Question for those who hunt or hunted the ANF

On Monday I was walking my land(107 acres) in Warren Co. near the town of Tidioute(2F), which is not far from the ANF. I stepped over a log and lo and behold I found a set of shed antlers lying there. They are from a 7 point buck with about a 20 inch spread and would probobly score near 120. I was blown away. I hunted the ANF near the town of Brookston(Warren Co) from the mid 80's till about 1998. Back then a huge buck was a small 6 point, but most bucks were spikes and small 4 points. Have the bucks gotten much larger than I remember back then or is the AR working? Or both? During hunting season I saw 3 other bucks. The smallest was a decent sized 4 point. My neighbor saw a huge 12 point on his trail camera. If this trend continues I must be hunting in the "golden years". I will admit I don't see 50 doe a day but who cares, I would rather see 1 decent buck all day than 50 doe! Also my area is all woods, no corn whatsoever, so you can't say the food source has gotten better. Any comments or thoughts guys?

There are enough farms on the hills around Tidioute that have always produced good bucks since at least the mid 1960's ( when I started hunting that area)but the
re are no doubt a few more 2-1/2 around since AR forced most people to pass on half the buck population. When you have 10 years worth of racks off your land to compare with your previous 10 years worth prior to ar/hr you can make the determination if it was worth it. In my case, based on the 10 years before ar/hr compared to the last 10, it wasn't. How many good bucks have you killed since 2002?

I have and still hunt Tidioute for the past 20+ years. Hunted the NF and SGL along with timber and private properties.There has always been big bucks in that area and still are, just less than years past. Look back at some of the old photos and see how big the bucks were back in the day. Pretty impressive if you ask me!

     One would think that if a hunter anywhere- not just PA-had to pass on junior bucks and only take larger bucks that sooner or later the number of larger bucks may decline when hunter sucuss on buck stayes about the same as in the past.. This of course means that legal  shooters-- over 2 1/2  were never hunted in the past the way they would become with AR in place and therefore may be in decline.
    Most guys just want to shoot a deer and never care how big it is- yea they will take a bigger one if available but mostly they just want a deer - that is why doe tags are popular. If they are forced to just shoot larger bucks and the hunter sucuss numbers stay similar then there may be fewer older deer in the herd as the result.
  Yea lots of 2 1/2 get shot but the OLDER BIGGER ones now are targeted by many instead of just the few of us who were dedicated to them in the past. I am NOT just talking PA here but anywhere where this type of activity takes place.
   It works very well when one can 'manage' a property within a State of 'normal' hunting with a well rounded herd surrounding his property but I would question it within an area surrounded by folks limited to only mature deer harvests- just too much competition.
    In that regard I can readily understand the dilema faced by Noplace that led to his question. There is ALWAYS a deer or two that evade notice and we seem to see them on PVt NO  HUNTING properties now and again or find their drops but sometimes they actually could become few and far between.

S10 is spot on---doing some of that same stuff up in my NY place and the difference can be seen in just the 2 years I have been doing so. Even with a diminished herd, cause of natural occurance, am getting more attention on my place.

S-10, as of right now I am having 35 acres low graded and a mast tree release done(EQUIP). My ancient apple trees(9) are pruned to perfection(surprisingly there were lots of blossoms). And I have 90% of the knotweed destroyed. Food plots will be coming but not until I am closer to retirement(7 years 6 mons). I am not sinking money into food plots so the locals can kill more and bigger deer at my expense. They already kill their share of deer on my land and the neighbors. It would not bother me except they bring their buddies along without getting permission.