Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Pennsylvania whitetails

Battue,and so do the poachers,at least where I hunt/live!

No doubt, they can kill them in your front yard at night and you probably wouldn't know it happened. However, the point is the GC favors bow/crossbow hunting. It used to be hunting with a bow was much more difficult. Now I know people who buy a crossbow, practice for a couple days and go out and shoot a Deer. Again, Buck or Doe.


As far as "it used to be": Really the vast majority that complain about how we want it to be are the old farts. The vast majority of the new crew are more than happy with our current Deer situation. They are willing to spend the time and hunt. And many are happy to hunt and pass on certain Deer that are not up to what they want. In fact while shooting sporting, I talked with one of them today about all of this. He says I can get a Doe for meat if I absolutely want it. Other than that I'm want to prove to myself I can fool nice Bucks.

Sometimes I think they are more into the actual hunt than many of the those who are unhappy it is not the old days. And we best face it, the chance of the old days coming back are slim and their memories will be just as important to them as ours are to us. We can either make them ourselves, in the present, or bitch and moan of how we wish it was.

I love the current state of deer hunting in PA. No complaints and I think the PGC is doing a great job.

I dont know what kinda schit youre smokin, but keep at it, you got one hell of an imagination.

battue, ill disagree, heavily, with your statement. And by the same measure, your pictures arent representative of the Sproul overall. Im 48, been going up all my life, lived in Coudersport for 4 yrs. I heard for years now, and got into so many debates about north of 80 south of 6 im sick of it. No offense to you at all. Unless you were one of those I went back and forth with on another forum. The carrying capacity of the land held great numbers, and still could today. You can stand on almost any ridge and look upon numerous cuts. That said, Clinton kicks the schit out of Cameron for big woods habitat. You never had the amount of logging in Cameron that you did in Clinton. I have to clarify though that southern Clinton has some excellent farmland habitat that rivals some of the best southern PA farmland. So im talking strictly big woods here.

Im not gonna pull out old DMAP enrollment data to try to prove my point. Im beyond arguing anymore. My broken body doesnt have it in it anymore, but sometimes I wish I could have hosted some of the naysayers at camp. From Emporium to Port Allegany to Mansfield to Lock Haven and back. Theres hardly a place that cant hold a good number of deer. A little south, Moshannon can be iffy but even Quehanna habitat isnt real bad(FLIR studies be damned). In my lifetime, we've never had winter kills without prolonged ice cover. If the habitat was schit, 93 and 96 woulda done em in.

Pahick,

I will somewhat go along with your experience since I haven’t actually hunted that area for sometime. Used to hunt outside of Sinamahoning when the Deer were there. Up and down Cooks run for the most part. Cow Hollow, Savage Mountain, Dark Hollow, and a couple others I can’t recall right now. Beautiful big woods country.

The people at that camp now see few Deer and getting one is a big deal, where before 5-6 was normal. Then again, now they only hunt 2 days and leave. One of the nicest isolated camps I have ever seen. They say it is just not worth the time.

If there is some cutting going on, that makes a huge difference. However, these guys say very few hunt much after the second day. Question then becomes, if the pressure is light, the cover is good, why haven’t the Deer rebounded in higher numbers? You will find it difficult to find any who say that country holds Deer in numbers even close to back when.

Unless the hunters are still killing every Doe they can find.

I am Southern Tier, and i do believe a herd reduction was a good thing here. Maybe.
But no where near what has been done.
As far as carrying capacity?
I have never seen a browse line in this area.
Alt claims that there wasn't one because the underbrush was decimated.
Well i haven't noticed it being restored. The woods look the same as they
have for decades.

There are studies that say acid rain has taken the ph of our soil to the point that regeneration will take much longer. I know of one place here close by that just had their soil tested. The ph was 3-4.

That'll do it.

I have noticed some clear cuts that don't seem to grow over. For years.

If acid rain is the cause, then don't blame the deer. (I know not having it eaten off does help, but deer aren't the cause)

Rambling, but perhaps ticks love acid soil????

I think you have it reversed. The Deer ate it down in the past and now partly because of acid rain, even with fewer Deer, it is not regenerating as fast as they thought it would. Even if you are right, if the ground cover isn't regenerating fast enough, then there is little food to support a growing and healthy Deer population.

That being said, I have seen some of the fenced in enclosures-i.e. keep the Deer out- they have made up north and they were thick. Did they supplement the growth and help it along to prove their theory? Don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Seems just the opposite to me. I get ticks on me everytime I hunt the hardwoods but never when I hunt in the pines/spruce.

Our soil must be the same, because I can sit you down in some pine/spruce locations and if you stay long they will be all over you. But, admittedly it was just an idle thought in that I would really like to know the why of them. Also, studies say each Deer can drop-off around 200,000 ticks per year. Presently more Deer equals more ticks.

Here is the Pa dirty fact. With the Deer having relocated towards more populated locations, they have become a bad sore to both the GC and politicians. Especially rifle season and bullets. Which is the real reason the GC loves the arrow crew. Swish, swish, is much easier to support than pow, pow. The North country hasn't regenerated as they thought it would and the Deer are now down here and they prefer the easy living, which has backed the politicians and the GC into a corner.

Battue, theres always been cutting going on. Not to the extent the forest truly needs, but for deer its sufficient. Deer numbers are down because HR went too far. Way too far! Hell their still DMAPing the region. One area near me the population was so scarce yet to this day theyre hammering it hard. AND, there still poaching going on. Hard to rebound from that. Hunters are very selective in where they hunt, skewing any results the GC might seek in those areas.

In the last few years ive seen so many doe without fawns. Extremely healthy deer from what I can tell from sightings and harvested animals. So not feed. Is it predators or HR too far limiting the amount of breeding? I say the latter, though predator populations have exploded in the last 2 decades.

Do we have a habitat problem? Sure, but not to the extent where its hurting onenof the most adaptable animals Gods ever created. I havent checked up on Purdues 100 year study on eastern oak. But last I read regeneration was slow even without the competing vegetation issue. Im not sure acid rain as was alluded to is a factor. It may, but until I see concrete evidence ill hold my tongue on that one.

Fact is, we knocked the dog schit out of the population. Still are to a certain extent, and when you look back at old 2G records and compare them to todays split 2G and 2H figures, we're still putting a hurt on em.

Overall I dont like it, but for my personal hunting I love it. Less hunters, monday and tuesday I do more in season scouting(bear too) than true hunting and usually by end of week I connect. Last 2 yrs health held me back good, and God willing this yr will be different.

What I know right now is this, im in the mood!! I can feel it comin boys! I hope you all have a great and plentiful season this yr!

I'd like to know the why of them too. When I was a kid/young adult I was afield hunting/fishing/trapping damn near every day all year long and never got a tick on me. Now I get them almost every time I go outside.

Few things better on a fall afternoon than to put the leash on the Dog and both of you take a woods nap. Do it now and they will carry you away.

More HOSTS mean more ticks, not necessarily deer. Scientists are scratching their heads why ticks are making it through our winters. At our Lyme conference a well known speaker(who is selling a book currently) points to global warming. Crazy talk! Our weather is enough to kill, but as I said in my last post theres one thing theyre not factoring in, not just deer population but especially ticks, hosts, predator explosion. You can have prolonged sub zero temps but if theres a host the tick not only survives, it thrives.

Years ago when the first Doe season came about, those old boys bought tags and then publicly burnt piles of them. They were wrong then, because we had too, too many. Today would be the time. Today we just mostly talk and bitch.
I have a Doe tag for 2D and we have enough Does. Haven't used it in three years or so. One is about all I can eat in a year. If I don't get a Buck, will try and notch it on the last Friday or Saturday.