States that 77 percent of the bucks killed in Mississippi are 3 1/2 years of age or older . The article also says that hunters are letting younger bucks walk as a whole . I believe that it want be long before Alabama will eventually turn the corner like Mississippi and start killing more big mature bucks as opposed to killing younger bucks .

I like their program about minimums being based on main beam length. I think that alone promotes killing mature deer. who cares how many points it has.

I sure hope they do, it eats me up for all my neighbors to shoot little basket rack bucks while I'm trying to manage my land. If I could get them onboard with a 3 year old or better rule I'd have freakin bucks everywhere

I think several areas of our state has turned the corner.

Interesting since there is no way to say for certain how old a deer actually is, unless you put a tag in their ear at birth.

There's a huge thread and much discussion about this article here in Mississippi (BullNettleNews). That data is bullcrap. Do y'all realize how much dog hunting goes on in Mississippi? It's even worse than Alabama. It's legal everywhere.

There is zero proof that these antler restrictions have helped at all, and the Mississippi guys whine about the same things Alabama guys do (low deer numbers, young bucks getting killed etc)

It's just more stupid laws that wil keep people out of hunting. And for the record, Mississippi does NOT have a deer reporting system. Imagine that.

Most folks can discern the difference between a 4.5 year old or older deer from a 2.5 year old. Unfortunately a lot of them end up on the tailgate before that determination is made.

Is it coincidence that QDMA and NAZI are both 4 letter words. Proproganda for elitist agenda???

Data is also skewed by not counting button bucks as bucks.....

....especially if they're being run in front of a dog. What a joke.

So, size matters?

I just like deciding if you want to shoot on a basis other than number of points. its a start at the very least

I bet weight correlates most closely with age, but I don't see how that could be enforced.

yeah, I'm not even talking from a legal state level, if clubs would go to main beam length (or weight), over "8 point or better" I believe it would make a world of difference.

"8 pt or better" drives me crazy

I agree.

....What you should picture.....

we've changed our thinking on the 8 point or better rule in favor of age class. The biggest problem with 8 point or better is that it can result in "high grading" meaning that you can wind up killing your genetically superior bucks at a young age instead of killing older, bigger bodied bucks with inferior racks. You might kill a 120-125" 2 1/2 year old that could have been a monster at 4 or 5 years old.
Biggest problem with trying to kill older bucks is a lot of folks can't or don't take the time to really look at a bucks body size and structure to age it. They just see horns and start slinging lead and get ground shrinkage. Ain't no catch and release in deer hunting

It always seems to be a issue when people try to manage and the folks beside them manage less

I'm just wondering how they can make a blanket statement like they did? Who determined the deer were 3 1/2 or older?

Trained biologists with years of experience will not all agree on the age of a 3 1/2 year old deer, so to say that a certain percentage were 3 1/2 or older is interesting. Many studies have been done on known age deer and the results clearly show it is not cut and dried, even at 2 1/2. Even cementum annuli has been shown to be less than accurate for southern deer. Fawn, yearling, and adult are about the only 3 categories that deer can be placed in with any confidence.

Someone that states with 100% confidence that a deer they are not familiar with is 3 1/2 has been reading their own press clippings. Some might be able to get it right most of the time, but there is no real way of knowing for certain.