Two nice Bucks
 

Two nice ones nearby home here in northeastern PA. Second one is a real beaut!
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The texture in each, makes them look much like a painting.

Deer season started here today (all be it antlerless only this month) , it was 72 degrees and raining at 5:30AM so I passed .

Those will definitely get your blood going Frank. Looks like they are from the same gene pool, high and somewhat tight racks. Would love to catch that second one below my tree stand.

Both pics were taken at longish distances using a cell camera and I cropped/expanded each before posting. Taken by my wife's nephew yesterday morning.

Real nice buck Frank, hope you get him.

PA's antler restrictions and increased harvest numbers of antlerless deer has really improved the bucks. I bow hunted Potter County back in the 1980's and if you killed a 125 Lb buck with four tiny points that was a nice deer. Folks were up in arms about it but the proof is in the pudding.

BINGO!! Antler restrictions led directly to our buck quality increasing. the "I can't eat antlers" crowd needs to keep quiet and allow the adults to manage the game. :clap:

On our property we fill as many doe tags as we can and target buck that are 2 1/2 years old and older.

Truth be told if the check in procedure you guys had hasn’t changed to an actual visualization at a check station antler restrictions don’t mean much . I ran into what I think were quite a few uhm “sportsman” in PA that would shoot whatever and not check in or check as something it wasn’t . Kinda works on the same premise as locks only keep out honest persons !

While that probably did happen I think the problem has taken care of itself with the increased quality of the bucks now.

A few more spotted earlier this week. They were in a different location many miles from the two bucks in my first post here.

You were not where I was when I heard what I heard several times . Truth be told the only thing the PA game department cares about are the bears and to a lesser degree turkey .

I agree with Craig to some extent but that was when the antler restrictions were enacted many years ago. Yes I did hear back then of fellas accidentally dropping a buck, seeing it didn't meet the restriction, and walking away. OLD DATA. I haven't heard of that happening in many years, and while I'm sure that's occasional even nowadays, it's far from the norm and even when it does happen, the shooter will often do the right thing, drag out the buck and process it anyway. It's not like the woods and fields are crawling with Game Commission officers.

Besides, many modern PA deer “hunters” are now sitting in elevated/heated blinds and coops, with high magnification scopes on their rifles, and have time to look over unsuspecting bucks before shooting a hapless dink by accident.

Better to let em go and watch em grow. Nowadays it's largely about the sport and very few of us are deer hunting for subsistence or to cull small bucks and does just because of liberal bag limits or to test out new guns and loads. And in net it's cheaper to buy meat at the store.

In my mind there is truth that the PA Game Commission favors certain species and does lip service to others. Ruffed grouse for example. But that's another subject.

Frank you sure have some nice bucks around your hunting area. I wish we had antler restrictions where I hunt in NY but every time it's brought up the " you can't eat the antlers group seems to stop it"

Has the annual limit in PA changed any or is it still a single buck a year be it gun ML or archery ?

Only one antlered deer per license year.