Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Question For PA Deer Hunters???

The PGC at one time was an independent commission of the State and the legislature left them alone because the hunters lobby was one of the most powerful. Those days are gone in that we are divided. PC has reared it ugly head, combined with the fact most just don't care all that much. They spend perhaps a weeks total out hunting and that is it for the year. Done, over, finished. They get a Deer fine, if not, no big deal. They don't want to put a lot of effort into being successful. A few get riled up re AR, one way or the other, the majority don't care, one way or the other.

I doubt if you can piss me off, so Merry Christmas.

The PGC is still independent. Unfortunately. Id like to see PGC and Fish and Boat combined, with greater oversight on how they interact with DCNR. The "hunters lobby" is but one part of the mess we're in. The biggest hunting lo byists in the state is PFSC, and as their views became more extreme they alienated hunters and landowners. They may still have backing by their sportsmens clubs, but by and large the clubs individual members havent been happy with PFSC's efforts supporting hhnters rights. Hence why the Legislature has gotten ever increasingly involved, since by law, they oversee the GC, independent agency or not. Theyre only financially independent, they still must follow rules of Title 34 and 58(farm programs basically). Youre right, most rifle hhnters dont spend a lot of time afield, but they pay their money, amd many dont think theyre given enough opportunity, which includes number of game animals. IMO, we wouldnt have the bickering if the GC wasnt so aggressive with HR, and the whole sunday hunday fiasco.

Merry Christmas to you and yours also!

Agree on the PFSC which is something I forgot about. Just about every club is a member only because it seems like the right thing to do and individual members are not all that involved. Most sportsmans clubs reflect the same attitude as those who buy a hunting license. They pay their dues-license-and show up to shoot occasionally. Getting involved in issues is not part of their reason for belonging. Didn't always be that way.

Dillion--we hunt in Clearville?, off 26 outside of Everett. I think a couple of things Gary Alt mentioned about the does permits was the range damage that the herd was doing and deer/car accidents.

Not trying to make you mad. You seem like a good guy and we just disagree. I really try to see both sides and form my opinion. Also try to allow others their opinion, but dont always do a good job of it. A Merry Christmas to you and yours.

You are about 10 miles from my house. The insurance company should have no say in wildlife management. But money talks in the capital. I had a PGC biologist swear at me at the Harrisburg Sport Show when i asked why insurance, farmers and loggers were determining policy. I simply stated that hunters were their customers and the animals health was the stated goal. i don't think he had a good answer and was probably the guy tying to explain someone else's policy. As to food concerns I have never seen a browse line in this area. In parts of WV i have. And in less ag based parts of this state it probably was a problem.

Excellent post!

Agreed.

I worked for PADER/DEP in the 1990's and knew/know some of the PAGC bio's. The PAGC had/have some good bio's. You might find it hard to believe but management doesn't always do what the bio's recommend.....

You say that as if to imply whatever a biologist reccomends is what we should be going with. Science is but one part of the decision making process, and in most folks opinions, starting in 2000, we've given too much weight to the "science", not only negatively affecting finance, forest health(regeneration in the schitter), but the recreation too(which by the way is spelled out pretty well in Title 34). Biologists have a job to do, and unfortunately theyre like everyone else....produce some type of result, good or bad, or lose your job. There needs to be some justification for your title, or it becomes overhead, easily cut. But again, theyre one small part of the big picture. They arent in charge for a reason.

As a born and raised Pa. resident I read these threads with interest. I hunted and lived in North East Pa. for 38 years. The last two hunting seasons there I saw one deer on public land. Enough coyote tracks that it resembled a kennel. I do miss the open public land adventures and the family hunts. I don't miss the tags sitting on my counter after hunting season. As a body shop manager there , I can tell you the Insurance companies involvement in policies are WAY bigger then most hunters would believe. Heck the State Farm people used to brag about it at meetings. In the 90s (the real Golden Area of deer populations in Pa.) State farm was paying on 220,000 claims a year for deer collisions. At an average of 1800 dollars a claim , add that up and then go huh.........

P.s. Last week I worked 22 miles from home and if I only saw 500 deer each way I would have considered the numbers low. Both mulies and whitetails.

Deer numbers are a direct result of what people will put up with. There is way too many people and way to much big money involvement in Pa. for the PGC to have deer numbers where they once were. And one adds the average land size in ,it's just way to hard to manage deer herds on small lots owned by various types of owners with various types of ideas on what should be the deer herd numbers.

Depends on definition. For pure numbers the Golden age was decades before the 90's.

The opening Monday of Doe in the north country was scary with perhaps 10 Deer per acre running here and there and the woods full of hunters. I've seen strings of around 40 and minutes later have another string come by during Buck. When Doe opened you sometimes went to the side of a tree with the less shooting. Sometimes you didn't stay on that side very long.

Waaay more deer in the 60's and 70's....used to hunt in the Suscon and Springbrook areas of what is now 3D....200+ shots by 10am on the opening day of buck and then steady shooting throughout the rest of the day....friends now report hearing 10 or so shots all day (and I believe doe are also in).

battue, been there....

Pocono Jack, go ride around Gouldsboro state park and count the deer and deer tracks, then go ride in and around Big Bass lake estates, and do the same, Vastly different numbers and vastly different densities but yet all the same to the game commission and therefore where they get their number. Just a small example, but that is how they do it. Same woods , same deer , just divided by available safety and protection.

DillonBuck--Maybe some spikes stay spikes, but I doubt many are like that. The PAGC did studies on this in the 60's and a lot of the heavier weight spikes killed were actually deer that had bigger racks at one time and were old and going down hill. I really don't care about AR's, if it was an AR program. In PA it is just an excuse to drop deer numbers. Some people are seeing bigger deer in their area but it has nothing to do with AR regulations. Trail cams, food plots and WAYYY less hunters is what is making people see bigger deer. The Game Commission screwed up. Period. They will not admit it, but looking at the way they are changing the regulations around here shows it. There are areas around here that have gone dead for deer and hunters for the last ten years. Shouldn't these areas be exploding with deer with almost no hunting pressure? I really don't consider deer as herd animals. More like family groups. There is no telling what wiping out a family group in an area will lead to. It would be nuts to go back to the 70's deer population, but a little restraint would seem to be in order.

Guplummer
Totally agree on deer being a family group....wipe out a family group in their home range and then several more groups in adjacent areas and the entire area will be barren for years and likely never hold the number of deer it originally did.

I am originally from PA and still own a fairly nice chunk of property there... Hunters are down...when I was young there it was the Orange army, now we only hear a few shots... Being a retired military guy, I had the opportunity to hunt in states all over and didn't understand how out of balance PA was till I traveled...I really thought I knew how to hunt but I didn't....once I learned that quantity wasn't quality I started to enjoy those other states...as a kid we drove the woods and truthfully that ain't hunting....its shooting....what we see now in PA is a transformation like Obama... We see those who want a big buck n those who want to see deer...size doesn't matter...as we see that older generation disappear we see a new progression in hunting....not sure what was better...now on the outdoor shows I see the host saying any deer is a good deer...hummmm... Did they see it dropping the numbers across the nation..?? Probably...our farm is a great example of the future...hunting pressure has declined dramatically...our farm is hunted for QDM to the best of our ability...
None of the other farms are... Enter some new constraints...coyotes n now bear...in westmoreland county we now regularly see bear...coyotes as well....fawn recuitment is down.. Normally we see all does with 2 or 3 fawns..lately 1 with the occasional 2...our farm carries about 12 deer all year round with another 20+ as transients ... I've carefully set up areas all over the farm for bedding and feeding...in the past we regularly shot 10+ does n 2-3 bucks exceeding 8 pts....problem 1 is the QDM rules say 3 pts to a side....that's great for young bucks but we have 4 n 5 yr old bucks who ARE 3x3 n need shot...so now we have those genetics in the herd...

Enter kids, now we have to bend the rules and invite kids to shoot our old cull bucks but they are not stupid..a 5yr old 6 pt is a smart buck...so it's hard to keep a kid still enough or quiet enough to kill one...especially when the dad isn't real good at hunting either...he can't sit still or quit smoking or texting or dicking around too....

These days we are only shooting 3-5 does annually...add another problem, no one hunts coyotes or bear in our area....I hunt them every time I'm there but I travel for work n live in another state...so my data indicates from the12 trail cams on constantly....we have yotes all over...usually we get a couple pics daily....problem...not to mention the doe tags being high which is a good thing...my problem is when we as hunters don't do the right thing...science is science...carrying capacity is carrying capacity.... Predation is predation.... Some seasons I pass all the bucks to hope the genes are spread...I know I'm not going to kill a buck that passes the ones I got in Georgia or Ohio or Kansas but it may be the biggest I've ever gotten there...I hear guys complaining about kids getting bored and giving up on a big buck...how about getting the kid prepared for the brains in an older buck....if the dads expectation is that a monster is going to commit suicide in 20 mins then the hunt isn't souring the kid the dad is...

2 years ago I could hunt nor could my neighbor so I got a dad n his kid off the PA website to shoot 3 does and a cull buck, think out of the box ...

My neighbors farm is great but he's old school n thinks does never need shooting and supplement food is stupid...yet he has cattle.....hummmm again....

What has always bothered me is I know PA could rival IL, KY, OH if we had a dedicated group of forward thinkers and we changed the game commission from being a political group of wusses.....my farm same size in IL would bring 5500-6000 an acre...due to trophy hunting...here it's 2000-2500 per acre....same bad democratic tax structure but I could at least think of it as a potential win if I sold it to a hunter....nice thing is our farm lies in between 3 others that comprise 1200 acres of contiguous ground....dad picked a great chunk of dirt way back when...

PA has the genetics and the potential just not the politics or the forward thinking....hopefully someday we will see it by the time I retire so I can continue improving the place....great question.. Hunters are down but there are more reasons than doe tags making population decrease....thx

Big racks, private ground, QDM, supplemental feeding....thats not forward thinking, thats greedy thinking, which leads to the commercialization of hunting, and the end of true conservation of a wild resource.


I gotta laugh. Driving isnt hunting, just shooting. Real hunting is practicing QDM on a farm sitting over supplemental feed or food plots? Hilarious, absolutely hilarious!!

Gotta love Pa. We can't even agree on what is and isn't hunting.

I vote we go back to buying our tag, a case of genny cream ale and chasing 2 legged deer....tho im pretty sure most would still have trouble filling that tag