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

Dale K--Every year I go west on 78 and pick up 81 down to WV the week of Thanksgiving Day. I saw a few more road kills this year, more than the last couple years. The next time you take a trip, pay attention to the area you see the deer hit in. The most deer I see hit are along posted farms or IN Hershey and Harrisburg. Up here in the mountains you can fly through the SGLs and not worry about hitting a deer.***If the deer herd is growing in the lower counties, why the big drop in tags this year? My mother still lives in Lehigh county, on the border of Bucks County. She has a woods behind the house and it is locked in by other houses. She told me she saw almost nothing this year. Usually 5-6 deer moving through and hanging around.

Thanx to all who participated on this thread. Lots of great comments and no pissing match.....Thanx!!!

I was out this afternoon on SGL 50 and saw 3 deer just before dark. They had come out into one of the fields probably to feed before the crappy weather arrives tomorrow AM. Saw 2 more driving home after dark. I'd been seeing plenty of sign but these were the first live deer I had seen there.

I had the flintlock but there was a screen of brush between me and them so no shot. No chance to move and clear the brush either, they knew something was up and were doing the footstomp/headbob thingy with half raised tails. They finally drifted straight away from me.

This was on a Game Lands less than 8 miles from Somerset.

So they're out there, just maybe not where you are.

Dale

I live in the outskirts of the Pittsburgh area, 2b. Our farm is in 2d, Between New Bethlehem, Brookville, and Punxsutawney. In the suburbs, we still have lots of deer. At the farm, we have enough, but not near what we had 5 years ago.

The difference is the recent influx of Amish families. I am friends with these guys, and I know most of them never take a deer out of season, nor do they overshoot their limit. The problem is that there are so many of them! My closest neighbor has five sons, all will eventually hunt. He has seven brothers, all with sons, all hunt. These guys are mostly archery hunting, and are very good. We just can't all take a buck and a doe every year.
By next year, I can see me living at the farm and driving to the suburbs to hunt.

The other side of the deer herd reduction, its good for farming. We can plant a field of corn and actually get a harvest, instead of just well fed deer.

Of course there are deer out there, just not in huntable numbers. I would like to know where all the license holders are hunting. They sure are not around here. I have not checked lately, but I used to read how license sales were continually going up. Maybe the "Bonus" and second round tags were being counted. Some of these mountains had a hunter every 50 yards on top, every 50 yards on the bottom, and bunches of hunters in between. Now the first day you see 10 trucks max parked along the road at these same mountains. I can easily name off 10 or more guys I know that quit because they just did not see deer anymore. That works for me, I don't care for crowds when hunting. The problem I have is that the hunter numbers are way down here for the last 10 years and the deer are not rebounding. Something wrong there.

There are X number of antlerless tags allocated each year.

This past year the total number of antlerless tags decreased a bit. So your theory that "bonus and second round tags" account for an increase in total license sales, doesn't hold up.

Total number of licenses sold has increased a bit each year over the past five years or so, usually a bit over 1 to 2 percent per year.

Some new hunters coming in each year, lots of older hunters do not buy a license every year like us diehards do, which accounts for variations in licenses sold per year. Studies have shown that in several states.

Still far below what was sold 15-20 years ago, but we don't have the number of hunters we had back then for a variety of reasons.

Back then there were still some WWII generation members hunting. They're going at a rapid rate, because the ones left are in their late 80s at a minimum. They're responsible for the "baby boom generation" which kept hunter numbers right up there for many years.

Now the oldest members of that generation are in their late 60s/early 70s, at a minimum and many have quit. High divorce rates with splintered families; Increasing urbanization (fewer people connected to a rural lifestyle, etc); Far more fall sports for kids; And other reasons why hunting is going "out of fashion" to some degree. All add up to fewer hunters these days.

There are deer in huntable numbers in a great many places yet, otherwise annual kills wouldn't have stabilzed some years ago.

They may not be where you want them to be now, but they're out there where many can still find them each fall.

The deer are not rebounding in the areas of 3B & 3D (Lackawanna & Luzerne counties) where I hunt....this is really obvious, particularly on public lands where the herd has been decimated over the last 20 or so years. Not saying there aren't any deer, a few nice bucks are taken every year but, the doe numbers are really, really down and it seems to be getting worse. Personally don't shoot doe but, in 3B anterless deer are not legal until the second week of the season....should be saying something about the deer herd. Have had some success as I'm retired and can spend as many hours in the woods as I want but, how does a 13 or 14 year old hunter stay motivated after sitting in the woods all day and not seeing a tail? There's definitely more action in playing a video game.

Back a couple of years after points restrictions went into effect, the Game commission released a statement about lower success rates. The official stance at the time was that the deer are getting older and smarter, and the hunters were not changing to be successful. The next season I only hunted two days and while I did not sit a stand, I walked about 8-10 miles each of those days. I crossed 2 deer tracks that season in old snow. Neither were fresh. I guess the deer got so smart they cover there tracks.

Deer have not rebounded in all areas of PA since HR thinned deer numbers in many parts of the state, no one can argue against that fact.

On the other hand, there never really were "equal" numbers of deer spread across the state, either.

But to say deer do not exist now in huntable numbers in PA, does not pass muster. Because they do in most areas.

Where are the hunters? Good question. I think dubePa nailed a lot of the reasons. I also think that many hunters don't move as much as they used to, I know I don't. Better clothes keeps me warmer, a bigger belly slows me down and makes me less likely to move, more posted ground means less room to roam and lost hunting places (ie. they quit instead of finding someplace new).

Priorities change for folks too. A buddy of mine provides a perfect example. As a kid, he went to camp with his Dad, brothers and other family. He hunted the first 2 days and then the Saturdays. Eventually his Dad and one brother died, the camp was lost and he joined us at the farm. This year, he hunted opening day, decided he needed to be at work on the 2nd day (new computer system coming in), skipped the first Saturday due to the rain, and went to NJ for a wedding on the last Saturday.

I know we used to have 4-6 vehicles parked along the Twp. road and the hunters would walk down into the top end of the local Beagle Club grounds. This past season, not one car. I'm not sure if the club posted their ground, limited it to members only or what but nobody was hunting in that area. The neighbors hunt but mostly from tree stands. No groups or individuals out moving about.

How do you keep a 13-14 year old motivated? Folks need to get out of the flipping tree stand and put some ground under their boots. Get a couple of buddies and make small drives, (and put Jr. to work once in a while) hike the hills looking for deer. Explain the lay of the land to Jr. and how the deer will use it. Let him (or her) ease up and peek around the corner of the logging road, if they get spotted and only see a tail waving, it's a lesson that will stick. Show them deer sign, let them figure out what and where the deer were doing. In other words, don't just sit there, be an active participant.

My Dad used to drag me all over the country around home, we sat for opening day but after that, we were on the move. A couple of miles around the neighborhood in the AM was normal, sometimes a trip to the 'mountains' where he hunted as a kid was on tap.

Dale

Sad to say, but I saw the decreased number of hunter first hand this year. Our camp used to get between 5 to 10 hunters every year. This year it was down to me and my brother, and he never left the camp due to a bum knee. The camp across from us just sold last year. Met the new owner-he's a really nice guy, and I'm sure will be a great neighbor. That camp used to get 10-12 every year. He was a one man band this fall.

My hunting area isn't "rich" in camp members as far as who is in the woods come opening days. Some around, but it's mostly locals, their kin and friends that do the majority of the hunting there and tend to move deer.

Using that example, where there once about fifteen or more of them that hunted together and drove frequently, now there are maybe a half dozen left that still hunt together.

Most of the folks that come to camps are sitters and seldom, if ever move any deer from their land onto someone else's land.

Three or four of the older ones in the local gang have died in the past several years. Two got into their mid 70s, have health issues and don't hunt at all now. Some of the younger ones moved away and no longer come back to hunt deer. So that change impacted how many times people are in the woods moving deer in my immediate area.

Things took a bit of an upswing this past season, as there were about 10 or 12 guys in that group for the first three days and they did a bit of driving.

Late in the second week they got together again and moved deer from several areas that no one had set foot in all week. Found out the "new guys" were related to a farmer that had moved from the area some time ago, came back with some friends this season and joined the "old gang".

Hope they come back next year, too.

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....

This is interesting to me.. I hunted Pa. over 50 years ago.. When I was in my late teens, we all killed bucks.. I moved away in my early twentys, and after retirement, started hunting Pa. again. Changes in 50 years??? Wow!! Posted land everywhere, people leasing farms that have been open to hunting all those years but the last few.. Food plots, but baiting is illegal, unless you are rich.. No one hunted from trees when I was a kid, now they have small cabins built on stilts to shoot their deer from.. Someone mentioned having kids still hunt or put on little drives.. Great idea, years ago, but now finding the land to do it is no small task. Most likely you will be chasing the deer on to private posted land for some guy to shoot from is heated stand if he happens to see it between names or TV shows.. Have been fortunate to hunt many places and under many conditions.. When I retired in 1999 Pa. was a fun hunt.. Fair numbers of deer, quite abit of open country, boy has that changed in the last 15 years..
I for one am convinced Pa. was sold out the appease the insurance companies.. I have one living relative there at present who I am happy to visit.. when that ends, Pa. got the last $ from me it will get.. I do feel sorry for the trends the hunting has taken, it is no longer a fun deal, with good numbers of game, and open country.. Things change, almost never for the better..

If it wasnt for tradition Pa hunting would be largely over. I have been struggling to hunt for several years. I used to hunt to kill deer. Now I hunt because my dad and I hunt. My daughter wants to hunt and I take her along(only 11 next year she can get a license) but I feel guilty, as she is picking up on my disappointment. I know some is my fault, but when you hunt for a couple days and dont see a deer or hear much shooting, it is hard to get excited enough to put the time and effort in. We own the land but cant keep trespassers out(weak trespass laws). That"s a whole other rant!

Dillonbuck, youths 11 years of age and under are able to buy a Mentored Youth Hunting Permit and can hunt woodchuck, squirrel, antlered and anterless deer, coyotes and spring and fall turkey....they must be accompanied by a licensed mentor 21 years of age or older.

We didn't get to shoot as much as I would have liked this summer and she wasn't comfortable shooting at a deer. Afraid of not making a good shot. So she just tagged along. My daughter is 11 and completely average in size. However it is very hard to find a rifle that fits her right, even the youth guns are a little long. She shoots a cut down Ruger #1 but it is too heavy to hold. Im thinking a RAR compact will work by summer.

I considered starting my son in the mentored hunting program when he was younger, but I decided to wait until he was 12 to get a license. He tagged along with me deer hunting when he was 11 but didn't shoot. Maybe if I had started him out at a younger age he would be more enthusiatic about hunting than he seems to be right now. Who knows?

I wondered whether it was a good idea to have any person killing game with firearms who believed wholeheartedly that a fat man flying a reindeer sleigh and wearing a red velvet suit squeezed his way down our chimney and left our house full of gifts.

It's a personal choice, and I have absolutely no problem with people who decide the other way. One thing I will say is that we usually hear about and see all of the success stories. However, I am personally aware of one child who started hunting at a young age that has wounded at least four deer with a crossbow and rifle that were never recovered. I am also aware of a different 8 year old who wounded a buck on his first time out that was never recovered. It could happen to any of us, but I believe these were shots (as they were described to me) that most adults, and maybe 12 year-olds, would have made cleanly.

Not in favor of posting for the most part, but I understand the reason for some. As far as I'm concerned Pa has a good trespass law. Don't post and it is open to hunting, combined with the fact if you don't post you are not responsible if someone gets hurt. Although today people sue anyway. If you properly post the land then it is not hard to convict if someone hunts it. Know a couple individuals who cracked down on trespassing and the word spread quickly, at which time their problem ended.

As an aside; saw a road killed Bear on the TP (that would be Turnpike for the jokers ) the other day. Just past the Monroeville exit.

Want to fire the kids up? Then one suggestion would be take them out spotlighting. If any Deer are out there you will have a good chance of seeing them. And knowing they are there just may fire the Kid up. Then again when we used to spotlight the mountain country, it wasn't rare to see easily see a couple hundred.

I think a large part of the lack of deer sightings in PA is the timing of the season, more times than not its during and right after the breeding period when deer movement is at a lull