Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Point Restrictions

Arkansas has had the "3 on one side" minimum for about 10 years. It has made a huge difference. Lots more bucks with bigger head gear and square bodies.

I live in East Arkansas and I am not seeing any thing better where I hunt on private land. In fact I think things are worse. We have some bad genetics in our herd with no way to get rid of them except young hunters. I see a lot of marginal three point on one side which is legal but hard to determine quickly with a spike on the other side. We also have a lot of older spikes. I had one on my place that I saw for three or four years and his spikes the last time I saw him was around fourteen inches long. Hunters under a certain age, sixteen I think, can kill spikes and four point deer but they seldom do. Most of the time they will kill one that is legal for everyone and I can't in my heart tell them to restrict themselves. It would be a lot better if I could kill what need killing but I do not have the acreage to get a management permit so I just keep chipping away at the ones that need to go that is legal. miles

It has made a huge difference in Arkansas. Bucks like the one I posted in my "Got my 8 point back" thread were unheard of in my part of Arkansas 15 years ago. Now they are fairly common. In fact, my dad and I have killed three in the last 5 years off of that same stand of that size or bigger. And we don't do food plots or feed. Those deer get nothing but acorns and honeysuckle. The pictures of all the huge deer killed in our area are amazing. Fifteen years ago, a basket racked 8 point was cause for bragging.

Yes, and that is the inherent problem of point restrictions.

I kind of the think the "genetic inferiority" argument is a myth. Depending upon when exactly they are born, a buck may be a spike as a yearling or as as year and a half year old deer. But, most of them will go on and have pretty good racks if they get nutrition and age.

Oh, yeah, there are definitely those with exceptional genetics that have great racks, but almost any buck is going to get to be decent size if it gets to eat well enough and get old enough.

Not everyone can be Arnold Shwartzenager, but everyone can get in pretty good shape if they eat well and get to the gym.

My biggest objection to using spread as a standard is that I rarely see bucks that I shoot other than in profile. Most don't turn to face me.

I think point restrictions are a mess. Antler spread restrictions seem to concentrate harvest of wider young deer.
I think the buck harvest should be controlled a little tighter if the age structure of the buck population is not good in an county or portion of the state.
On my personal hunting property, there is an unlimited number of bucks can be taken by law per acre, but only a small number of does based on a acreage allotment.
Therefore, all legal bucks (13" wide between the main beams) are heavily harvested during our 2 month season.

stumpy

Why would you just shoot whatever is 13 inches wide? Shoot the does instead... and if the acreage is not there, then you really don't have any business shooting the bucks either.

IMHO both bucks and does should be limited by acreage and age class. But sans age class, spread is about the next best thing. Typically it takes a couple of years to make 13 inches... allowing them to show they have potential. If they'd up it to around 16 inches I think you'd be shooting bucks in the 4.5 or so year class mostly. I know one thing, I'd rather see ya shoot a yearling that would take more years to mature, than a 13 inch one that was halfway there already.

Of course some people just want to kill things and thats fine with me... its also my opinion that they should be happy to kill does and culls....

Well when I get my camera back I can take some pictures of deer that I have killed on my place that have a normal looking 4 points on one side and a stumpy looking antler with two to three points on the other side. It all stems back to a buck that we had ten or twelve years ago that never got killed that everybody that saw him thought he had broken one antler off. If I had known what was going on at the time, I would have sp0tlighted him. His genetics are in the herd and will take a long time to get rid of by following the current law. His buck offspring are doing some breeding and a lot of the does are from his lineage. If genetics are not important why is registered stock (horses,cattle,goats, dogs and so forth) so important? In animals genetics are always important. miles

I don't like point restrictions.

A deer should be allowed to grow as many points as he can.

There are obvious exceptions, of course, but I don't think you can tell too much about a spike as a lot of people maintain.

I can those long goat horn spikes that I see year after year with the body's getting bigger and still spikes. miles

Good one!!! Me agrees!

The thing I dislike about point restrictions is that it is state promoted hunting for antler score over hunting for venison.

See the research I posted above. On average, spikes are genetically inferior. They are not late born fawns nor nutritionally stressed. On average, they will grow smaller antlers throughout their lifetimes compared to forkhonrn and multi point yearlings. There's been over 30 years of research on this.
But I should add that yes, most people will be happy to shoot a 4 year old buck that was a spike as a yearling.

And another thing, spike management is not appropriate for those who don't have a surplus of bucks. If you can't get your buck doe ratio up, and you can't keep the bucks on your property, then it won't do you any good.

There is more reason behind antler restrictions then rack size. 1. It allows deer to mature and create a stronger healthier herd. 2. It usually coinsides with a more liberal doe harvest bringing the buck to doe ratio into a healthier balance. 3. With the bucks being harvested being restricted more does will be shot thus better managing the number of deer in your state.

At least these are the reasons Alabama started to regulate the buck harvest.

Ruger- I doubt that point restrictions really create a stronger and healthier herd. A bucks genetics are exactly the same when he is a 1.5 year old spike as when he is a 3.5 year old 8 point.
And the idea of shooting more does may make sense in states with over populations of deer, but I hunt whitetails in N.H. and VT where the numbers per sq. mile are about the lowest in the country.

In western state swher it has beentried,it has been a failure. The later deer seaosns usually ocur during rut and they found that the point restriction puts more pressuer on the mature bucks and the young bucks end up doing a lot of the breeding( or not)

In Co they did all kind of studies and did point restriction,not wanting to bite the bullet and reduce the number of deer tags.When they finally went to an all draw, deer herds rebounded.
You control deer herd numbers by shooting does, not mature bucks, and limit the total number of bucks that you harvest.

DOW in states that insist on point restrictions are just too money hungry to reduce tag numbers. They can tel you all kind of things,but they work to the bottom dollar line.

If the goal is to produce trophies, then it's a waste of time. Among elk, it's been shown that branch antlered bulls are more efficent breeders, and the calving season is shortened. This saturates the predators (lion and bear), and there is a shorter window of time when they focus their search image on young calves. That being, if the issue is not enough bucks for breeding, than a point restriction might help.

Point restrictions alone did nothing for one of our primo mule deer areas in Oregon (Steens Mts) years ago. It was designated a 4 pt or better area and the crowds thundered in thinking there were whoppers available everywhere. A healthy 2.5 year old can easily be a 4 x 4, and that is essentially all that one saw hanging around camps.

Another aside was folks did a lot of long tom shooting at 3 x 3's and simply walked away on discovery. The unit then went to limited entry via draw and any buck with antlers longer than it's ears. About 3/4ths of the hunters are happy with any buck, and there is great escapement of the larger, wiser, and older class animals. If one will pass on a few opportunities now, and put in some time, he can score a big boy, and theres about a 3 to 4 year wait now to score a tag.

Deer have to get some real age on them to generate trophies.

In short, no.

Point restriction alone is not a very good system. It might be better than nothing, but spikes need to be culled if you want to improve antler genetics. That's been proven time and again in research. Bucks need genetics, nutrition and age to grow big racks.

Texas' whitetail system has improved things considerably, but no system is perfect. Last season I saw two bucks with narrow, high racks that needed to be culled but they weren't legal to shoot. They'll never be wider than 13", despite being mature, and their genes don't need to be in the pool if the goal is big antlers. Genetics does make a difference, a huge difference.

Lastly, I don't think you can apply whitetail management, which is what most of the posters have been about, to elk and mule deer. They're too different.