I notice when a subject like this comes up, there's always the usual "don't tell me what to do" replies. And it's not that I disagree (Lord help, I'm as Libertarian as they come), but that answer is impotent. You cannot have selective rules or total anarchy when dealing with a shared resource. It's literally like the old parable of the village with limited grains for food, you simply cannot make it a free for all, because people cannot be trusted. I agree if you have personally owned land, then nobody should tell you what to do. But because there are very few folks who own enough land to be fully autonomous, then this argument of "don't tell me what to do" simply doesn't hold water....if "your" deer can cross onto "my" land (or worse, vice versa), then how dare you tell me what to do with my deer? See what I mean by impotent?...it works both ways! What you thought worked for you, also worked against you. It's a straw argument, yes it's your land, but they aren't your deer. I mean dang, I've been in clubs with 10,000 acres and one of our up and comer bucks that we were "managing" gets killed across the line on the neighbors land. We don't have common ideals, therefore your anarchist game laws infringe upon my conservative ideals. It's just a muddy mess. You cannot control every single dynamic, therefore it cannot simply be "live and let live" when it comes to a mutually shared resource. The rules have to err on the conservative side, since the true numbers of deer and hunters cannot be known, you cannot risk overharvest by simply turning everyone loose to their own whims.

This whole thing would have better optics if the current laws allowed for a large number of harvest. At least then it would "look" like you're not just arguing to kill everything brown that moves every time you hunt every day of the season. I simply don't trust people, I don't know enough people who would conserve the resource, in order to just turn the resource over to whatever you want. Most people I know would lose their damn minds and stack 'em up like cordwood, I mean geez they do it now even against the rules.