Finally a shooter buck =

well at least in my neck of the woods for me anyhow...  LOL
 

Here on the home the dang deer are not showing up on until way after it's too dark to even think about shooting.
 
Hopefully they'll start moving earlier now that maybe the bucks are looking for does ?????

Did ya shoot it?

You got that right Doc........

I like the glue idea a LOT !!!!!!
 
Gorilla glue, non-expanding,  would be my recommendation !!! 

You missed the start. Per PGC Press Release 093 2002--- QUOTE: Rewards will come in the fall of 2003 with MORE and LARGER bucks.
 
PGC Press Release 019 01 QUOTE: Make PA deer hunting the best in the nation.

S-10
You missed the start. Per PGC Press Release 093 2002--- QUOTE: Rewards will come in the fall of 2003 with MORE and LARGER bucks.
 
PGC Press Release 019 01 QUOTE: Make PA deer hunting the best in the nation.

 
Thanks S-10 I guess I was sleeping in a tree stand when that press release came out.
 

Claypool313
Not to highjack your thread, but all bucks/no does is very familiar to me this year.  I've had two cameras running on our property since March, that I've also hunted for the last 24 years and very heavily the last 8 years.  So I feel somewhat qualified making herd health estimations based on long-term camera results.  One camera watches a food plot, the other a travel route.  In the spring they both watched salt blocks.  It's difficult to count the does, but you can get a general feel with frequency and tendencies.  I checked both cams last weekend which had a combined 32 days between them.  I counted (6) different scrub bucks that appeared more than once each.  I counted (6) different 2.5 yr old bucks too.  That's (12) different bucks.  My highest guess at the number of does, including fawns is 6 or 7.  A ratio of approximately 2:1 does not sound healthy to me.  It was the toughest of winters so I'm not surprised there are no 3.5 yr old bucks.  I honestly thought the winter would be rougher on the bucks.  There is also a highway cutting across the property and I know of zero roadkills so far.  So what's the cause?  Overharvest of does?  We shot 3 bucks and 2 does that I know of last year.  Neighbors shooting all does, maybe?  I dunno.

 
I'll take your observations and theory over any PGC biologist anytime.  At least your getting out in the field and not spinning and twisting numbers sitting at a computer eight hours a day.  (I think they work eight hours! (don't they?))
 
My opinion is based on field observations as well.  Not seeing but, one or two deer visiting my fields each night during the year compared to eight to ten deer three years ago.  I also have pictures taken over the past years; not by field cameras but, by hand held cameras. Yearlings romping in my yard just off of my front porch was not uncommon this time of year.  Doe, along with their young eating my fresh mowed lawn just off my back deck.  I have pictures of deer feeding on the grass I would expose with my snow blower after a heavy snow.  Now I have to look just to find hoof prints in the snow and hope there may be pictures of deer on the field cams, I purchased this time last year.
 
Seeing is believing and seeing the results of the deer management plan is making me wish for the good ole days.  That was the day the PGC had fewer biologist and more enforcement officers.  Today it seems the PGC has a special biologist for every species of animal in PA.
 
I still feel the purpose of the deer management plans were bogus and have nothing to do with enhancing the whitetail in PA.  I think there was, and still remains, a select group of people that have high hopes of increasing the herds of other cervids and it is those (not bucks but, bulls) they wish to make room for in the 'Pennsylvania Wilds'.  
 
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I don't pay a whole lot of attention to opinions or claims. I do however pay a lot of attention to facts and numbers.
 
5 year average buck kill prior to AR/HR==  191,792
 
Last five years average buck kill ======  125,388
 
Difference ==  minus 66,404 or 35% reduction
 
Having said that, most of the deer moved out of the apples and into the oak three weeks ago.

My location is State games and state forest .. open to the public hunting... and I have never kept that a secret for over 10 years now... plus even the PGC states 2F is not suffering that much  from herd reduction ....
 

 
5 year average buck kill prior to AR/HR==  191,792
 
Last five years average buck kill ======  125,388
 
Difference ==  minus 66,404 or 35% reduction
 
Having said that, most of the deer moved out of the apples and into the oak three weeks ago.

 
I wonder if antler restrictions has anything to do with the 35% reduction in harvest numbers ... comparing years with ARs to years when they were not in effect...   LOL...LOL.
 
Again====  location, location, location .. there is not an oak trees with 5 miles of this area... nearest Oaks are over at Clear Creek State Forest  (9miles away) or into the Brockway/Brookville area (9 miles away)...
 
Thursday I could not walk 50 yards without walking on acorns over at CCSF...
 
right now around here ... No more apples and no corn fields and no acorns... deer will have a hard time building fat reserves for winter here...
 
But they do have TONS of those protein rich  ferns....

The does have gone nocturnal here at home, so I figured my best chance for one in the special senior hunt with a rifle was over at clear creek... and yes I shoot one here almost every year plus some years the second comes from clear creek because I have 2 DMAPs for there every year...
 
before the heart troubles (2007) I hunted there ALOT... now I stay close to home most of the time, I am within walkie talkie distance of the wife staying here.. over there .. no cell service to reach home if I had a problem... honestly... I truly miss hunting there...
 
If it were closer I would spend more time there ... especially if I were that interested in shooting bucks too... the friend that works there gets a doe and a buck there almost every year since 2000.
 
In fact there are 3 antlerless harvests pics on my message board from there this year already...

Doc-- AR has NOTHING to do with the reduction in buck harvest after the first couple years. The PGC says that themselves. What AR is supposed to do is hurt the harvest the first year and after that half the bucks just move up a year. Of course HR is another matter. it was designed to reduce the deer herd. The promise was your SHOOTER BUCK would be a big 8 or 10 point because all those ferns would turn into good mast. Apparently they never heard of soil acidity and thought we were all a bunch of dumb hunters..  Now they are doing a five year study to see  why what all the dumb hunters told them in 2000 was more accurate than the experts claims.

Go look up the PGC press release I just Quoted a few posts above. I can Quote a couple more if you want.
 
As for no one but youths posting photos of spikes and fours-----they would get busted if they did.
 
As for location, location, I agree, the big woods never produced the quality bucks the farmland will. That was he reason for the different AR's. However, of the last dozen bucks I've killed since AR only 2 have been larger than the average of the ones I killed the dozen years before AR. Since AR I see on average 1.2 more bucks with 8 or more points than I did before AR as prorated over a 6 week season hunting 5.5 hours a day. In exchange for that I average seeing 11.5 fewer bucks over the same time frame due to HR.

what I really meant was adults do not post any photos in the paper of those "scrubs" (basket) bucks many of us grew up hunting and going to school to boast about..
 
I was totally wrong on the spikes and 4 points for adults ,
 
but even with that said, around here the local paper has lots of photos of kids shooting bigger bucks than I ever did as a youth....  by far =  BIGGER .....

Maybe their hunting better ground, private farms, controlling their own deer herd, shooting over food plots, hunting harder than you,  better shots, more particular than we were (my grandson already is).
 
The papers have always had photos of good bucks, even before I was old enough to hunt. My barber had a mount of a 27 point killed locally in the 1940's.
 
NOTE: The year BEFORE AR/HR was still the best ever in PA for both number bucks taken and number of bucks put in the Penna record book the last I looked and counted them up in 2012. I'll have to update after this season is over.

PGC Press Release 111-01 and 080-01 -----Alt wanted to reduce the doe population to make room for the ADDITIONAL 100,000 BUCKS he was going to add to the herd.