I hope most people reading this arent believing a few, crying about the good old days. The areas of pa I hunt are as diverse in types of habitat that you will find. From 2a to 2c to 2d you will find just about every type of habitat that this state has to offer, they all have one thing in common. Tons of deer. People i talk to in every part of the state who know how to hunt also say the same. I actually think it's a shame that hunters are limited to 3 antler less tags unless they find a dmap zone. The deer are there for the taking and they need shot to preserve what's left of the habitat. And yes, I hunt state forest, gamelands and private. Matter of fact my land and almost all of my neighbors is open to anyone who asks...... Sorry if the stump you sat on 200 yards from the car doesn't produce like it did 40 years ago. .....ok , flame away!
No flames from here....Pa has more than a few great areas to hunt Deer, some of which are on GL...some on National and State Forests....but for the most part private has become locked up. The GC makes some mistakes, but some of the GL have been manipulated into excellent habitats with.food plots and timber cutting....they hold some big Deer..The GC deserves recognition when deserved and some of those GL are huge....not rare to be 5,000 acres plus...most of which don’t see a hunters footprint....Pa Bucks are getting more impressive each year. We have no shortage of great areas....and getting away from others is easy if one can move off the road a quarter mile...and lately that isn’t usually necessary because Pa is no longer made up of dedicated rifle hunters...Many dedicated bow hunters, but not so much with the rifles.
A mistake the GC does make is limiting access to much of the back country....some of that country is rugged and isolated....takes a tough person to get one out from 2 plus miles back in...and Pa hunters age average is going the wrong way.
Shaman: Kentucky is a great Deer hunting State..but you are mostly guessing and guessing wrong when it comes to Pa. Pa has more of a hunter problem than a Deer habitat problem. There are many places that will put your little oasis to shame...and it won’t sound like the war zone you often describe when the season opens. Thanks, but I’ll take Pa before your individual particularly described version of Deer hunting.
Which may change with CWD....more I read about it, the more I’m coming to understand how serious it is. In that it hits the 4 plus year old Deer the hardest. You will have few big Bucks if the mature ones are dying predominantly from disease before you can shoot them.
