All those bucks I posted Doc were on land open to the public except one. It was on posted ground.
And to be honest posters don't mean a hell of alot here in amish country...

Uh-oh........ I stepped on some egos. There's absolutly nothing wrong with a hunter 'harvesting' a whitetail deer having heavy mast antlers. There's certainly nothing wrong with that hunter boasting and showing his/her pride having 'harvested' such a animal. Nor, is there anything wrong with a hunter wanting to better their trophy buck year after year.

And there sure as hell is nothing wrong with the average Joe who wishes to go out and just 'harvest' a buck because he/she is a proud hunter and, could care less about antler mass or, lots of antler points. So tell me; why the need for antler restrictions and why do they vary across the state?

here's the problem... all you will get here is OPINIONS  and DEBATE ...... there's a side that believes the PGC and a side that doesn't ....
 
why do they vary ... your question.. well let's ask those that put them in place.....
 

 

Why have three- and four-point areas?
Different areas of Pennsylvania produce larger bucks at younger ages than others. Using antler point data collected from more than 71,000 bucks, we assigned three- and four-point restrictions to different areas based on antler characteristics. The objectives of these restrictions is to protect about half of the yearling bucks from harvest and make most adult bucks legal for harvest.
Throughout most of the state, a three-points to a side restriction satisfies the objectives of the new antler restriction. In western Pennsylvania, a three-points to a side restriction would protect less than a third of all yearling bucks, whereas a four-points to a side restriction protects more than half of all yearling bucks. A similar situation occurred in some southeastern counties of Pennsylvania, but a three-points to a side restriction was implemented in this area based on social concerns related to high human densities and deer-human conflicts.

 
so there is the answer... plus the majority of Pa hunters like them ....
 
now all you will get is opinions.. and everyone knows mine ...

BeenThereDoneThat.
If I wanted a big Iowa buck I would hunt Iowa. I just want to hunt my home state of PA and do not need to kill a trophy buck so I can strut my stuff. Apparently the PGC feels that 'all' PA. hunters have big egos who must fill their urge to kill (my bad) 'harvest' a heavy antlered whitetail.

And this is mine.......

here's where I come from on ARs....
 
personally ... for my OWN purpose .... I would rather not have them .. then I would have a better chance of harvesting a Pa buck every year... that said ... I still manager at least one deer for 30 years now... so venison is my reason for hunting deer.. not bragging rights or quality of the deer, or size of the rack.
 
but by allowing buck to live another year does 2 things .. one it makes them harder to hunt the following year, which is good for the "SPORT" of deer hunting and it does allow for those that do worry about rack size some better opportunities at more larger racked Pa buck than most of us grew up hunting...
 
so I can live with them.