Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting I hit the PA deer lottery!

I posted a picture of this deer in the pump rifle thread, but I thought everyone would find this interesting. First some background. I've been shooting traditional archery at ETAR at Denton Hill State Park for many years. Some friends also usually spend some time in the summer riding their ATVs on the trail system through the Susquehannock State Forest. We as a group have sat around more than a few campfires and threatened to come down and hunt these big woods deer. We knew the deer density was probably low and that's probably why it's remained talk for so long. Well long story short I'm 52 and not getting any younger. I got tired of waiting for others to commit so this year I decided to just go on my own. I spent a long weekend hiking and scouting in September to try to find a couple likely areas, but that was really the limit of my knowledge of the area.

Early Saturday morning I made the 3 hour road trip down arriving around 6am. I had no idea what to expect as far as hunting pressure but figured the place was big enough I could get away from the crowds if they were there by just putting on some miles. Turns out there were way less people than I really expected. Saturday turned out to be a bust. No deer seen for 3.2 miles worth of still hunting and sitting, dawn to dark according to OnX. I stayed over night in the back of my truck in one of the parking areas rather than waste money on a motel. Sunday morning, with no real expectations, I decided to hunt the other area I had scouted in September.

The morning was so crisp and calm that I decided to still hunt the main ATV trail as walking anywhere else sounded like a heard of elephants coming through the woods. When I left the truck, mine was the only vehicle there, but by 0930 I had still hunted into 3 other guys all hunting the trails. I was dejected enough to decide to just hike up over the mountain to get as far away from the trails as I could. I only went about 1/2 mile off the road and found a beautiful little bowl and watched 4 does bust out of it heading for parts unknown. I decided this spot was just too perfect not to spend some time in. I sat there the rest of the day and about 4pm, this guy comes walking through without a care in the world.

Here's where it gets real interesting though. after the initial excitement, I tried to set him up for some quick pictures. That's when I noticed he was a TAGGED deer!

At first I thought oh crap, I shot an escaped farm deer, but the tags in his ear said Pennsylvania Game Commission, $100 reward and a phone number to call. Both ears were tagged with different numbers. This may be important later. (I intentionally blurred the numbers so none of you reprobates tries stealing my reward )

So now it's 1630 and I've got a job in front of me. I decided before going in there was no way I was going to drag anything out of there so I brought along my Mystery Ranch Sawtooth and everything I needed to debone him in the woods. Going home to NY I'm not supposed to bring anything but meat home anyway due to CWD regs, so this made sense. Normally I would have just capped the skull there in the woods and taken just the antlers, but with those tags I wondered if PGC would want the jaw or brain for testing. Ultimately I got back to the truck and chickened out in regards to the skull. I cut off the antlers leaving both ears and tags attached and just the lower jaw. I bagged the rest of the skull/brain matter and discarded it in a dumpster On my way out of town.

Side note: That pack out sucked! It was only 1.5 miles straight line to the truck, but closer to 2 actual distance. The first 400 yds was basically straight up, then once I hit the trail it was more gradual up, but still up most of the way. I weighed everything when I got back today and best I can tell the total for pack,meat,head, gun and binos was 97 pounds. That doesn't include my wool clothes I was wearing. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have made 2 trips. I'm way too old for that chit.

So about those tags. This morning I tried calling the number on the tags and it seems the number is no longer valid, so I started doing some digging around on the PGC's website. The only information about tagged deer I could find was this study done in 2014/15.

Deer Study

It talks about deer being cannon netted and tagged for a habitat study in in the Susquehannock State Forest. What's really interesting is how long ago this study was done. I am unable to find anything more current listed on the PGC's website. So if I'm reading this right, the deer I shot had to be tagged no later than March 2015! That means even if he was a fawn when tagged, that would make him at least 6.5 years old?! I find that almost impossible to believe, but without being able to talk to someone from PGC I've got nothing else to go on. Around home here, that rack would be a respectable 2 year old at best. I know there's not much for them to eat down there, but 6.5? I tried calling the regional office for PGC and couldn't get to a live person, so if anyone has a direct line to a biologist that might be able to help me out I'd love it if you could PM me.