WHIT---The PA Game Commission has no exact count of the annual deer kill. I don't know who the two people are that you referred to, but they gave you a line. The doe tags WERE dropped down and the time to hunt cut back up here. In a recent Game News, it was stated that 70% of hunters did not report a deer kill. How would they know? Just because the deer kill did not meet their forecast it was wrong? Hunters can not improve on success rates if the deer are not there. I know guys that used to buy a handful (Literally) of tags for the special regs area south of me. Very few ever used two in the same year after the deer were trimmed back the first few years of the "Unlimited" tags. You have the system backwards and the PGC has not worked that way in past years. If one of the 3 days scheduled for doe had severe weather, an extra day was allotted to bring the doe kill up. I remember this being done. To think extra hunting time has no effect on deer kill is ridicules. The first year of the special muzzleloader season was a slaughter. With the time I have off now (Less) and the time I had off 10 years ago, I can see the difference in my deer kill. The first "Bonus,Bonus" tags did not have any real effect on the doe population. When the doe season became concurrent is when the whole system got out of control. My sister lives out near the Gettysburg battlefields. On the way to work in the evening she would see the deer come out in the hundreds. Finally the FEDS brought in snipers and killed them off because you can not hunt there. Just because you see a lot of deer does not mean there is good hunting in the area. On the other hand, just because you do not see any deer when hunting does not mean there are none. Deer are big animals and leave a lot of sign. If I see sign of deer movement, I am happy enough even if I get nothing. There are now places in PA where deer sign has just plain stopped. I don't care how many deer you see spotting at night or running on neighbors property, if I can not hunt there, they may as well not even be there.
