish "sportsman are begging for more regulations by supporting yet another back door effort, bypassing the wildlife biologists.
The "holier than thou" attitude of these folks is noted.

I believe you are spot on.

That might be your purpose, but it's not the Game Comission's purpose.

I still say the distinct possibility exists that your DEC jumped in bed with the legislature and let them do the dirty work. Thus they can say, we are implementing AR's because we have no choice.


Addition: The opposing sides here are in fact hunters.
Those who favor QDM and those who don't. Get ready for QDM to win the race. They are the new kids on the block. Their votes are the ones that count. The baby boomers are out and have one foot in the grave. It was a nice ride, but it's about over.

Yep. Double spot on.
I've only spoken to 2 state wildlife biologist, but, both scoffed at the idea that antler restrictions have any scientific merit.
You want to shoot a big buck and practice QDM, that's great, and I applaud you.
But, don't legislate your values on the rest of the sportsmen.

Battue, you are probably correct,follow the votes and follow the money,the rest is smoke and mirrors!

battue and Autofive, Since NY is the state that made Hillary a US Senator, and re-elected Cuomo after the SAFE Act, I can't find solid ground to argue otherwise.
Guess that I am hoping that, since Trump was elected, some sort of common sense might prevail. Tough to be optimisitic in this state.

I"d suggest that many of you never try to raise any kind of livestock, at least not for profit anyway.

YMMV.

Scott your note about fine for sitters is fine, but IMHO we all enjoy different ways of hunting. I have to sit at our lease mostly. I don't have to at home and i"ve yet to worry myself while walking, if I didn't get a shot at a buck, there will always be next time...

OTOH I"ve often wondered if we limited our harvest to 1 deer here, we dont' care what it is, per X acres according to the population, what that would do to the herd in terms of numbers/balance and health. I"m not really willing though, since the current regs have went beyond my wildest hopes of helping.

Oh I get it, Live stock is the critters with the tags in there ears right?... oh wait ....

Raising live stock and Wildlife Management are about as far apart as it gets in my opinion.

A couple points, Nobody seems to ever bring the Does genetics into the trophy (QDM)discussions. There is a lot of research that has suggested that the Does contribute more to passing along antler characteristics the buck does.

The other is the point of all spikes being somehow inferior. Many controlled studies have debunked that myth along time ago.

They may be far apart, in some aspects but the basics are the same totally. You manage for numbers according to food supply, and you manage the best you can per what you can tell of who produces the best animals.


Best animals are not going to be the largest antlers always. Generally they coorelate but not always.

We are after whats best for the herd, not the largest antlers. Large antlers are a side plus. Like getting more money at the sale for nice steers that took you some time to weed out the chaf in your herd.

Does. How can you deal with does? I don't know. But does that mean I should totally ignore what I can see? NOpe, not for me anyway.

Spikes. Nope they don't stay spikes at all. But I've been able to track some here at the house due to identifiable body characteristics in a couple of ways, and in the end, I've yet to see a spike turn into something that I'd really want to pass the genes along... nice deer, yes, but not the big heavy bodies and better genetics.

I think the panty in the wad crowd sometimes wants to just claim deer management is about huge antlers. Done correctly IMHO it benefits the herd as best you can, and along the way larger antlers tend to be a side effect that most can deal with.

How many times have you passed up the biggest buck in the woods because you wanted to shoot a smaller one? Actually at my age I am about at that point, I leave the best for others or to continue to breed and try to cull out the smaller body deer/least appealing antlers.

So in saying that I can't say I"m not about antlers, but it certainly is not all I"m looking at.

I leave the biggest does, shoot the smaller ones that are not as healthy looking and so on.

You can err a few ways... one of them is kill all the best does and bucks while they are in their breeding prime, or you cna totally ignore it and get what we had here, inbreeding, deer that were 5 plus years old and racks were not more than 10 inches wide, heavy, bodies small and wiry and so on... plus the fact that so many folks shot every legal deer they saw( and was legal to do because legal was antlered)(so much for protecting all does and have that solve your problems)

The thing though, all solutions have to be balanced.

And if you have folks that don't care, just want to shoot the first legal deer and go home, then you can't really try to manage. I"m good with that too, I"ll still do what I do, but it won't help much unless I can control a block of land.