Nothing is going to change in East TN until the mentality of the hunters change, period. The mentality has changed dramatically in Mid and West TN, more and more hunters each year are passing on small bucks in hopes of killing mature bucks, and the results are beginning to show. However, the culture in East TN is entirely different, and around here anything with antlers is dead, most of the time up to the legal limit. It's hard for me to understand and relate to because I've been targeting mature bucks for 25 years and have absolutely no desire to take a small buck, and would be embarrassed to kill one. I live here, and talk to a ton of other hunters around here and it is just not in their DNA, and may never be to be honest.
I think part of stems from the inability to kill Does for so long that people never have come around to passing on bucks until a big one walks by, or Doe days are in. That is solely on TWRA, along with a lack of education for hunters as to the benefits of passing on younger deer. What is not on TWRA is poaching, TWRA does all they can to try and keep people in line, but at some point we hunters need to provide a helping hand and keep an eye/ear out for law breakers. I personally do not think poaching is the issue, I think the issue is hunters not being educated enough, having the desire, or unwilling to pass small bucks up to have more mature bucks to hunt each year.
One thing to also keep in mind, the parcels of land here are chewed up, so hunter x may have 50 acres he hunts, and next door are 4 other 50 acre tracts with 10 hunters. With numbers like that it can be almost impossible to have any bucks surviving to maturity IMO.