I don't know much, but I know one thing. If my 15 year old son doesn't start seeing a deer once in a while hunting on public land, there will be one less license sold every year.
He is in school, and I work during the week, and so we basically hunt the opening day and two saturdays during rifle season. I think he has seen maybe a half dozen deer in his four years of hunting. We put in several days each year scouting before the season, use my small boat to access land that many others are not willing to hike to, etc. I know there are deer in the area we hunt, but I just don't think they are there in the numbers necessary for casual hunters like us to be successful. I know they are not there in the numbers anywhere near where they were when I started hunting the same general areas in 1980.
On a brighter note, we did see two bald eagles our last time out, which was a first for both of us. Unfortunately, they were fishing in the lake that we crossed, which means I'll be complaining about fish population numbers in a future post.
It's probably more my fault than the PGC's, but it is what it is, nonetheless....
