Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Pennsylvania whitetails

They harvest 300,000 whitetail deer in Pennsylvania. But not enough boone and crockett bucks to make the top ten states according to American Hunter magazine.

And so?

The two categories may be in conflict. From my experience there, any legal deer is in constant mortal peril.

They shoot some bigger bucks down near the Ohio border in agricultural areas, but the just don't seem to grow that big up in the mountains.

they need to adjust their management.

20.5 hunters per square mile in PA. That's what needs to be adjusted.

make spikes the only legal size to harvest. 2 to 3 years.

I will say this, Pa. deer hunting used to be fun... Now it is all about size.. This trophy thing is ruining all hunting.. I am sorry, I like nice animals , but trophy hunting is ruining the sport.. In fact in most cases it already has... In Pa. most private ground was open to hunting 40 years ago.. With the Texas pay hunting and promotion of big stuff... That has all changed, now private land is locked up, and instead of enjoying the hunt, it is all about horn size.. I miss the good old days...

wyo coyote- they shoot a lot of big ones in pa?

The PA Game Commission introduced antler restrictions in 2002. There are some real four and five year old slammers running around now. As for B&C bucks PA will probably never be in the top 10 states due to high hunter numbers and the resultant hunting pressure, but imho there is nothing that compares to chasing trophy bucks in the PA mountains....

We shoot some great bucks, it just most of us don't care what they score.

What American Hunter knows about Pa Whitetails was probably thoroughly covered in a couple paragraphs....

Anyway, thank God for big favors, but there are Hogs out there.






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And others are in waiting....

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/caught_on_trail_cams_pennsylva.html



What most know Re Pa Whitetails takes less than a couple....

I can't express my agreement in this.


The situation described has led to my deer hunting being more productive at finding
trespassers than at finding deer. On any prime day, I will find a trespasser. I may not see any deer.

And the trespasser part?
We have owned t b at land for 60 years. It has been posted for about 20.
Because we got locked out of most other places we hunted. So, we had to keep ours, for ourselves.
It sucks.

The Pa big woods have Hogs that die of old age and most are not willing to spend the effort to go and get them. They normally will not give themselves up to one sitting over a food plot.

Yet, you just agreed with WCH. You got locked out, so you locked out others. Yet the Big Woods has millions of free acres that few get too far back into.
I have a small 56 acres. Anyone that wants to hunt it can. The reason being I know what it feels like to be locked out. 7 of us lease 1000 acres. Guess what? I rarely see any on it that shouldn't be there; if they are neighbors that have been locked out, I let it slide.

Definitely. Gotta be honest I never seen anything over 160, but ive seen quite a few of those...and theyre either still runnin or died of old age as you said. Thats all I hunt is public big woods.

Gotta disagree though on one point. You dont have to go back far to find them some times. Especially if theres log road access. But them suckers do know how to hide. One year still huntin I pushed one out of the laurel 5 ft from me and he ran over the knob, never did get a shot off. But ya, the big woods is got em. Every bit as big as farm country, just not as many.

Pa,

Most are not willing to even walk a mile back in on old logging roads. Drive back if they can yes, but if the gates are closed and they have to walk back, you will cross paths with few.

This is exactly correct. This past fall marked my 70th season in the mountainous region of NC PA.
There are more trophy class bucks today than at anytime in my lifetime in that region.
Yet hunter numbers have diminished considerably, many of the old camps don't even open for deer season.
Thats true thruout the NC region. Twenty five years ago you wouldn't find a place to stay without having a reservation well in advance of opening day buck. Today you can stay about anywhere you like with no reservations at all.
What we have is more whiners carping over what they perceive as being wrong, and a whole lot less serious hunters
taking advantage of the good opportunities.

Yup, believe me, I dont see many hunters. Last year I sat 10 yrds off a loggin road and the only hunters I saw were drving back that road. One got stuck and had to be pulled out. Didnt get a deer, but after they got it out I saw 6 more doe.....lol. People dont realize how deer interact with us. Pressures gone, even for an hour or so and they go about their business.

Wish I could get back as far as I used to. No more running ridge after ridge. Lyme killed that for me. Do have a cousin that wants to hang with me this yr maybe. Might be able to get him to do the heavy work for showin him a few things. We'll see.

It takes a different mind set to hunt the Pa big woods. You are going to see few Deer, but I have friends who have camps up there and what shows up on their trail cams is scary. There are giants that live there. I've seen one driving the back roads spotlighting when they were chasing and if you said he came from over the border non would doubt you.