“It’s hard on the guys who only have a few days out of the season to hunt who might not get the opportunity to shoot a buck that meets the requirements.”


A shift in attitudes by hunters along with a booming whitetail herd led Mississippi wildlife officials to undertake sweeping changes to the state’s deer management plan in 1995. Among those changes was a statewide antler-point restriction, a move that limited hunters to bucks that had at least four points on at least one antler.
Pennsylvania also adopted antler-point restrictions in 2002 for many of the same reasons as Mississippi — far too many does and a shortage of mature bucks. In both states, the overabundance of deer was taking a toll on the habitat; in Pennsylvania, entire ecosystems were being severely altered. Chad Dacus, deer program leader for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, said many of the state’s does were getting bred far later than normal, which resulted in poor fawn health and a decrease in antler development later in life. Now, with over a decade of data gathered in Mississippi and six years’ worth in Pennsylvania, hunters are asking the same question: Are these antlerpoint restrictions working?

Absolutely, says Dacus.

“In some areas, the quality is unbelievably better. As we expected, the buck harvest dropped significantly in the couple of seasons following the point restrictions, but it is actually quite high in the majority of the state now that they have been in place for awhile,” he says.

Prior to the Mississippi point restrictions, over half the bucks taken on state wildlife management areas were 1½ years old or younger; last season, over 60 percent were 3 1/2 years old or older. The results have been similar in Pennsylvania.

“Restrictions won’t work without a shift in antlerless management, along with changes to the buck harvest. In order to increase the health of your bucks, you have to manage the entire herd, and that usually means reducing the antlerless deer population,” says Dacus. “We liberalized our doe harvest to help bring the herd in better balance with the habitat along with creating a healthier buck-to-doe ratio.”

Potential Downsides

The problem with point restrictions, say opponents, is that they smack of elitism, a rule to help some hunters who want to kill bigger bucks impose their standards on those who are just happy to take a buck, any buck. What’s wrong with killing a spike or a small 6-pointer, anyway? Point restrictions can also lead to the phenomenon known as “high-grading,” taking the best


bucks out of a population and leaving the smaller, inferior bucks to live and breed. Dacus says that in some areas, yearling bucks that met the legal requirements were being removed from the population even though they had the strongest potential to turn into trophy-class whitetails as they matured.

“There is some evidence that taking high-quality yearling bucks out of the population leads to a long-term decrease in antler quality in the remaining bucks,” he says.

They can also lead to unintentional illegal harvest, making criminals out of otherwise ethical and law-abiding hunters who might make an honest mistake. There’s no telling how many undersized bucks have been left in the woods, but last year, Pennsylvania hunters reported 765 illegal kills. They are required to pay a $25 restitution fee and surrender the deer.

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries deer project leader Matt Knox sees both sides, and agrees with arguments for and against point restrictions.

“It’s hard on the guys who only have a few days out of the season to hunt who might not get the opportunity to shoot a buck that meets the requirements. Plenty of hunters don’t care if the buck they shoot has eight points and a 20-inch spread,” he says.

He agrees that point restrictions can improve the overall quality of a deer herd, and he only needs to look at a public hunting area in southwest Virginia for proof. Hunters on a large section of Fairystone WMA are restricted to bucks with at least four points on one side, and although he doesn’t have the science to back it up, Knox is confident it is producing bigger bucks.

“If you talk to the hunters who frequent the area, they will tell you that it’s working. People come from all over to hunt that section of the wildlife management area,” says Knox. “I think this program works because there is still a large portion of the public hunting area that is not under a point restriction, so hunters don’t have to hold out if they don’t want to.”

An entire county in Virginia was placed under a modified point restriction (hunters are allowed two bucks, but one must have four points on one side) two years ago at the request of a large number of hunters themselves. Knox would rather see voluntary point restrictions imposed by hunters, not by state agencies. Dacus, however, says the majority of Mississippi hunters have been strongly in favor of the current rules, and many wonder why they weren’t changed long before they actually were.

Mississippi recently fine-tuned the antler restrictions from the minimum point restrictions to a minimum spread width and main-beam length on most of the state’s wildlife management areas. The idea, noted Dacus, was to manage bucks based more on age than by antler points. Spread and main-beam length are a better indicator of a buck’s age than the number of points it carries on top of its head. Although those rules might seem to be a recipe for confused hunters and accidental harvest, Dacus said Mississippi hunters have adjusted well to the new rules.

Knox and Dacus agree that point restrictions tend to work best on large tracts of land, but hunters who control as little as several hundred acres can have moderate success by imposing their own set of standards.

“We typically recommend having at least 1,000 acres, but if you don’t have that much and you can form a cooperative with adjoining landowners, you can certainly increase the average size of your bucks,” says Dacus. “It will take several years, but if you stick with it, it can definitely work.”