Your plan has 2 main issue, after NY hunters wipe the all the big bucks in a few years, then what? AR's in PA have done much more then you stated. They went from 28th to 8th as big buck state. I know your frustration, I was there 5 years ago in MI. I went to meetings for our NRC, I pounded my head against the wall. IMO your best bet it to get a group of your buddies, get some land and make changes and manage the land the way you guys desire. Kids? I don't know what you plan on doing with youths who come into age, I know at all the QDMA CO-OPS in MI, anyone under 16 gets to shoot any buck. A lot of the these CO-OPs run a youth hunt. In our desire to improve hunting(bucks) we HAVE to remember youths. It's no fun to watch bucks go by for two years if you're 12. If you really want this, I would not wait for the state!! A few MI CO-OPs buck
That's part of the problem here. You are seeing wrong. There are some states that have AR's in place in certain area's which have resulted in almost every buck shot being 3.5+ and where every time you set out you have a legitimate chance at seeing a 130"+ buck. In fact if you see a buck the odds are it will be a 3.5-4.5 year old buck. AND this happen just as quick as it would have if you stopped buck hunting for two years. You can only make just so big of a change and have it fly socially. Taking away any chance of shooting buck WILL NOT fly. Try to do it in places like MI and NY and you will have a revolt on your hands. Lawsuits and all. Not with AR's you couldn't. A lot of hunter's are very happy to kill any buck and they will lay waste to the population because there will always be more hunters than bucks that age. It would only take a few years to get back to where you are now with out AR's. That IS Trophy hunting atlasman! When you are talking about there not being enough inches of antler to your liking this becomes a pro trophy hunting statement and the public will quickly recognize it as being so. This is why you need to get involved in the process to help come up with the best AR's that you can get everyone to agree to because you are not going to get your way on this. If change does come it will not be in the form of a two year ban on buck hunting so work with people to find the best compromise you can come up with. Also, I can tell you from our experiance here in MI that when it appears that "change is coming soon" that change gets derailed and doesn't happen when you get to many people unwilling to compromise.
It's your idea of more fun. Some think it is more fun to have a greater challenge than to make it that easy to see so many nice bucks. Many others think it is more fun to be able to shoot any antlered buck. It's a personal thing and you don't have to understand it. You just have to accept it. It's not the world according to atlasman or DEERSLAYER, etc.
Dealing with our NRC and the nut jobs in those meeting can drive any man insane! By the way, thanks for sharing those pics.
Atlas, overall your plan would work, but the dramatic changes would only be short term. It might help to sway some people to pass on smaller bucks, but just as many would be out to shoot any buck that they saw. Implementing a 4 pt antler restriction when antlered season opened back up would help this. The three major problems that I see with this would be poaching, money, and getting farmers to buy in. As far as the poaching aspect goes, it is bad enough as it is (atleast here), and I would hate to see what would happen when their was more temptaion (bigger bucks) showing up. These guys don't care about the deer herd, laws, property boundaries, ect. They only care about killing a big buck for his antlers. Money would be a huge problem as well. People would stop buying their hunting liscence and the dramatic revenue drop would really hurt all of the programs that are in place. The idea of not allowing those people to purchase their liscence after the two year "no buck" period would never fly and I'm sure would draw lawsuits. Farmers would probablly cause the biggest problem. I know that the farmers around my area couldn't care less about the herd health or age structure.... all they care about is their crops. Most of the farmers around here just want the deer killed, simple as that. They aren't going to sit by and allow a law to be passed that is going to keep more deer alive to eat their crops. There are farms around here that are open to everybody to hunt, and you still hear about the farmers shooting any deer that they see with .22's.
