Good point, Gary. The buck pictured was actually 14" wide inside, so he would technically be legal. BUT, I see your point, and therein lies the problem with antler restrictions.
Without getting into too much of a debate, I generally agree with the restrictions. As I understand it, the majority of the counties with antler restrictions are in East Texas. The average tract of land is generally smaller here than in other areas of the state. In West Texas, for example, ranchers don't even talk about acres...it's how many "sections" you own. To a lesser degree, the same can be said for South Texas. Small tracts of land, plus a lot of hunters, equals not as many deer that can live to maturity.
The purpose of the restrictions is to see more bucks become mature in these areas (and, of course, have more years to breed and thus boost the population). The 13" rule is not fail proof, but limiting harvests to bucks 13" wide or more is a decent rule of thumb when you want more mature bucks. As you indicated, a problem arises when a deer is clearly mature, and may even be labeled a "trophy" by some if it has lots of points, good mass, etc.--but is still not very wide.
To answer your first question:
No, I do not think the county we hunt will fall under the minimum spread regulations. Deer camp (not where the ponds are) is in Sutton County, which is northwest of San Antonio. The deer are not as large as in South Texas, but they are plentiful. If anything, MORE deer could be harvested in that county. Thus, I doubt harvesting will be restricted by antler regulations. The buck pictured is above-average for that area, although we do get some show-stoppers occassionally.
