wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
Not every hunter in SE MN is happy with the APR's. I work with several who only shoot "mounters" and if they don't see one worthy of the wall, they eat their tags(they do not shoot does). That said, they will however shoot a buck with inferior genetics, such as the deer I mentioned in an earlier thread that has been seen on trail camera for 3 years with 3pts on one side and a long spike on the other side. APR's do not allow them to remove such deer from the gene pool, and it shows, because they now have multiple bucks, both on trailcam and personal sightings with the very same features in their antlers as well. "High grading" bucks is a very real phenomenon and it is beginning to take place in SE MN as we speak. Your buck to doe ratio is more a result of only being able to harvest 1 buck per year, the only way the APR's help that is because most guys who don't see a "legal" buck will eventually harvest a doe for the table, thus leaving one less doe and all the inferior bucks on the landscape to help "balance" the ratio, and to eventually have the potential to dilute the gene pool in an unwanted way.