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

Horse crap

PA has some of the strangest most rediculous deer hunting laws I’ve ever heard of. You want more days to your season. Allow hunting on sundays for a start.

the virginia commission did this several years back to increase the amount of people hunting the first day.....
unfortunately it made it harder for me as i needed to take an extra day off from work to get to deer camp on friday to be ready for the deer hunting season....i guess it works for some but not for all

No it doesn’t.

No Brian it's a lot of hunters fighting the no Sunday hunting because of "tradition"

Locally no business close on opening day anymore. Hell most construction companies don't even lay off anymore.

I've talked with one of the 8 commissioners quite a bit about this and he is definitely not out to kill hunting and has dedicated his life to getting kids involved in hunting. The fact is that even though the schools have the day off any kid participating in school sports is still made to come to "non mandatory" practices. And no those practices aren't held at night.

I was a state ranked wrestler. My senior year, the last practice before Thanksgiving our coach told us we would be practicing Friday morning, Saturday morning and opening day of buck at 9 am. Several of us spoke up and said we wouldn't be there. He wouldn't relent. So in unison 11 seniors. Most of his starting front. 7 of us ranked highly in the state and expecting to return to Hershey stood up and walked out quitting the team.


There is no reason that they will cut a day off the season. And we have president that follows that with lengthening bear season which now starts the Saturday before Thanksgiving

In short I see this as a good thing.

I can't even wrap my head around that one. You deer hunt and small game hunt the same area. You small game hunt that Saturday and scout for the opener on Monday.

So going there to small game hunt is no problem on Saturday, but somehow going there to deer hunt on Saturday is a PIA. On top of that, you can't keep yourself occupied for 12 hours on Sunday, so the season needs to open on Monday.

Very confusing.

Also apparently bear mating, sleep and deer fugging all factors in, as well as the Blue laws. Yep, sounds groovy.

I still have yet to hear an argument for why this makes sense. Having to take a day off to go hunting is not a reason.

This has nothing to do with Sundays. Folding all these issues together is a unwise. If you want to hunt Monday, hunt Monday. Anything else is concession—it’s letting it all slip away. I’ve hunted this season for over thirty years. The commitment I’ve made to making it happen over the last twenty is considerable. It’s never been convenient.

Rescheduling opening day of rifle season out of convenience is a huge mistake. Like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the 4th of July, it’s perfectly inconvenient.

NY did the same and moved to a Saturday opener,the major difference is you can hunt Sunday the next day.It's stupid to have a Saturday opener then not be able to hunt the next day....fools

I agree completely on tradition.

That said, if they moved it 2 weeks earlier on a Monday so it coincided with the rut, would that be a problem? Or is it the 1st Monday after Thanksgiving or nothing?

The deer movement usually sucks the 1st Monday after Thanksgiving in Pa. I've hunted it enough to know it's not really worth jumping through hoops to make the trip unless I just want to spend time hunting with my pard that lives down there....hell he doesn't even hunt the opener in Pa. any more he drives to Ohio as it's the same day

Maryland has opened on the Saturday after T'giving for probably as long as PA has done the Monday thing. No big deal. I hunt only PA the second week of the season anyway. What I would do if I were King would be to open Sunday hunting in PA also- there's one I never did understand.

I think it boils down to a lot of PA guys not wanting to interfere with the Weekend Before Hunting Season Deer Camp Traditions. I was smitten with that myself during the 20 years I lived in PA- head up to camp Friday after T'Giving, scout/small game hunt/sight in/plink/drink beer on Saturday, hit a couple bars Friday and Saturday night, chill out on Sunday, and hit it Monday morning.

PA's rifle season is on the margins now more than anytime since the Great War. PA has so many other seasons early, the deer are all on high alert and they've gone nocturnal. Typically, having hunters in the woods moves deer during daylight. There'll be the odd straggler doe getting chased late and still hunting is an always an option, but the dynamic has really changed. All it takes is a modest sanctuary, off limits to hunters and that's where they'll spend the daylight hours.

Massive amounts of private land have been posted. Some is hunted, but very little of it experiences the kind of pressure (activity) it did when there were more hunters who were roaming around and with fewer boundaries. Opening the rifle season on Saturday does nothing to challenge the forces straining PA's hunting traditions. Opening Sunday to hunting year round, might create an opportunity to bring in younger hunters, but we're talking about kids who've got busier schedules than many adults. It's a tough situation.

At least for now deer hunting is memorialized in the form of an, albeit inconveniently placed, unofficial holiday on the Monday after Thanksgiving. It might not be the best season to hunt trophy bucks, but most who've lived it would agree it's about so much more than that.

Like I said, you can't even give PA deer hunters an extra day. You can't give them anything or they bitch.

I started hunting in PA in 1947, which made last season my 72 nd.
In 1947 and into the early 50s there were "antler restrictions", requiring at least one antler to have a fork or put another way a Y on at least one side regardless of antler length. It was later changed to the 3" spike length to pacify hunters.
It took at least 8/9 hours assuming good weather/roads to drive the roughly 250 miles from where I lived in lower bucks co. to Cameron co. That because it was all 2 lane roads that took you right thru every town along the way. But the roads were also cluttered with cars containing other hunters, and when you arrived in places like Sinnemahoning, it was booming with hunters.
GET THIS, last fall on opening morning of buck season, there was just one lone hunter having breakfast in the dining room at the Slate Run Hotel, and that was a good friend of mine. Fact is that today, many of the nice old camps don't even open for deer season at all. Also today that same trip I mentioned can take less than 5 hours, and yet very few go.
There are far more bear and nicer bucks than ever, not to even mention the abundant turkey population, but fewer hunters hunting them.
There has never in my long lifetime been a better time for getting a trophy buck than there is today. The only thing lacking is the type hunters it requires to take one. Does it sound as though im touting on the good old days here?
Driving to camp on Friday after work, and driving back home on Sunday afternoon with a deer, especially a buck, really never would work well regardless of which days we might be permitted to hunt, or what day the season opens, or what type rifle you can shoot it with.
What will you be wanting next sonny, home delivery?

As for the PGC, im not a fan of government in any form, but even a semi independently run game department is far better than one controlled by the legislature and a governor completely. There is nothing the DCNR would like better than to be in "complete" control the game commission, same as they are over "our" public land.

And there that is! Really all I can do at this point is laugh. I often drive 2 hours to my hunting spot and then 2 hours home at the end of the day.

Who needs an extra day? If you need another day, there's a whole other statewide season starting Dec. 26. thorough Jan.12.

Convincing hunters that every issue, whim, and fancy needs to be rolled into one another guarantees the reign of the political machine. That's their game.

What's the upside in adding another day to an already marginal rifle season reeling from myriad pressures?

Quit whining and hunt if you want to hunt.

Great stuff YoBuck!

"From 2000 to 2007, data on breeding dates from more than 2,500 females were collected. Average date of conception prior to APRs was November 17. Following APRs, average date of conception was November 16.

In Pennsylvania, most adult does are bred in mid-November and sexually mature female fawns tend to peak about two weeks later. Other aspects of breeding ecology, such as pregnancy rates and embryo counts, have also remained at stable and healthy levels.

Based on these data, it does not appear APRs significantly changed timing of breeding in Pennsylvania."


Put buck season earlier and that all goes out the window.

What is your source, pahick?

Commission