Population Genetics Question?

[_X7]

8 hours ago, Lunatic said:

point well taken. Corn piles during the season have one purpose. However, I would not say this is all we as hunters know and do. How many posts we have about mineral sites on this forum and mineral sites are not necessary cheap? Many.  How many of us, yours truly included start feeding, or continue feeding, into the off season? some do  

I'd be willing to bet there are a lot more that don't and won't pay for anything but corn or other pile foods and have no interest in doing the work  of establishing food plots and mineral sites.

[Rusty]

37 minutes ago, ratherbhunting said:

I would consider that a trophy

That is unique and would be a cool trophy but you don't want that becoming the dominant feature in a herd's gene pool.  

[bucky]

Quote

Yes. But you will be hard pressed to find a 5 yr old fork horn in my opinion. 

Back when Duke Farms was Doris Duke Estates there were plenty of 3 and 4 pointers running around with 20" plus spreads that were 5+ yrs old but those days are long gone since the board of trustees hoodwinked the public into a eradication program

Edited February 12, 2020 by bucky

[KBfishing]

3 hours ago, nickmarch said:

I found this on Google

 

I think someone should call him and ask how old that deer was. 

[nickmarch]

35 minutes ago, KBfishing said:

I think someone should call him and ask how old that deer was. 

The score sheet bottom right says 5 1/2

[KBfishing]

I was joking. He has his phone number posted on the sheet as well as his home address. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by KBfishing

[Haskell_Hunter]

Just now, KBfishing said:

I was joking. He has his phobe number posted on the sheet as well as his home address. 

I called him to congratulate him.  He said QDM sucks.

[230jhp]

5 hours ago, Haskell_Hunter said:

Same for me.  Zone 3 is my back yard.  I got a basket 8 a few years ago and a fork that had a third point.  The rest of the deer I see are forks.  No trophies.

I wonder if @JHbowhunter’s secret spot is located in a QDM zone...

The rack in my profile pic was taken in Z3 (Waywayanda) in 1985. I have another good one I shot in Sterling Forest 1/4 mile North of the state line in 1986. That is 1/4 mile North of Z3. Both are from before they started APR.

I took what I thought was a nice 8 point in RSP a few years ago. Unfortunately  the rack was broken off on one side. I didn't notice it when I squeezed the trigger.

[tcook8296]

8 hours ago, KBfishing said:

I was joking. He has his phobe number posted on the sheet as well as his home address. 

Yeah his email too

Gittrdone@yahoos.com

Edited February 13, 2020 by tcook8296

[Rusty]

14 hours ago, Pathman said:

Jumpin in late on this one (by design, figured I’d let Rusty take some heat for a change!😁), but it appears APRs “ain’t all that.” 
yes it allows the yearlings to get older, however, if you look at the below excerpt from the PA study on APRs, it simply shifted the high kill rate (75-80%) of yearlings to 2.5 yr olds (which are considered “adult” deer). 
so don’t let the “adult” designation fool you, the bucks in PA aren’t growing to maturity (>4.5) due to APRs. 

Showing pics of a trophy that was once a spike is insignificant statistically, I’m pretty certain you can show just as many spikes and fork horns that are still spike and fork horns at maturity. 
I’m not totally against APRs, but I do believe high grading has an impact, and APRs and all they’re cracked up to be judging by PAs own study. 
unless of course 2.5 yr old bucks is your goal. 

Our biologists found the same thing here and they pointedly said that they were allowing APRs due to social pressures and not for biological reasons.  

Another very misleading part of the equation is talking about percentages of the harvest.  If you reduce the number of yearlings from the legal harvest you automatically increase the percentage of older bucks, even though you are not killing more older bucks.  

[Gobblengrunt]

The bottom line is you always need age on a buck to know what its potential is.  A lot of people forget that the doe has just as much to do with a bucks potential as the father.  I also find it interesting that at any intensily managed property, a mature 8pt is considered a cull buck, to most thats a trophy!

[Bonefreak]

18 hours ago, Bonefreak said:

Good point Rusty!!  No pun intended!!  Lol

Antler point restrictions also have negative impacts with regards to high frequency of deer/car collisions as young bucks disperse. 

And.....negative impacts in states that have CWD as young bucks protected by antler point  restrictions disperse and spread CDW further from infected areas. 

Antler point restrictions have numerous negative impacts on population genetics and overall health of the herd. 

Oh yeah...maybe someone mentioned it already......

tack on what an APR does to a kid or new hunter trying to get his first deer....early success is important to retaining recruited hunters 

another negative impact of APRs 

[SPEARFISH]

4 minutes ago, Bonefreak said:

tack on what an APR does to a kid or new hunter trying to get his first deer....early success is important to retaining recruited hunters 

another negative impact of APRs 

Depends what you're teaching the kid too.  When I grew up we were taught to shoot every legal deer we could.  Times have changed and shooting small bucks is not as readily accepted.  A lot of hunters would rather have their kids learn to let the little ones pass anyway.    Some places that have APR's don't apply to kids too.

The guys I know that hunt PA are not complaining about APR's, and are seeing and shooting more mature branch antlered bucks then ever.

 

[buckhound]

I have said this before we had bigger racks  before APR’s In zone 34 the next zone 45 has no restriction all the local clubs drive 45 For that reason,and every year they kill many mature racks in 45. That said here is an interesting study done in Mississippi that is true here in 34 it’s mostly swamp very little agriculture even less today than 20 years ago but if you move 15-20 miles up into the farming area you will see a big difference in size of body and racks. Even on 34 someone planted soy beans for About 3 years and we had some of the biggest bucks I have ever seen around that field body and rack .

 

[Rusty]

38 minutes ago, SPEARFISH said:

Depends what you're teaching the kid.

Should we be teaching kids that shooting spikes is bad?