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

Speak for yourself. I tagged an old Doe this year.

There is a smiley in there someplace....


Here you go:

I think the PGC should do away with doe tags all together. Raise the price of a license by $6.70. Then change the buck tag on your license to an "Either Sex Tag". Open hunting season on October 1st and close it on February 28th. Use any means of hunting deer you would like during that time but harvest only one deer per person.

In my opinion the majority of hunters will still use that tag for a buck. This will leave more doe to survive and breed. The PGC will also have more revenue from the overall license increase than they make from the "Antlerless Tag" sales.

If you want to kill more than one deer per year, plan a trip out of state.

Special regs areas to remain special regs areas as in place now.

Ha! I been practicing catch and release...they were good enough to eat but too ashamed to "display em on my wall"...i gotta raise my standards a little...lol

Deer numbers in Ag areas would explode!

Yup

MarkFed, are you willing to pay for the farmer for all the crop damage? Most places it's bad now and at least in the area I hunt, we have as many deer as we did before they started thinning them down.

Changing subjects, I don't believe the 'once a spike, always a spike' thing but I do believe inferior bucks can and will pass on their genetics. Back in the mid 80's (84, 85, 87 or so) I shot 3 bucks in 4 years. Each one had a broken left antler stub about 1 inch high and an 8 inch or so right antler that had some nubs on it, not the typical smooth spike. All were shot on the same farm, you'll never convince me that the genes hadn't been passed on by the 84 buck.

I think AR's were necessary for a while but it's time to remove them. To me, any buck taken on a drive or by still hunting through the woods is good. Getting a buck this way is more of a challenge that just tagging a doe but the AR's make it too hard, you don't have enough time to count points. Plus you can't take that inferior critter if you wanted to.

Dale

Isn't still Yeungling for the eastern half of the state and Rolling Rock for the western half...... I have been gone for a few years but Gennie Cream ale was never much for a beer and hard on the t.p. supply...........

Isn't there a crop damage plan already? Tags available to farmers due to the crop damage that they incur? I did not mention anything about that having to change. The regular allotted licenses/Antlerless tags have nothing to do with management of deer numbers in crop damage areas.

Farmers can just shoot deer that are engaged in crop damage and contact the WCO to collect the deer. IIRC, they can occasionally keep one for consumption.

There is a Red Tag program for areas with severe crop damange problems, so hunters can shoot/keep does in those areas on farms that are enrolled in that program.

Mark, my question is more to why are you expecting the farmers to feed does all year long so you can shoot a buck? That's money out of his pocket to support your habit. Increasing the deer herd is certainly changing something.

Yeah there are programs to help with deer damage but there are problems. I hunted a red tag farm in Lehigh about 4 times, saw 2 deer after legal shooting hours. His farm was surrounded on 3 sides by posted ground. I'm not sure if they can bait now, then they couldn't.

Farmers can shoot for crop damage but it's hassle and most don't have the time to do it.

The problem as I see it isn't too few deer, it's a distribution problem. Both hunting pressure and deer numbers.

Dale

^^^^^^^^ This^^^^^^^^^ In the south east suburbs plenty of deer to be had, no place to hunt , North East part of the state piles of deer in developments that do not allow hunting, No deer to speak of in Public access lands . Big Woods areas deer more evenly distributed but more dense in mixed age woods. Ag areas in central and west , Plenty of deer limited access on private land...... State counts all of them, even in Fairmount park in Philly to get their numbers and guesses , their words not mine ,as to what to do as far as doe tags............

Perhaps these farmers that you speak of should put their efforts into talking to their farming buddies. Maybe they'll convince them to support the legalization of Sunday hunting, instead of opposing it, and provide more of an opportunity for hunters to kill these crop destroying deer.

If I can not have my cake and eat it too then neither should they.

For your information there is not one active crop growing farm within 15 miles (maybe more) of anywhere I hunt. Most of the deer I kill come from a 3 acre patch of woods surrounded by URBAN communities. Killed over 20 deer there last year. But I do hunt frequently in Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Berks, Schuykill, Wayne, Pike, Monroe, and Susquehanna counties.

Everywhere I listed that ISN'T in the special regs areas has had a significant decrease in deer over the last 10 years. The special regs areas just keep getting better because nobody hunts here. Private property or limited access mixed with good food sources and fantastic bedding areas make the suburbs optimum whitetail habitat.

I lived in Lehigh County on the border of Bucks County for years. I killed deer in fence rows, open fields, caught one sneaking down a creek, just about anywhere nobody went because it did not look as if a deer would be there. If someone in the neighborhood found out where you got a deer, they were really PO'd and usually tried to get exclusive rights to hunt there. It just may have been one of their deer that drifted off their property. We are losing more than hunters, we are losing people that actually know how to hunt. All they know how to do is watch videos, spend money at Cabela's, and grow tame deer. It is sad the way people whine and carry on when GranPa's farm gets sold out from under them. I suggest getting on the GC website and start looking at maps. Oh, the excuses start to roll out then. Some even have the nerve to get on forums and ask someone else to find private property for them to hunt. The truth is: A whole lot of modern hunters are simply afraid to get out of sight of a trail and would not know how to hunt deer if they did. If you have not checked out the new SGL mapping system, take a look. The new mapping system is great. It is not the old green maps that looked like some third grader's geography project. Before everyone accuses me of being a covert operative for the PGC, I will be one of the first to say they need serious improvement with their deer program. It is a disgrace what has been done to thousands and thousands of acres of prime deer hunting areas. I was coming home from work this morning and along the Lehigh Gorge there were about 9-10 trucks parked. I am guessing they were flintlock hunting. That area is not for girl scouts. Maybe there is hope after all.

Just got back from my daughters in Montgomery County where I used to live and manage a farm so I know that area fairly well. You're right, the deer herd is growing and access is a big problem.

But using your plan for the rest of the state would basically return us to the way things were in the 70's and 80's. That led to an overpopulation of deer, I remember seeing one hell of a browse line near Kinzua in the late 80's.

Your plan gets more total deer statewide, in some places, they will feed on natural stuff in the woods, in others they'll feed on crops or landscaping plants all year just so you can have more deer. Seems to me, you would be getting your cake at the expense of someone who pays for a cake and the deer eat it.

One more day (Sunday) in rifle season wouldn't make a hill of beans difference under your plan, quit trying to switch subjects.

I've no doubt some areas have been hit very hard, I knew guys who had 15 tags for the group and filled 15 tags, wasn't long before they weren't seeing so many deer in their stomping grounds.

It boils down to the fact that the deer numbers we had from the 1970's onward should never have happened, they were simply too high and folks got spoiled seeing deer everywhere. We're paying the price for too many deer and uneven hunting pressure.

Dale

The above mentioned trip to Montco was across the Turnpike, then up to Cabelas at Hamburg, down 81 to Carlisle and back to Somerset. I didn't count roadkills or keep track of where they were but I did see roadkilled deer (or big red smears ) pretty regularly and throughout the entire trip, not just Montgomery/Chester/Berks counties.

FWIW,

Dale

Your being kind of rough on the Pa farmer. Deer cost our farm quite a bit of income each year due to crop damage. We let a reasonable amount of friends/nieghbors hunt our ground, but everyone knows deer change their habits in the fall so not as many deer are killed as you would think.

I actually remember a system such as that which you suggest. When I started hunting, it was one deer a year, buck or doe (If I am remembering this correctly). It was very hard to get a doe tag for some counties. If you bow hunted, you could take a buck or doe but that was it for the year. I don't think anybody wants to go back to the overpopulation that was in the 60's and 70's, but there are truly some areas that need to come back a little. I hunt WV every year and I was amazed at how far away from a farm you will kill deer with corn in it's stomach. Red Tag areas are a waste of time trying to shoot deer during the day. A deer will go a long way at night to feed. On the other hand, there has been much monkey business when claiming crop damage too. Not rumor, I have seen it for myself. I guess it all comes down to not enough personnel in the PAGC to manage the deer in every corner of the state.

I'd be all for this...Then I could use my flintlock during the rut or god forbid that evil contraption known as a bow...

Seriously, the rifle hunter is losing out and my crystal ball says he will continue to loose out. PA is changing (for better or worse), more guys are archery hunting. The causual rifle hunter hunts for a day instead of the 1st week like decades past. Very few dyed in the wool rifle-only hunters.

Just think how family dynamics have changed. Dad used to work, take a week or two vacation during bear and/or buck. Mom didnt work or only part-time. Kids started going with dad or to camp when they were 12, saturdays were spent small game hunting in the fall. Now mom and dad work, if dad even had 2 weeks vacation time he wouldnt use it exclusively for hunting (away from family), weeknights are spent away traveling for work for some, weekends are for spending money at the mall and/or kids sports. 12 year olds dont want to sit in the woods. The kids that do hunt are like communist olympic athletes, killing their first gobbler, buck and bear at age 5, not to mention that trip to S. Africa for plaingame. Seems we've lost the middle ground.

Rifle hunting is fading away. I saw two hunters the first day(On a trail walking out) in an area that used to get too crowded for me to go there. The second week you do not even know it is deer season. The last couple years I have bounced around to different mountains up here and it is the same on all of them.

FWIW.....I talked to a friend yesterday who has a camp in Corydon, McKean County. 4 guys NEVER saw a single deer on opening day. They hunt all day........a couple spend most of their time sitting and a couple are walkers. The group used to number about ten but that has changed. Years ago it was common for them to go 8/10 bucks. These guys are all very experienced hunters.

The same four guys hunted one day last week with the flintlocks, no deer spotted and they never cut a track in the snow.

They hunt the big woods east of Rt 321 and have for 40 years.

Wow.............