2019 Saturday deer opener PA.

[jimbires]

I don't know , I hunt when I can while the season is in , they make the rules I follow them . I do like the Sunday hunting , I don't see anything wrong with it . I have hunted a lot out of state , and most states have Sunday hunting . I don't care one way , or the other on the Saturday opener . I'm not a fan of the concurrent buck & doe season , this would probably be more acceptable to me if it were junior and senior only . I'm in a lease the last couple years . the guy we lease from says no Sunday hunting , and one doe per hunter . so the guys that hunt Sunday need to go off our lease . the guys that want more than one doe , need to go off our lease .


my Buddy is , or was , against the Saturday opener , and Sunday hunting . He got a small piece of private ground with about 4 other guys to hunt , this ground is a honey hole . he got laid off in the fall , so he had the whole season to hunt . usually in a day or three he was tagged out , a buck and as many does as he could get tags for . I told him just because the season is in doesn't mean you have to hunt , heck you can still call Monday your season opener .he couldn't see that , he had to be out there .

 

[CMP70306]

I don't know , I hunt when I can while the season is in , they make the rules I follow them . I do like the Sunday hunting , I don't see anything wrong with it . I have hunted a lot out of state , and most states have Sunday hunting . I don't care one way , or the other on the Saturday opener . I'm not a fan of the concurrent buck & doe season , this would probably be more acceptable to me if it were junior and senior only . I'm in a lease the last couple years . the guy we lease from says no Sunday hunting , and one doe per hunter . so the guys that hunt Sunday need to go off our lease . the guys that want more than one doe , need to go off our lease .


my Buddy is , or was , against the Saturday opener , and Sunday hunting . He got a small piece of private ground with about 4 other guys to hunt , this ground is a honey hole . he got laid off in the fall , so he had the whole season to hunt . usually in a day or three he was tagged out , a buck and as many does as he could get tags for . I told him just because the season is in doesn't mean you have to hunt , heck you can still call Monday your season opener .he couldn't see that , he had to be out there .

Depending on where you are the opener is single handedly the best day of the year to hunt. There is lots of pressure in our area and after the first day the deer start to get more and more skittish. For example this year we killed 13 deer on opening day, 4 more the rest of the opening weekend then only three more for the rest of the season.

As for the concurrent season I'm 100% for it, I grew up with it and firmly believe that removing it was the single worst decision the PGC has made. If you look at the historic trends license sales were slowly increasing until that change at which point we lost 90,000 hunters in just a few years.

 

[jimbires]

I haven't looked at license sales for a very long time . I "THINK" we used to sell around 1.5 million . I'd think that the license sales in the 70's , 80's , 90's would be very high to what they are now . the sales started to drop when the herd reduction results started to show up , I think that would be in the mid 2000's. guys are not interested in hunting with low deer sightings . my son started to hunt 2002 . that's around the time antler restrictions , concurrent seasons , and bonus doe tags were implemented . he was successful the first few years and saw enough deer to keep him interested . he lost interest after hunting a couple seasons not seeing much , or anything . He's 33 now and has zero interest in going hunting again .

I've probably killed more deer the first few days of season , but my good bucks were killed towards the end of the season . my last few years of hunting game lands , I never saw a deer on the first day . if I didn't enjoy it so much , I'd have quit . I got in with a couple guys that hunt Kansas . they had an opening for me every other year . I had my mind made up that when I was able to go every year , I was done hunting Pa . Kansas season is in about the same time as Pa's season . now I'm in a lease in Pa and look forward to hunting here again . I go to Kansas this year , so I'll get my Pa buck in archery season .

 

[CMP70306]

I haven't looked at license sales for a very long time . I "THINK" we used to sell around 1.5 million . I'd think that the license sales in the 70's , 80's , 90's would be very high to what they are now . the sales started to drop when the herd reduction results started to show up , I think that would be in the mid 2000's. guys are not interested in hunting with low deer sightings . my son started to hunt 2002 . that's around the time antler restrictions , concurrent seasons , and bonus doe tags were implemented . he was successful the first few years and saw enough deer to keep him interested . he lost interest after hunting a couple seasons not seeing much , or anything . He's 33 now and has zero interest in going hunting again .

I've probably killed more deer the first few days of season , but my good bucks were killed towards the end of the season . my last few years of hunting game lands , I never saw a deer on the first day . if I didn't enjoy it so much , I'd have quit . I got in with a couple guys that hunt Kansas . they had an opening for me every other year . I had my mind made up that when I was able to go every year , I was done hunting Pa . Kansas season is in about the same time as Pa's season . now I'm in a lease in Pa and look forward to hunting here again . I go to Kansas this year , so I'll get my Pa buck in archery season .

Here is the license sales chart, it was a high of 1.3 Million in 1983 that dropped quickly to around 1.175 from the mid 80's to the mid 90's when it started to drop again. There was a brief bump during the HR days but antler restrictions started the slide again until 2006 when it started to increase again. That was until they removed concurrent rifle season in 2014 and it started dropping again. I also just went and checked, 2022 was a new low of 844,000 hunters dropping 13,000 from 2021 and sending the post concurrent drop up to 102,000 hunters leaving in the past 9 years.

Your son is a couple years older than me, but I still love hunting as much of not more than I did before. Our deer numbers where we hunt have been consistently good for as long as I've been hunting and our group kills a couple dozen or more pretty much every year on three different properties around 500 total acres. Works out to around 30 or so deer per square mile.

 

[jimbires]

that chart pretty much spells it out , thanks for posting it up .

the game lands I hunted was in 2E . the lease I'm in is 4D . I live in Philipsburg , it's about on the line between these two units . the last few years I hunted the game lands , I'd bet I didn't hear 20 shots on the first day . nothing close enough to startle me . it's pretty sad to what it was just a few years earlier .

 

[hesse]

I am originally from Michigan where the dnr there is just dumb they still have 2 buck tags the second tag had to have 3 on the main beam but if you shot a buck with 3 on the main beam you use you used the restricted tag first so you could shoot what you saw after that and they use to have unlimited doe tags . Tags are $25 . For each buck tags plus a base license I think is 12. Does tag is $20each that is a scam to make money not for management

 

[CMP70306]

that chart pretty much spells it out , thanks for posting it up .

the game lands I hunted was in 2E . the lease I'm in is 4D . I live in Philipsburg , it's about on the line between these two units . the last few years I hunted the game lands , I'd bet I didn't hear 20 shots on the first day . nothing close enough to startle me . it's pretty sad to what it was just a few years earlier .

Definitely not the case where we hunt, I probably heard around 100 shots on the first day mostly one or two with the occasional 3 or more. It was funny though, there wasn't much ag by us so the night before the opener I had pictures on the game cameras of a bunch of deer leaving our property to go get food across the road. The next morning I could track how far away they were by the shots as they got closer and closer as the deer ran back to our property to hide.

We didn't see much on the half of the property we were sitting but when we drove the thick half we kicked out probably 30 deer including the 9 point that I shot. We fixed up the food plots this year so hopefully they will be more inclined to stay come hunting season.

 

[hesse]

Definitely not the case where we hunt, I probably heard around 100 shots on the first day mostly one or two with the occasional 3 or more. It was funny though, there wasn't much ag by us so the night before the opener I had pictures on the game cameras of a bunch of deer leaving our property to go get food across the road. The next morning I could track how far away they were by the shots as they got closer and closer as the deer ran back to our property to hide.

We didn't see much on the half of the property we were sitting but when we drove the thick half we kicked out probably 30 deer including the 9 point that I shot. We fixed up the food plots this year so hopefully they will be more inclined to stay come hunting season.

That is the one of the biggest things and we started adding minerals high in calcium and phosphorus to the herd started last year this year I have put out over 125 lbs and I am going to put out another 60 lbs this weekend it last 6 weeks but it has made a huge difference this year on the size of the bucks and the fawns also

 

[birddog 68]

We fixed up the food plots this year so hopefully they will be more inclined to stay come hunting season.

If you plant food they will come. We've been at it for probably 15 years with good results. Only recommendation would be to not hunt directly on the plot like they do on TV. Our stands are 50-150 yards away on likely trails. It's much easier getting in and out without spooking deer. Once you spook them in the plot they won't come until well after dark.

 

[jimbires]

we got the lease all tied up just before hunting season 2021 . this is our third season for the lease . it's our second season for food plots . I "THINK" we would have about 10 acres planted , and I wouldn't want to guess how much is in clover , 300 - 400 - 500 ? it's an old coal strippins , there was a lot of clover planted by the coal Co. when they finished up the job . right now the deer are just hammering the buck wheat , they did last year too , we had to replant last year about September . most of my pics must be on my phone . I do have a couple on here of our food plots. this is three of them , we have seven .

there's like three strips to this one . each strip about 30 or 40 yards wide , separated from each other by a few trees . each strip is planted pretty much the same , with something different added to each .one has corn , one has radishes , one has beets .



we added to this one . there is probably about 100 yards behind me , and I'm looking towards the next pic .

you can see how it goes out and goes angled to the right . there is probably about 200 yards that you can't see . this plot is close to waist high , and the buck wheat is getting ate like crazy .




next year we're going to make this one wider out to the trees , on the right .

 

[birddog 68]

We'll usually do buckwheat before we're planning to plant clover & chicory. It's a great natural weed suppressor, adds nitrogen to your soil and as you know the deer absolutely love it. Especially the flowers!
We don't have nearly the amount of plots as you. My buddy has about 150 acres and we have 2-2.5 acre plots and 2-.5 acre plots.
Is your lease in clearfield county or do you have to travel a ways?

 

[jimbires]

our lease is JUST over the Clearfield / Centre Co. line into 4D centre county . it's about 4 miles from my house , 1/2 mile from my Mom's house . as a kid I rode dirt bikes all over this ground . it's very convenient for me . me and my dog are up there every couple days walking around keeping an eye on things and scouting .

I can't remember what all we plant . I remember ; T- rapter , rape , crimson clover , rye , oats , buck wheat , chicory , beats , radishes ,turnups , soy beans , pea's . we plant some of the blend stuff from , I think it's whitetail institute . I'm sure there's more I can't think of . this year we planted some corn , and put in a sunflower/ pumpkin patch LOL . a couple of guys keep notebooks on what and how much in each food plot . were trying to rotate crops too . this is all new to us , none of us are farmers . some of the ground looks like bagged potting soil , other places is nothing but rock . we put down a lot of lime . we probably have 2 or 3 tons left over from a tri-axle load , 23 ton .

 

[birddog 68]

We also put down a bunch of lime and it gets pricey even on our smaller scale.
We've had good luck with deer creek seed. It's slightly cheaper than the big name brands but has been very productive if Mother Nature cooperates.
I'm guessing that you get some bears and possibly elk eating in the plots?

 

[CMP70306]

That is the one of the biggest things and we started adding minerals high in calcium and phosphorus to the herd started last year this year I have put out over 125 lbs and I am going to put out another 60 lbs this weekend it last 6 weeks but it has made a huge difference this year on the size of the bucks and the fawns also

Not sure what we can do with minerals as we are in a CWD zone so any kind of concentrated mineral source is not allowed. Can you spread it over the food plots and let them eat it that way?

If you plant food they will come. We've been at it for probably 15 years with good results. Only recommendation would be to not hunt directly on the plot like they do on TV. Our stands are 50-150 yards away on likely trails. It's much easier getting in and out without spooking deer. Once you spook them in the plot they won't come until well after dark.

When we got the property they had stands set up with food plots already established but they had clear cut the property which changed the hunting dynamic. We gave it a couple years to see how things were going and decided this year to revitalize everything and put in a new two acre plot since the deer generally leave after the leaves fall.

We are going to head up soon and I will put the cameras out to hopefully get an idea of how the deer are moving with the food by the time archery rolls around.