Deer Hunting in Pennsylvania

[woodsman2230]

Hey everyone. I have been hearing people say that there is no deer in pa and its the PGC's fault, etc. I dont know about all that but I do know that a lot of people think like that. And on the other hand people think that herd reduction is needed extremely bad and its the hunters fault because they arent forced to fill all of the doe tags but they shoot the first deer that walks by and what not. My question is, what does everyone one think about the herd reduction going on in PA. I would like to hear some opinions of people here in the Realtree site. Thanks.

woodsman2230

[Guest adrenaline_junky]

Cris we talked about this the last time you came up and hunted a bit but as far as im concerned we do need to kill more does aroud here. I mean seriously when you go spotting and see 25 does to 3 buck or something like that. That right there should be a sign. You know as well as I do around here everyone wants to fill their tags most of the guys arn't in it for the tradition they just figured since they paid all the money for tags they got to fill them. We a 1 buck to 1 doe ratio. Then we would see the freak nasty's while in the stands and not under a spot light from the road. LOL O and are u comin up this weekend give me a call.

Later.

[woodsman2230]

Ya man, ill be up home this weekend. Im ready to do some hunting!

[Hoyt03]

Some places need it some dont, just goes back to you can't manage the state under the same regs. I for one think they should allow doe harvest in archery, early ml season and a 3 day firearms after the normal two week buck season. Does will still be taken, just not so crazy during the rifle season. I passed a 4 pt yesterday b/c not legal and 20 minutes later someone else shot it b/c he thought it was a doe.

Oh yeah this topic is covered every year around this time, do some searching and you'll find some good discussions

[bluedog]

This is going to be somewhat from an outsider looking in (I guess that's what you asked for ). I live in and hunt in Ohio, but I live only 6 miles from the PA line. I did live in PA for several years in the late 1980's, but didn't hunt during that time. I do backpack and hike quite a bit in Pennsylvania even now. These are my very biased observations :) .

1. You can hunt to see lots of deer or you can hunt to see big deer. It's hard to accomplish both. I know folks from PA who think that if you don't see 20-30 deer at least during a day of hunting, then there aren't enough deer. Do you know how many deer I typically see during a day of hunting in Ohio? Maybe 4-5 if I am lucky. Some days I don't see any. (I hunt 200+ acres of agricultural land.) Which state produces more trophy bucks?

2. I remember the days when I lived in PA in the 1980's and I could not believe how many deer there were and how small they were.

3. While backpacking through central PA, I've seen first hand the browse lines and how the forest understory in some areas is stripped of vegetation.

4. About 8 or so years ago, I heard Dr. Alt talk. I was amazed to hear about areas of PA where 1 1/2 year old does had not achieved enough body weight to come into estrus. All due to poor habitat. That is crazy! Heck in farm country a good portion of fawn (6 month old) does will breed. That alone should point to big problems with the deer herd in those areas.

5. In 1995, Ohio held a 2 week gun season. The deer population was DRAMATICALLY reduced where I hunt. Everyone was so mad and there were meetings all over the county about what had occured. Ohio went back to a one week gun season the next year. Do you know how long it took until I was seeing just as many deer as I did prior to 1995? Two years. Yep, with good habitat, deer populations will rebound VERY quickly. If the population doesn't come back, there is something wrong with the habitat and that can't always be fixed so quickly.

So from an outsider's perspective, I think HR is LONG overdue. Will it be a perfect system? No. Will it need tweaking from time to time? Yes. But it needs to happen. I think some hunters in PA need to come to grips that seeing 20, 30 or even 50 deer when they go hunting is not "normal" or healthy for the deer herd. It might be fun, but in my not so humble opinion, we need to care about the health of the deer herd.

[jm23494]

As most have stated some people like the current system, while some prefer the old system. I have had the opportunity to hunt private and public land around the state and have seen about the same thing between the two places. Sure we are starting to get a few larger buck around the state, but for the most part I would bet that most buck harvested are about 2.5 years old. So from that aspect we are getting buck to mature and go through at least one or two breeding cycles. As for doe, if you have a tag most people are in the brown and down syndrom and shoot the first thing that walks past them. In my opinion this is leading to a drastic reduction in the heard.

As we continue to intrude into the woods to build homes, and turn agricultural fields into housing develpoments, we are going to see this reduction continue until the system gets tweeked a little.

We can sit here and debate this for years but lets face it the PGC is going to do whatever they want to do, or think they need to do.

[buckbuster11]

I am sorry, but I can't stress enough how much I completely disagree with the thought process that "less doe=more big bucks".

Personally I think it is a ploy our Game Commission used to get everyone to buy into the program. I see more bucks due to the AR program, but I don't see bigger bucks. Trust me, there were plenty of monsters walking around way before AR.

As far as HR is concerned, I don't really like it. What I hate even worse is the 2 week concurrent doe and buck season. The deer herd where I hunt has drastically changed since this program started. I fight with myself all the time about taking does when I am barely seeing any....and I know this problem is way worse in the northcentral part of the state.

Another problem is, the herds everywhere are so unbalanced. There are barely any deer on some tracts of land, normally public, or open to hunting. And you can go down the road 1/2 to a posted private tract and have 20 deer per square mile.

The WMU system is for the birds too. I live and hunt in central Indiana County. That's in the same WMU as western Butler County. Sorry, but that's two totally different areas. How you can lump all of that into one unit is beyond me.

Also, to go along with what I was saying about the "less doe=more big buck" nonsense, the people that consistently take the biggest bucks where I live are usually the people that have their own little sections of private land with huge deer herds. I have buddies that will see 40-50 doe on the first day and they'll shoot a nice buck to go along with it every single year. I see this happening every year , all over. That's why I've never bought into the "less doe=big buck" stuff.