Maybe it's an apple and oranges kinda thing, comparing deer hunting traditions from one state to another? PA manages to sell roughly 900,000 licenses per year, despite a national trend of declining sales and the number of hunters, but that's down from what it was a few decades ago.
PA measures a tad over 46,000 square miles and still has lots of rural land, not to mention millions of acres of forested, mountainous land, primarily in the northern parts of the state. Within that acreage is over 2.5 million acres of public access land to hunt on, plus lots more private land open to public access with permission. We probably have roughly 700,000 people that hunt deer. Estimates put the majority of those out on opening day of firearms deer season.
Deer numbers are not spread evenly across the state, but there are areas with huge deer numbers, most areas have adequate numbers and still some areas that hold few deer. People argue endlessly about how many deer we have, but we seem to always rank high in deer/vehicle accident rates, so I'd say we have plenty of deer? Annual deer kill numbers from the various seasons, have stayed in the 300,000+ range for years.
Hunting camps were the thing here, going back to the 1920s, because the deer were primarily in the northern areas. Hundreds of thousands of hunters went to those camps to hunt each year. Not the big deal it once was, partly because deer are now more common in other parts of PA, but that camp thing is still an important part of our deer hunting traditions. May not be the same in other states, can't say?
If three or more people think you're a dimwit, chances are at least one of them is right.
