me either. My best friend's dad has a TON of deer on the wall and euro's from east texas. big deer. dont think he's put one on the wall since ar's. he's a guy that put the time in the woods and actually hunted them.

I'm not worried about it, I'm not gonna shoot anything under 13". And processing it myself still wouldn't make it legal.

I'm glad somebody turned themselves in but most won't be that honest. I'm also glad they got a warning since they were honest, as long as it wasn't a very young deer.

I'd like to point out that I'm not 100% for the current ARs. I hate the fact that somebody can kill 2 bucks and 2 does where I am. There aren't many deer in my area and I honest think our ratio is somewhere around 3 bucks per doe. Wild, low fence. No BS. At least 2:1. I also hate that a lot of the better deer will already be over the 13" mark by 2 1/2. But if all of this keeps my neighbors from shooting some of the deer I'm passing, I'm for it currently in my area. I wouldn't mind if my county went archery only to be honest. Archery only is the best regulation for growing mature deer in the state of Texas.

Red River county had gotten better and better from 83 to 2005, and has declined to a point of seeing fewer and fewer deer every trip. What changed?

Protecting young ones? No, in the past some barney's might let a spike pass hoping on finding a bigger one... now, all first sighted spikes are blasted, instantly. Along with increased doe harvest as well.

It might work great in places with good genetics and good numbers of deer. It's decimating places too.

Why is it that some people can't believe what we are seeing? It's not a lie. Nothing else has changed.

Sure, I'd love to see big horned deer in east texas, but seeing small horned deer was better than seeing NO deer.

Last weekend I saw bucks at a 3 to 1 ratio. Never fired a shot. It was in Foard County, a ONE BUCK county. Yeah, that makes lots of sense.

Ok some of yall need to go back and read my first post. I'm not a fan of ARs. I prefer vinison over beef any day. But I'm not going to shoot a young buck. I guess if you are some where you don't have a lot of deer then its a different story. I went out the other evening and saw 16 deer, 15 of those were doe. Could have taken any of them with a gun. Like I said before, all I do is bow hunt.

I keep hearing, Im in an AR county and have lots of mature bucks with racks that are too narrow. If you have lots of mature bucks, thank the 13" restriction of the ARs and if you have lots of mature bucks, I bet you have plenty that are over 13". Mature bucks are a good thing, regardless of what they are carrying on top of their head. Now, Im totally against the spike tag though. Make it either or, not both.

some areas just aren't geared for wide spread and it's not a shooting thing, it's just how they are built for the habitat they are living in. It shows up on a place I used to hunt (and still do as a guest) where habitat was changed some 80 yrs ago on the upper end and you find your wider deer there, down in the river bottom where it's all naturally regenerated forest (and thicker than any mess I've ever seen in STX w/o the super nutritional value) and you get narrow horned native brush bucks that get old, huge bodied and trashy horned.

AR threads make my (insert your choice here) hurt.

Preach on brother!

Well I have to say it has helped in my area before the AR if it had horns it hit the dirt. Now I'm not saying we are getting the monster bucks but we do get 1 or 2 in the 160 class every year and see more and more heavy horned deer over 13.

Love those big heavy antlers!

How are mature bucks a good thing "regardless of what they are carrying on their head"? What's the benefit of having large numbers of mature deer that are illegal to shoot? I guess I don't follow you on that. I guess if you are a photographer or something it would be ok.

It's all about pretty antlers. Big antlers. Antlers to hang on walls. A dead buck is a dead buck, one that can't make baby deer anymore. A young buck can make babies as well as a "mature" one but if you kill the young one, you will never know if it's babies will have wide, big antlers. So you need to let it mature so you know what kind of genes it's passing on. Heaven forbid they aren't pretty antler genes.

how about this for antler restrictions....

you can only kill something with 6 or more points, LESS than 13 inches. that will insure the big wide racks survive, and we can cull the narrow mature deer.

Actually that'll get the majority of our yearlins shot

yeah. there is no sarcasm font here, lol. was saying that because it would do to the horn hunters what has been done to us meat hunters, take away the bucks we used to shoot.

This is true, but some <13 deer will slip through the cracks & turn into trophies just as >13" deer did preARs

Well, I'm new to the THF but have been reading for awhile. Some will slip through the cracks and thats the way it should be. I don't want every buck to be a wall hanger. Trophy's should be just that, a trophy, not the norm. I hunt deer because I like to eat venison. Sorry but I'm getting pretty tired of the trophy hunters imposing their will on all hunters. You do your thing and let the rest of us do our own thing. "Can't we all just get along". Curley, Sig, Seadog, Rifleman, ya'll seem like stand up guys and could hunt with me anyday.

I don't claim to be an expert on deer but here is something to consider. Does also contribute to the genetic mix and will have an equal effect on the potential of their offspring. For years I have always heard shoot the spikes which helps but that alone hasn't helped to eradicate the spikes.

So the way I see it you have does, illegal bucks, and legal bucks. What happens when you exclude one group and concentrate on the other two. I could be wrong and according to my wife I'm always wrong but I think that in a low fence free range situation more pressure on does and legal bucks will do more harm in the long run to the genetics of a particular deer herd.

I have had the good fortune of having a good spot before and watched a lot of deer. I learned a lot. I also saw two years in a row a particular mature 9 inch wide 8 point breed does. I named him sawtooth because his antlers reminded me of a saw blade and somewhere in my thousands of game feeder pics have a pictures of him. On my lease there were a few deer in the area that were exceptional. The one on the right in my sig is one of them and I first saw him as a very wide 1.5 year old Forky. I had the pleasure of watching him one evening for 30-45 minutes and I let him walk. Sometimes I kick myself over it but then again had I killed him I never would have seen what he developed into. Once he got his head gear that deer expanded his range and frustrated me for 3 seasons. If I went on a Thursday he was there the day before. One time I had been out of town and was going to make the 3am drive to hunt on a Friday but I was too worn out and didn't go but I should have because he was there. That was my chance.

So my second point is that exceptional bucks are fairly obvious early in their life. Or another way to put this is by the age of 1.5 to 2.5 it is what it is and the antlers will only get thicker and the tines longer. Not wider.

Since I was a kid Texas has always been known as a big deer state. Frankly I don't believe that ARs will do much to improve that fact.

Now who wants some coffee to go with this opinion?

Thank you for the kind words.

I think its bad that the government can tell us what we can shoot and what we can't. People need to stand up and take our dang freedom back. Who knows what's next. No telling how many bucks get left in the woods because they were shot and didn't measure 13 in. A trophy buck don't have to be huge to be a trophy to a kid that hasn't ever shot a buck. Sad sad sad that we set back and let the government dictate to us what deer we can shoot.

They have been telling us what we can and can't shoot longer than anyone on this forum has been alive.

Just bag limits not this AR crap.

Curly....I like your sig....that you wrote