Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting PA Game Commision- Vote to change opening day.....

They keep talking that here in Michigan, the northern part of the state the schools are closed for opening day of deer season! DNR dont care about tradition, all the care about is $$$$ In Michigan anyway!

Rifle hunting in PA has never been more strained. It starts after the rut. The simultaneous wane in hunter turnout and rapid increases in the posting of private lands have had a greater effect on the character of PA’s rifle season than anything else. Decades of expanding earlier seasons during the rut, and antler restrictions have further challenged the tradition. The PA rifle season is nearer the margins than ever.

Monday opener is more than a tradition, it's a damn national holiday to those of us that live deer hunting...fuggers can't leave well enough alone.

Just remember, none of those deer would get hit by cars if the deer hunters didn't chase them out onto the road.

In an era marked by the most extreme deterioration of the culture of PA Deer hunting camps, ours is strong. We have a dedicated membership with guys coming in from all over the place. We’ve got young kids coming to camp for their first deer hunts, for the camaraderie, to joining the hunt, hear the stories, and bear to witness fabled shenanigans.

I always wondered why it ain't open earlier in November.

Kingston That is good news to hear!!!!

Like many of our historic holidays, seasons are moved around to fit weekends, holidays, etc. Historically, Idaho used to open deer season on Oct 5. Did not make any difference what day of the week that might be. I liked that as I could do my vacation days whenever. Especially liked the Monday openers as one had 4 or 5 days out before he saw another hunter. Now they move around the weekend schedules.

The eastern state's Sunday deal likely hurts whatever non-resident funds they collect. One shows up and has to take a day off in the middle of the season. Just hanging on to the Puritan ways I guess.

What progress have they made? From where I sit, they phugged everything up. More posted land than ever before(and that will explode if they add a Saturday opener and Sunday hunting). They put herd numbers at an all time low in most areas where small towns where already struggling. The Saturday bear opener further hurt small business. Not only did that move hurt small business, we saw an explosion in the bear population. They can blame that on weather all they want but its complete horseschit! Hunters no longer took the amount of vacation time they used to. And thats only going to get worse. And im phuggin tired of hearing hunters dont have enough time in the woods, the phuggin Dept. of Labor statistics have shown for years that the majority of employees in PA who accrued vacation time do not use it all!

They tried to create a hunting mecca. This isnt phuggin Iowa and never will be! Every year it gets worse. You have a small minority of hunters on private land extolling the virtues of herd reduction and antler restrictions, and the majority of private land hunters bitching they dont see phuggin deer. No schit! Theyre all sitting in their phuggin blinds not moving a damn thing. The GC sits back and takes it all in, because they know the worse it gets the easier itll be to implement Sunday hunting. Greedy phuggin a$$holes! Progress my white ass! Tell me how the forest is doing you stupid sob. Tell me how the breeding season has changed for the better! Tell me how the buck are bigger. Dumb mfers!

I tell ya what. I said it multiple times today, and in every phuggin email I sent to legislators. Its time to abolish this schit show and combine the phuggin agencies! Under one roof. Under the general fund. Then we can vote the cock suckers out when they pull stunts like this!!

Just like NY and everywhere else. It's trophy hunting, the fascination with antlers and fierce competition for same that has been most responsible for posted signs going up and refusal to let folks hunt that has ruined the sport. Back when I started hunting there was unposted private land all over the place and nobody cared if you hunted it. That was before the big antlers or bust mentality set in. Farmers tended to look at deer as corn and alfalfa munching pests and hunters just wanted a little recreation and to fill their tags with a legal deer. Nobody planted food plots and any legal buck was a good buck worthy of taking. Now they're {antlered bucks} far too valuable as status symbols to braggarts so they lock up the land, eliminate the competition, feed the deer and raise their own personal trophies to the detriment of the sport overall. You want to see the enemy and the biggest reason hunter numbers continue to decline ? If you're a glassy eyed, died in the wool, deer feeding, QDM fanatical trophy hunter, just look in the mirror.

The rut. The majority of doe are bread around the 16th. An earlier season would have disastrous effect on reproduction.

Why?

Blackheart nailed the problem in the areas I hunted on the east coast.. Sad, but true...

I grew up in W PA during the 1950's & 1960's. I remember my father saying that the 1st day of deer was set at the Monday after Thanksgiving because most hunters had to put in for their vacation ( ie, the 1st day of deer ) by either March 1st or April 1st to get the day off. Of course, the PGC couldn't vote on when the season started until sometime in late April or May. That's why it starts the way it does.
I never could understand, and sitll don't, why if you buy a doe permit you can't use it anytime during the gun season.

I've got 3 main beefs with moving the opener to the Saturday after Thanksgiving:

1) There is currently small game and turkey hunting on that day. In the past, I've done a lot of deer scouting while small game hunting (I hunt both in the same area) on that Saturday. That option would be lost.

2) Currently, I go to my daughters house near Reading for Thanksgiving, come home to Somerset on Saturday and go to my hunting area near DuBois on Sunday. With the Saturday opener, when do I travel and repack from 'family clothes' to 'hunting clothes'? Leave her house (and the grandkids) on Thanksgiving? Drive all day on Friday and end up dead tired for Saturday? Both of those options suck big time.

3) With Sundays currently closed for hunting of most species (coyotes, foxes, and crows are legal to hunt in Pa. on Sunday), what is there to do? Drink all day? Drive home so I can go to work on Monday? Target shoot and scare the deer more?

For me, it doesn't solve anything and only creates more problems.

Dale

In part, because Bear season is the week before. PA manages its black bear population through a combination of season timing and hunt structure. The season opens after breed females are expected to have denned up. It’s illegal to shoot a bear in a den, over/near/enroute to or from bait, or to hunt bear with dogs. The regular bear season is four days long.

Start rifle before theyre bred and the numbers drop drastically. Hell, we already have doe going without being bred due to such low numbers in certain areas. Case in point. 2G. Kept allocation numbers the same, called it stabilization. Yet the numbers werent coming back. Buck couldnt breed all the doe. After a big outcry, they played their little phuggin game to appease hunters. Split 2G into 2G and 2H. On paper it looked like they lowered the allocation, but add both WMUs up and they actually increase tag allocation! On top of that they increase DMAP in some areas, further lowering deer numbers. Hunters ate it up, but still bitch and moan they dont see deer. No schit! Do another FLIR study and see how many they find. They phugged it all up.

Bear has nothing to do with it. With the bear population on the rise, theyll love having the extra pressure. Saturday opener killed the number of hunters that hunted the previous 3 day season.

Sure it does.

"Saturday opener killed the number of hunters that hunted the previous 3 day season."

It certainly killed it for our group of guys. We just hunt Saturday now and generally have half the guys we used to have because of it.

BTW, I pay my employees for the Monday buck opener.

most western states open on a saturday or set date. we're all fine with it it hasn't destroyed our hunting experience


Sounds like first world problems. This is why I don't go east of the River if I can help it.