This topic is being argued constantly on my other favorite outdoor forum, tndeer.com. I grew up in Michigan and in the 70's an average hunter could expect to shoot a deer every 5 to 7 years. State-wide hunter success ratio was approximately 17%.

In the mid 90s I moved to Tennessee. About three years ago Tennessee created a designation of "L" (Liberal Harvest) and assigned it to counties in the middle of the state. Since then they've added more counties. The state-wide limit is three bucks per year, but in L counties you can shoot 3 does a day.

So far this has been working out very well. the buck:doe ratio is getting back in line, and even though you can still shoot up to three bucks (no antler size restrictions) the average age of harvested bucks has been going up yearly. This has been my best year ever; seen more bucks than ever before, and though the does have been hiding more during the day, they still show up enough to keep things interesting.

Unless things change and we see some dramatic negative effects, I hope the TWRA leaves the regulations as they are.

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