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

The wheels of change turn slowly indeed.

I wonder if those who have voiced their opinion here have voiced it to the Game Commission?

I intend to give the PGC my opinion on changing opening day. Also to give them an earful about wimping out on the semi-autos.

Dale

#1 is money
#2 is money
#3 is money
Deer herd is coming back in my area.....but they want to put corn out and shoot them at night with silenced guns?

WTF

Mother Nature will do her thing ...........quit trying to change what you can`t control!

Opening day has so much more activity and a higher success rate than other days, a person would drastically reduce their chance of success by not hunting on the opening day. When you say 'all the guys who want their first day to be Monday', you're being disingenuous. It might be that person's 'first day' but it would be the season's SECOND day. With far fewer hunters in the woods, less deer in the woods, and a lower success rate.

I just don't see a huge pool of folks out there saying 'Gee I would take up this great sport of hunting if I was able to shoot deer on the Saturday after Thanksgiving'. IMO, this proposed change has way too much downside and not enough potential upside.

Dale

Change for the sake of change is useless. With all these people spouting about more opportunity, why not start it Thanksgiving Day? It is a holiday so most working people are off, kids are out of school, everyone can be out in the woods. If the working folks take a vacation day on Friday they get to hunt the first 3 days of rifle. Don't get me wrong, I am not totally resistant to change but Dale K is right, people are not sitting at home saying "If they only started rifle season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving I would start hunting." A Monday opener affects some while a Saturday opener affect others and not everyone can be pleased all the time. If you really want to hunt you have to make the best of the time you have. Rant Over!

If it would pass and that is a huge if more hunters = more deer kill . We are told by the PGC herd is where they want in in most wmu. So read between the lines . #1 like the majority of other states that have a Sat. opener buck tags will eventually go to a lottery. #2 No lottery then a reduction of days somewhere else to sustain the current deer population.
Hunters are easy to dupe the PGC knows that from past experience. Bear in mind 85% of the board are democrats appointed by a sitting democrat.

That's really unrealistic. We're losing hunters at an alarming rate and soon will have trouble killing enough deer. The PGC estimated 550,000 hunters were afield for opening day of Rifle this past year. That is half what it was when I started hunting.

Where is my tinfoil hat when I need it! Damn it!

The real problem in this state, is that you have so many backwards a$$ people resistant to change. The PGC should just do it like they did with crossbows and tell all the people so resistant to change to just deal with it.

Even a backward a$$ knows deer are managed by science for the health of the herd NOT FOR HUNTERS WE MERELY ARE THE MANAGEMENT TOOL. The kill is going to go up with a Saturday opener without doubt...remember the reason for the opening date change is to get MORE HUNTERS IN THE WOODS more hunters=more kills! More kills leads to shorter seasons.DUH HOW BUTT AZZ STUPID DO YOU NEED TO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT????????????????????

Go back and read moosemikes last post he is correct. The PGC deer harvest estimates are based on much higher license sales. The science doesn't work if you are that far off. Most arguments for the Saturday opener and semi's not to mention Sunday hunting are based on emotion by the backwards hunters of this state and not science.

Look at all the other states that do it with no issues.

I am retired matters little to me what day it opens. Matter of fact I have my properties posted so every day is opening day.

You are correct about the laughing, As for the driving, life has always been about choices. Which is a large part of this discussion.

They changed our season opener from Monday to Saturday several years ago right next door to you in New York and our season hasn't been shortened, in fact it's longer by two days. They also let us hunt on Sundays with a semi automatic and still we have deer and our seasons haven't been shortened.

If you check, you will find the opening day was on a Monday long before that. Although I cant say for sure it was the one following thanksgiving. It might well have been the one closest to Dec. first.
As for the "hunters", there will be a long line waiting in the rain to buy the last tag for the last one.
Because if they don't, then as the saying always goes "somebody else will". And that is the story of Potter Co and other areas as well, somebody else did.

The argument you’re making is your own and is an interesting one.

Although not new, increasingly, the sentiment among PA deer hunters has been there are fewer and fewer deer. The post you cited from 1bigdude and his response, copied immediately below outlines an example of this.


1bigdude’s presents a position underpinned by the notion of resource scarcity. His solution is posted private land. I’m not arguing for or against posting, I’m merely looking at trends.

Ken, if I read you correctly, your argument is about having the right data. Toward that end, I’ve never seen fewer hunters during rifle season than I saw this past year and I hunted nine days of it. I’ve also never seen success rates as low as they’ve been the last five years.

As a point of disclosure, my first hand experience is limited to a single WMU, but I talk to hunters from all over the Commonwealth. As would be imagined, experiences vary widely from place to place and year to year. Pennsylvania is a huge state and thus host to myriad combinations of habitat, climate, agricultural and forestry activity, development activity and economics. There are lots of pieces in play.

Changing policies with statewide impact is to move the biggest and most precious pieces on the board. In an atmosphere boiling with eroding confidence in the science informing game management strategies, a diminished faith in the politics of the Commission’s administration, and a persistent wariness over resource scarcity—moving the big pieces should be done with caution.

Most profoundly, we’re living through a transformation unrivaled by anything but possibly the second industrial revolution. We’re living during the richest era in human history. Information technology and a massive human population deliver staggering economies of scale.

The same technology pumping out wealth and efficiency has accelerated communication to a barrage. All that fast talking becomes an endless stream of feedback spawning a science of influence beyond the imagination of any science fiction. Traditions and customs shaping our identities are what’s at stake.

Chage is coming, guaranteed.

Looking to NYS for legislative models informing policy affecting hunting, gun ownership, and our outdoor traditions is a hard sell.

Change has been coming ever since I started hunting in 1948. I watched as the PGC was defended by blows if another even suggested they were not the stellar game org of the time, to what they have become today IMO a bunch of inept boobs whom can not manage a good crap let alone Pa's wildlife.

I was meaning in the existential sense. As in, change is the only constant.


Carry on. Grin.