Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Pa Opener

Nicely done Joe.

Man-o-man. Looking at the pics on the FB Club, not only does PA have most of the 99's ever made, but they have a truck load of big bucks. Congrats to all of you PA hunters.

They have some really cool scope mounts too!

Thanks for posting all the wonderful pics!

Still looking here. Lots of tracks but haven't seen a deer and darn few hunters as well. I did see a dozen turkeys this morning and some squirrels yesterday so at least something is alive out there.

Started the season with a Kimber 84L Classic in 30-06 that needs 'blooded'. The Ruger with the laminate stock and Bushnell Elite scope got the nod today with the rain. At some point, the 358 Brush Gun will get out.

Dale

I remember when the antler restriction went to 3 points on one side for most of the state and 4 pts in some of the western counties many years ago now. And Pa. hunters cried and cried and cried because they couldn't shoot spikes anymore.

I lived and hunted there for 30 years. Best thing that ever happened to Pa deer hunters.

Absolutely Randy! The buck in my area have really grown and are way more abundant. Best thing the game commission has done.

My 60th year hunting PA and I fully agree. Dropped a nice seven point 8:30 Saturday.

Depends who you ask.

Brother and I hunted all day yesterday. We're on nearly 400 acres of ground that only a VERY select few individuals are allowed to set foot on. He saw 7 bucks. I saw 4. 2 of the 11 were legal. One was about 11' wide and barely legal.

What we have are a couple of 5.5 - 7.5 year old garbage bucks doing the majority of the breeding. Why ?? Because they aren't legal. Every so often........since the beloved antler restriction was put in place.........a decent buck shows up. But, year after year, the AVERAGE buck gets worse and worse.

The deer in the foreground of the picture below is a MINIMUM of 5.5 years old (from sheds, trail cam history and sightings). He could be as much as 7.5. He's not legal. He's never been legal. But he's really good at spreading his crap genes because he dwarfs the rest of the bucks (the other buck in the pic is either 3.5 or 4.5). All we can do is let him. And hope he walks out in front of a coal truck down on the highway some morning. And he is not an isolated instance. We've had NUMEROUS "monster" 4-points and 6-points live their natural lives out in there. Never legal to shoot.

I still think it's a good policy. Having spent most of my adult life hunting PA, southcentral and northern tier counties both, I'm impressed by what's there now versus what was available back in the 60's-80's. So what that there's a bunch of rag horns running around, there's also a sh*tload of really nice bucks too that weren't to be had 40 years ago. For every one guy decrying the regulation, there's 5 or 10 who support it, at least within my hearing.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule, this clearly being the case here.

These cull bucks are legal for junior hunters to harvest. I know of other Pa land owners that have employed that tactic to get rid of a particularly troublesome bully buck or bucks with poor genetics.

Generally, in almost every circumstance, the overall quality of Pa bucks has improved tremendously since the antler restriction went into effect.

In theory, the junior hunter seems to be the solution. Except, in the case of these old bucks.......they havent spent 5-7 years waiting in the open and the daylight for an inexperienced hunter to shoot them.

In 5 years, I have had exactly ONE opportunity to kill the deer in the picture. And I put 70 hours in a tree in 6 days during the rut.

I'd blast him Yoder. The coal truck only hits perfect 8s and above.

I respectfully disagree - while it has indeed helped create a deer population that has bigger racks it has made hunting deer about trophies and not about what hunting is really about (IMO). In addition, it seems as though more people have posted land so they can have “their bucks” to brag about (prior to the restrictions in NW PA I could hunt most private lands as they were not posted). I may be old school but I was raised to hunt as a way of providing meat and while a large rack is awesome it was not the goal. Now we can kill bigger bucks (although if you were much of a hunter it could be done back when we didn’t have antler restrictions) but what is the end game there - to have something to brag about?

PennDog

I agree with you penndog the game commission has totally destroyed the deer herd by over harvesting the doe to get bigger bucks . I hunted all my life In pa. When I first started hunting it was nothing to see 40 deer in a day on state game lands you can hunt that same area today and lucky to see a couple in a day it's ridiculous. When I was 12 i loved just seeing the deer it didn't matter if I got one or not seeing them is what kept my interest if I was 12 today I doubt I would enjoy hunting because when you don't see anything what's the point and yes I hunt and hunt hard but unfortunately I don't have access to private property to hunt so I have to hunt state game lands which have been destroyed by over harvesting the does over this new program

Plus the deer 40 years ago were just as healthy as the deer today in my opinion you can't eat the horns

Plus I also feel if a hunter wants to shoot a smaller buck that's his choice and if another hunter wants to trophy hunt thats his choice also the game commission shouldn't jam down peoples throat that you can only shoot certain deer all hunters hunt for different reasons

I feel for you guys, the last time I hunted in Pa. was about 2015.. I had enough of their stupid narrow minded rules. When I first retired about 1999 I loved going there for the excitement of "deer season". With the antler restrictions, that excitement died. I to have noticed the number of posted lands that were never restricted before. Lucky for me I had access to some good spots, but the excitement was over. I have never enjoyed it like those first years. For me not a problem, I was leaving better hunting than I was going to, but it was fun. Good luck. You can see how the whim of a couple people can destroy an old, old tradition. Look at the sudden ban of rifles for turkey. Lame excuses, but it was the goal of the WTF. Not enough turkeys? Common sense would tell me to close the spring season.
Just an example of how one or so people can destroy a long held and enjoyable tradition.

You pretty much nailed it. However, there is one other side to the story and that is archery. It originally started out as a primitive season of one week. Traditional bows only. Then the compounds came in with a longer season and some political influence from the manufacturers. And now finally with an even longer season with crossbows and scopes. They let the bowhunters---mostly crossbows these days----hunt the best of the rut and weather. I think more and more of the posting is due to the long bow seasons. "Hey, I can go out and sit in a tree, with a scoped crossbow, accurate to a good 40 yards, and I don't want others coming in to flush out my Deer" The dirty secret is how many Deer are arrowed late, run off, and they ''back out till morning". Come morning that have laid on the ground 8 to12 hours in 70F+. Spoiled? Most likely. "Off with your horns."

The other dirty and not so much a secret, is the GC would much rather have fewer rifle hunters. And the less Deer the rifle hunter sees, aided by their war on Does, the more likelihood they will turn to sticks. Those rifles make noise and cause them more problems with safety issues along with complaints. They much prefer the silent killers and do their best to have them become more and more popular.

There are still places you can see many Deer. However, one most likely needs permission to hunt the corn and beans.


Addition: And lets introduce Fishers that are efficient killers of most small game. Great idea. And why does the GC have to be the keepers of the raptors....Eagles, all Hawks and Owls. More and more they are less on the side of the hunter.

Yeah, my resentment toward archers and ML hunters grows each year. My hat was always off decades ago to the guys who slipped out during Indian Summer with stick bows to put themselves up close and personal to deer to make a kill. Ditto the guys with flintlocks and percussion guns who did the same - heck I was one of them. Now the efficiency of crossbows and scoped inline smokeless ML'ers makes a mockery of the original intent. Where I hunt if I want to fill my tag I should join in, or suck hind tit come rifle season, because the crews whose only goal is to fill their tags come hell or high water embrace the early early seasons and technology as a means to an end not as a means to re-create old time ethos - and the herd is seriously thinned by the time I'm allowed to hobble my sorry old butt into the woods with rifle in hand. Rant over. I may as well talk to the wind.

Gary, if you were watch some Youtube videos of hunting out west you'd be discouraged. There is little to no mention of hunting how-to and why we look here or there, game knowledge, behavior, or anything related and plenty of talk about the shot, the score, and the pack out. I LOL when I watch these 150 pound overweight dudes climb out of their brand new trucks and walk 50-100 yards to glass up a huge bull that the guide has had 25 guys camping on all summer. The bull was originally found using 100 trail cameras that required round the clock monitoring by a whole crew of people. Photos of the animal were advertised on the internet and the chance to hunt a particular animal sold to the highest bidder. After the "successful" "hunt", the entire group of guys that spent at the least a summer following this animal stand around for a photo shoot. Hours pass as they get everyone in the shot and take turns posing with it. It looks like a drunken SuperBowl party. It's f'n disgusting. Crap like this will be the death of hunting. I read Arizona finally outlawed trail cameras because there was so many guys checking waterhole cameras after dark that game couldn't get to the waterholes to drink.


The only series I enjoy is a fella out of British Columbia that guides for many species but hunts blacktails passionately. His name is Steve and his videos are under HowtoHunt. He tells some great stories and uses lots of video of big blacktails to explain how to find and hunt these great deer. You feel like you're learning from a master when you watch his videos.