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Deer season in Pennsylvania

Actually it's never been better!!! But we've undergone some major changes. It's no longer the sport for the 1.3 million people, maybe 1/2 a million today at best...also it's areal money and greed game these days...antler restrictions are producing deer like we've never seen in my 60+ years...ued to be farmers welcome everyone now lessee's and groups with serious cash, so overall we might be the best kept secret in the country but it's no longer for the masses.
 
Frank do you hunt on private land or on public. My self I think there are too many different season one season for one month you can use the weapon of choice. I think the antler restrictions are a good thing big racks are a good thing. I know all the different season are used to raise money for the game commission. From Sept. 19 to Jan 23 you can hunt deer somewhere in Pennsylvania that's 114 days do you think we are over hunting?
 
I was in 2F on the first Saturday, the antlerless opening. I heard more shots in 1 day than I had heard in the last 5 years combined.

I was on a state game land and we saw some does in some thick stuff and a buck, which I was able to take at about 40 yards.

Other people I talked to saw a lot of does on opening day, just not able to shoot them because of the split season.

-David
 
I like the fact that they split the seasons in most areas this year. This at least gives the does a chance. I did not like the two weeks of doe at our cabin. It knocked the population way down since I first started hunting when I was twelve. The antler restriction however I really like cause I've been seeing some beautiful bucks with awesome size both rack and body coming from this. I have shot deer every year but they aren't as plentiful as they once were. It used to be nothing to drive around and see a herd of 20 - 40 deer feeding but now if you see 10 - 15 consider yourself lucky. The truth is the does were over hunted in most of the state leaving the herds down to about 5 - 10 deer in a herd. I would like to see it actually go back to to 3 days of doe.
 
I must be crazy
But anyone that thinks the best hunting in PA is NOW< has to be young!
as they must not recall when PA was a top 10 pheasant state, tons of grouse and wookcock, rabbits every where
deer every where
access to hunt ever where
Farmers that WORKED with the Game dept, and had co op farms
PA WAS a hunting haven

NOW< YES the antler restrictions have made for bigger bucks (older by default)
BUT as for habitat, it sucks as to 20 yrs ago, DUE to the over browsing of forests by a deer heard left go out of control by the dept that was supposed to manage it! Pheasant are ALL but a lost cause in 95% of PA
and again who was in charge of them??
HUMM game dept??
NO NOT if you ask them they blame the farmers for them going bye bye!!
and we all know there are NO farmers in places like SD ND or other GREAT pheasant states
SO< MUST be the farmers fault

Grouse and woodcock??
HUMM< guess the forest habitat getting destroyed by them deer didn;'t effect them
its all about seasonal rotations in numbers??(yeah right guess these seasons are many many yrs long LOL)

take a LONG walk in the forests in PA when there is snow down and see how many signs of wildlife on the ground in the snow(tracks droppings??)
FAR and few

PA has the best chance at a BIG buck NOW< a BIG bear and a LOT of turkeys in MANY places
rest of wildlife??

ain't NO where like it used to be, nor are the forest

PA has the largest about of public hunting lands on the east coast
they one of the largest budgets too if NOT the largest

WHY have so many things went south???
I have my opinions

all the more so when I hunt most of all the bordering state 's of PA< and see there game numbers increasing, and on a smaller budget too!!

so, NO IMO< PA is NOT a hunters haven, minus, there is 4+ million acres of public access
but if there isn't much there, it could be 10 million acres and what does that mean, taking a weapon for a long walk in the woods???
excessive amounts of access doesn't do you any good if there is POOR amounts of game on all them acres!
 
I have to tend to agree with you mrbb. Yes there are fewer animals than many years ago but in the past few years in the areas I hunt I have been seeing an increase in the wildlife population. I have been seeing more grouse up in northern pa around my camp. I have noticed the pheasants have been slowly rising around my home in central pa. The deer herds around my home have grown slightly from the usual 7-10 to now 15-20. So the wildlife is slowly coming back but I doubt we'll ever see it the same as years ago when you seen 40-50 deer in one herd or walk a field and jump 20-30 pheasants in one pass or go through the woods and see 25 grouse. I believe those days are gone because the population of people has drowned them out. But non the less the numbers have been steadily increasing. Now as for our game commission goes there studies need to focus on the more rural and country parts of our state instead of the city limits where of course the populations are extremely higher cause nobody can hunt them. If they would study where people actually hunt their figures would change dramatically along with the season limits. Just some opinions and some change.
 
I agree we will never have the 40-50 deer a day days, and I hope we never do, thats what caused the habitat to go south and with it so much of our game

If I could pick something I wish our game dept would do
it would be to correct problems before they get so bad, be a little more pro active!
not after the fact
and PLEASE JUST OWN up to mistakes
we all make them, but passing the buck never makes them look good to me, and honestly I did like it when folks do so!

I hunt all over PA, I snowmobile all over PA and travel all over PA

have grounds I hunt in many units
I have NOT seen a LOT of gains in wildlife in MOST of them
being out in winter time in the snow on MANY game lands, ITS HARD to find a deer track on some, due to such poor habitat(FOOD)
its NO secret, where there is food there is wildlife
and many city's have designer foods for deer to eat in neighborhoods
and deer numbers can be super high in these places, and few if any access to hunt them

but many of these deer there came from hunt-able lands, that DIDN"T have GOOD food there 365, thus they left and never came back!

one study from the PA game comm.
I find rather ignorant, was there study about hunting over bait
(if any know, they allowed baiting in HIGH deer problem areas in the SE, as a way to help get deer off private lands and onto huntable land)
there conclusion was baiting didn't help or HURT when used?
SO they stuck with it being illegal/
I don'
t hunt over bait nor want to
BUT there is NO way in any intelligent hunter's mind that can back this UP

you put bait out, deer WILL COME, and deer will be a LOT easier to kill over it
IF it DOESN"T MATTER as they said
why is it illegal to do so then<
and I don't BUY into the spreads illness, FAR too many states allow baiting and have healthy deer herds as PROOF
plus TONS Of folks in PA bait AFTER the season in winter time and don't have huge kill off's

MY 2 cents, is
its a easy form of income for them citing those that bait in hunting season

personally I think baiting would help more than it would ever hurt

the average idiot that buys a bag of corn and dumps it, then sits next to it will NOT kill a deer that way unless LUCKY
MOST critters will eat that corn at night and not go near it for a few days or MORE
making it a easy meal
MAYBE save some natural browse, and allow some other plants to GROW rather than being mowed down as fast they grow LOL
THE Game Commission, used to actually FEED wildlife in the winter time, and did so for yrs and yrs, was PART of there game plan to have lots of wildlife in the state
they gave up on it, IMO as the amount of timbering was HUGE back then and natural browse was in excess
so rather than spend money on feeding in winter time, they used money for salaries and likes!
and then rode the wave of timbering making quality habitat
and didn't see all the damage being done till it was too late, from TOO many deer and over browsing!
again, they dropped the ball and didn';t see problem till AFTER excessive damage was done
when your JOB is to protect wildlife and habitat, and it goes south,
sorry, the blame IS there fault, NO one else's
it happened, like I said, I just wish they would own up and say YES we screwed up, OUR fault
and not spend so much time in excessive amounts of passing the buck ON WHY it went bad
real simple., they fell asleep at the wheel! is my take here!!

I doubt PA will ever be any where as GOOD as once was , in game QUALITY or QUANTITY .
the Quanity I can understand on the deer, but as for grouse numbers, wood cock, pheasants(and BY the way, the GC wasn;'t the one's bringing in the wild pheasants, that was Pheasant forever doings, they JUST ALLOWED THEM< but they ACT like it was THEM< ) the game commission spent several hundred MILLION on pen raised DUMB ***** birds that never survived, rather than using WILD pheasants
which IMO is the KEY as to there ARE some in SOME Places and again, how did they get there?? Pheasants Forever got them here! NOT the PA GC.

the amount of $$$ wasted on pen raised birds(I have read its like 15 bucks a bird, do the math)
we should have a few hundred thousand more acres of land , that could have been bought with that money, if they started bringing in wild pheasants from the get go, we'd have good wild populations by now and would have for yrs!

again dropped the ball here as well!!


as for grouse and wood cock, that goes back to the loss of browse and quality habitat from TOO MANY DEER for TOO many yrs!
had they caught that sooner, rather than striving to have the claim of MOST deer and deer hunters(they marketed this for yrs folks)
we MIGHT still have way better numbers of both, if habitat didn't fade away to such a LOW point and drive so many away!
poor habitat doesn't make for good birth/return rates!

sorry for long post
but I think many folks don't know a lot of this stuff
I am NOT bashing 100% the Game Commission here, we NEED them, I wish we had more of them
I just wish again they caught things sooner, and would admit there mistakes, without trying to blame so many others things!!
every job has a a goal and mission
when its missed, it falls on the workers

if you screwed up like they did at your Job, would you still have it???
Food for thought?? lol
 
LeePaHunter said:
I have to tend to agree with you mrbb. Yes there are fewer animals than many years ago but in the past few years in the areas I hunt I have been seeing an increase in the wildlife population. I have been seeing more grouse up in northern pa around my camp. I have noticed the pheasants have been slowly rising around my home in central pa. The deer herds around my home have grown slightly from the usual 7-10 to now 15-20. So the wildlife is slowly coming back but I doubt we'll ever see it the same as years ago when you seen 40-50 deer in one herd or walk a field and jump 20-30 pheasants in one pass or go through the woods and see 25 grouse. I believe those days are gone because the population of people has drowned them out. But non the less the numbers have been steadily increasing. Now as for our game commission goes there studies need to focus on the more rural and country parts of our state instead of the city limits where of course the populations are extremely higher cause nobody can hunt them. If they would study where people actually hunt their figures would change dramatically along with the season limits. Just some opinions and some change.
Click to expand...

Im very soon to be 81 years old and have hunted in Pa every year since i was 12. I lived in bucks county for 64 years of my life when it had a large pheasant population. Ive hunted deer, bear and turkey in the north central region all my life and still spend about 6 months of the year at our camp there. I can remember the days when seeing 100 deer by just driving the back dirt roads was very possible. Seeing 20/30 doe on a single drive was also very common. Ive never been a big fan of the PGC, but there is no doubt the deer numbers were out of control. No doubt farming practices today have had a large impact on pheasant reproduction. But there are other problems also which i believe are equally to blame. That being the preditor problem. Today every animal is sacred to the point of being protected. We have for example a large bobcat population in N C PA. Needless to say we also have a large coyote population statewide. There is an abundance of various hawks and owls also. Plus the skunks coons and fox, and the season never ends for the preditors. Even the eagle population has increased dramaticly and that also includes the large golden eagles at least seaonaly in some areas. What do you think is the reason for the large decrease in the ground hog population including areas where there is no farming? As for the deer, theyve become different animals than they were 25 years ago by nesessity. Our camp is and has always been bucks only even for kids. We average as many per year now as we did 40 years ago when there were more deer. If the PGC wont attempt to regulate and control the
preditor issue as they do game, then maybe its time for hunters to do it on their own.
 
yobuck said:
Im very soon to be 81 years old and have hunted in Pa every year since i was 12. I lived in bucks county for 64 years of my life when it had a large pheasant population. Ive hunted deer, bear and turkey in the north central region all my life and still spend about 6 months of the year at our camp there. I can remember the days when seeing 100 deer by just driving the back dirt roads was very possible. Seeing 20/30 doe on a single drive was also very common. Ive never been a big fan of the PGC, but there is no doubt the deer numbers were out of control. No doubt farming practices today have had a large impact on pheasant reproduction. But there are other problems also which i believe are equally to blame. That being the preditor problem. Today every animal is sacred to the point of being protected. We have for example a large bobcat population in N C PA. Needless to say we also have a large coyote population statewide. There is an abundance of various hawks and owls also. Plus the skunks coons and fox, and the season never ends for the preditors. Even the eagle population has increased dramaticly and that also includes the large golden eagles at least seaonaly in some areas. What do you think is the reason for the large decrease in the ground hog population including areas where there is no farming? As for the deer, theyve become different animals than they were 25 years ago by nesessity. Our camp is and has always been bucks only even for kids. We average as many per year now as we did 40 years ago when there were more deer. If the PGC wont attempt to regulate and control the
preditor issue as they do game, then maybe its time for hunters to do it on their own.
Click to expand...

Yobuck, I agree with you to a point
YES farming has changed, and yes there are a bunch of predators now(I say there numbers have become higher due to less cover and easier meals and the fact we have a LOT less trappers now than ever!)

BUT on a different side of this, I hunt a lot in ND and SD, and I see WAY more eagles, hawks and owls' there and MAN , it is NOT uncommon for me to see 15-25 coyotes a day
I still see 10-15 bucks a day out there on my hunt, still put up 50-500+ pheasants a day, and they too have modern farming going on and have and use more chemicals than we do in PA!(due to just more acres of farms)
SO< to say that we lost our populations of game (pheasants or what ever)
due to increase in predators, I say YES SOME I am sure, BUT its NOT that huge as many might think!

as again I hunt many states(used to hunt 7 states a yr for 25+ yrs)
so I have seen things change in more than JUST PA
and have seen things improve in places and get better FASTER than they have in PA

look also at our natural trout streams???
what's ruined them??


I also truly believe that the deer we hunt now are NOTHING like the deer we hunted 20+ yrs ago
we have a HIGHLY Nocturnal deer herd anymore,
and I think it has to do with several things,
from one, MORE open cover in the forest and woods in MOST places, the fact SO many humans have moved into area's that were once more secluded.
the fact deer EAT more of a wider range of foods from people's yards as to farms and natural browse!
the amount of vehicles and human activity now ALL Over the place

and the FACT I think deer are smart animals, and learned that moving at night is just plain safer for them!
they caught onto us hunters !

BUT one example of deer numbers I'd like to throw in here, is look at WV
they have deer numbers like we had in the 80's
they have a HIGHER (up to 7 deer per hunter bag limit)
hunting season is about the same or longer!
but they have tons of game???
and it does show that due to habitat there they can sustain there numbers(for now, they have lots of active logging going on in area's I hunt any how)

so, like I said, there are better ways to manage things than what OUR Game dept has IMO!
 
Well population numbers of both hunters and residents vary depending on the area.
The north central region has had a declining population of both residents and hunters
for decades. The 50.000 acre Quehanna wilderness area at one time had over 300
camps and homes within its boundaries. Our camp was just one of them. Today most
of the roads in that area are gated as are many of the roads thruout the entire region.
So population plays no roll in that region and thats the one im familiar with. Im at a
loss over the total decline in the pheasant population statewide. But as i see it at least in the north central region, the problem is hunters moreso than lack of game.
They seem to be screaming for sunday hunting and a saturday opener for deer so they can save their vacation time for other more preferred interest. Lots of old camps
in that region no longer open for deer season since the older members have died or
given up for health reasons. Many that do are only open for a few days at best.
There are virtually no fall turkey hunters other than a few on opening weekend.
Bear season in that region sees the biggest turnout of hunters.
 
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