Tags have been reduced in areas where the management plan has been deemed effective. Tags were not reduced because of the whining, but because of science. The goal of the deer management plan in PA was to reduce the herd. In some of the special regs areas, a 6-week shotgun season was again instated.
No longer is there a deer behind every tree in PA...thankfully! Now if we can just let some of the buck get a little older... :wink:
And if we could only get the gunners to be a little more selective in the taking of the 'does', often times button bucks, we would also see more nice shooter bucks.
And if we could only get the gunners to be a little more selective in the taking of the 'does', often times button bucks, we would also see more nice shooter bucks.
Well unfortunately with the "if it's brown it's down attitude" that 95% of the state seems to have anymore, I don't think we can ever expect them not to shoot button bucks. We have so many weekend warriors that just blast the first deer they see so they can brag and say they filled their tag. Not to mention the fact that in order to let a button buck walk they may have to actually think before they shoot, and you know they won't go for that.
In the great state of PA where hunters will shoot at anything that runs, walks, wiggles, flies or screams "For the love of god don't shoot", I think we're lucky to have made it this far. Then again, the PGC knew exactly what they were doing when they boosted the number of doe tags sales. They were preying on the scum bags ego to buy as many tags as he could in efforts to fill them all. If he does, less doe, less money the PGC has to spend, if he doesn't PGC made out like a bandit in sales.
I'm thinking they need to import some of those Texas Longhorn deer up to the mountains of Eastern PA. All I see are scraggly bucks...and I mean ALL. Out of 10 years hunting the same area and talking to ALOT of the locals, there has been ONE nice buck out of there years ago, and my father in law got it.
Granted, all these guys are hunting for the extra meat.... :slice: .....but the doe tags need some sorting out. For example - Bucks county (nicely named) couldn't run out of doe tags if they accidently gave out 2 to everyone! Sure its shotgun only...but the archers need to step up and try to get a few more. If I'm around come archery season (job might be stopping me). I'm sure as heck gonna do my part. I was pretty lucky when in the military to just go to the courthouse, show my Mil ID and walk away with a doe tag on the spot. :wink:
Pabowhunter,How does less doe equate to less money the pgc has to spend?You really have me confused with that one.
Most areas you'll still get a tag.2G took a big hit this year but getting a dmap permit should be easy if you want to hunt state forest land. They only issued 160,000 less tags this year which is still more than they issued most years.
Arrowhead,this has always been about politics not science.I agree that we needed to reduce the herd in many areas but it wasn't done scientifically.It was done to keep our state forests certified and DCNR did whatever they had to politically,to get the herd greatly reduced.Doing whatever was politically necessary to reduce the herd to it's diversity carrying capacity from nutritional carrying capacity was the number one condition they had to meet to keep that certification.Politics always has and always will play a huge role in our deer management.
They reduced the number of doe tags by 150,000 or so. In other words they really have done nothing to reduce the number of does shot. That move was politically motivated to quell the complaints from hunters who aren't seeing any deer. There were approxiamtely 650,000 doe tags that were not filled last year. I know it is based on percentages but 150K less is not going to do a lot. We as hunters just need to be smart about what we shoot!!!
If you factor in all the dmap tags that will be issued,there will still be way more tags out there than we have doe,so you're right.The herd will still be reduced further with this allocation.
In my neck of the woods if you don't own a couple of hundred of acres you will not see many deer. I regularly evaluate my hunting territory at least 2-3 times a week through out the year. most of my deer sightings are on land the has those yellow posted signs on every tree. :angry: That's where the deer are! I would figure that there is more than double the amount of deer on posted land then there is on any public land around my area. I started to realize this a few years ago. The Pa game commission did what they wanted to acheive, and that was to reduce the deer herd. I just feel in some certain areas they reduced it to low. Sure the antler ristrictions work on letting the buck grow up, but if all the doe are shot, what do the buck have to breed? If I ever win the lottery you can bet I will own a couple thousand acres myself and create my own little hunting preserve!!!!
In my neck of the woods if you don't own a couple of hundred of acres you will not see many deer. I regularly evaluate my hunting territory at least 2-3 times a week through out the year. most of my deer sightings are on land the has those yellow posted signs on every tree. :angry: That's where the deer are! I would figure that there is more than double the amount of deer on posted land then there is on any public land around my area. I started to realize this a few years ago. The Pa game commission did what they wanted to acheive, and that was to reduce the deer herd. I just feel in some certain areas they reduced it to low. Sure the antler ristrictions work on letting the buck grow up, but if all the doe are shot, what do the buck have to breed? If I ever win the lottery you can bet I will own a couple thousand acres myself and create my own little hunting preserve!!!!
Those are my observations as well and the worse the situation gets (low deer herd) the more of those darn yellow signs I see. If you go to the PGC website and look at the statistics of buck that have been harvested over the last 5 years you will see a huge downward trend in the numbers. Last year was by far the worst! Why? Could it be that we are killing toooo many does? HMMM. Now I do understand that the heard should be balanced but could you image seeing the same number of doe as you do buck? OMG! You'd have a better chance of seeing a bear!
Get used to seeing alt less deer because the herd will never be allowed to rebound past 12 dpsm.Obviously limited access will keep that goal from being reached everywhere but the tate land will never have decent deer numbers again.
Get used to seeing alt less deer because the herd will never be allowed to rebound past 12 dpsm.Obviously limited access will keep that goal from being reached everywhere but the tate land will never have decent deer numbers again.
"alt less deer" - Now thats a good one! :smile: Yeah the infr-red helicopter deer survey funded by a sportsman group in Bedford resulted in 5.6 deer per square mile. :mg: : Alt did warn us that we would be seeing a lot......or should I say ALT less deer but he countered that by saying we would be seeing HUGE buck. Well atleast he got one prediction right!
Alt created more dissention between sportsman and the pgc than anyone in history with his insane claims and condescending attitude. With that said,I think things will change somewhat for the better.We'll never have high deer numbers again on public land but we did have too many at one time.Now I'm not convinced 5 dpsm is the way to go but at least both dcnr and the pgc are admitting there are less deer out there.That's at least a step in the right direction for them to start restoring some credibility.
I live in wmu 2g and the deer numbers are way down on the public land.We have alot of mature forests up here and the habitat is lousy.I'm not saying it's all due to the deer but it still can't support high numbers.I am encouraged because dcnr has been cutting alot of this area and some of it is regenerating good.There are some areas that have nothing but beech birch and striped maple growing but some areas are looking better.The deer will come back but we'll never have the high numbers we once did and that's probably the way it should be.
It's not the end of the world.Alt was an idiot but he's gone now and Rosenberry is step in the right direction.At least he's a deer biologist.Just don't think for one second that this is all science based.Politics still rules deer management.
I think the only way PA has a chance of becoming what it once was is for the hunters to help ourselves out. I know it would be a hard thing to do, but if hunters would only harvest one deer this next year we would give the deer herd a chance to grow again. If they would even trophy hunt for one year that is to only try to shoot a like say a 120" buck and up and not shoot a doe the population would grow rapidly in one year. That is what I started to do last year. Last year was the first year of my 16 year hunting career that I did not at least shoot one deer. I was watching a 140"-160" 10 point through out archery season, which someone eventually shot in rifle season. That is the chance I took and understand that. I had eight to ten different legal buck well within shooting range and never pulled back on the string. I figured if I let the smaller buck go they will turn into something like that 10 point. But this is only my way of thinking and ethics. I know there are people out there that are greedy and if they don't shoot a deer it seems to be the end of the world for them not harvesting a deer. I also understand that in many cases there are people that truely need the meat to feed their families. This is just another of my .02 cents on the subject.
With around a million hunters in Pa,you'll never get the majority to agree on anything.Everyone has their own goals and expectations.Combine that with the fact that we have so much public land and Pa will never be even close to a state known for big bucks.There's just too much pressure.
Hang in there.If you have private land to hunt,you'll always have at least decent hunting.The public land on the other hand will always have low deer numbers from this point on.DCNR is pretty much managing their lands the way they want to and they'll never allow the herd to increase.The only way the state forests will ever have alot of deer is if people stop hunting there.They have the tools to keep the herd down and they'll keep using them.There's alot more land to hunt though than state forests.
I own property in area 3C. It is a mix of woods and farmland. I have an old orchard on my property. I see 10-15 deer each evening there. I applied for a 3C anterless and a 3C bonus last year. I had ample opportunity to fill both, I elected to 'only' shoot one doe. Took some heat on another forum for "wasting" the tag. Not in my opinion. As much as I like to hunt 'em, I like to see 'em too. I have alot of property to hunt in 5C, Bucks County. Loaded with deer here, more road kills than anything else. What a waste. Killed one doe here too, could have killed ten or more. I'd rather share the opportunity with another archer, make his day too.
I grew up in 3b and my brother owns property and lives in 3c.That area is loaded deer.The situation in that area is far different from areas of the state that are mostly public land.It's good that you're selective up there but it wouldn't hurt to kill more deer in 3c.I'd be hammering them in 5c if I had the opportunity.
3C is hurting as well. Last year out of the 5 hunters we have on our property only 1 doe was shot, and by my self, during the rifle season. In fact, no one saw any legal bucks at all, mostly spikes and 3-4 pointers. It has really decreased over the past 2-3 yrs. :sad:
It even depends on where you hunt within a management unit. I'm in 2C and some of my favorite spots used to be on public hunting grounds, state or otherwise. Last year we hunted these spots for 2 weeks straight in archery season and didn't see a single deer and yes historically these spots always produced.
Moved over to my nephews 38 acres of posted property and saw mostly spikes, 4 points and some does but nothing to really get excited about. Still better than not seeing anything!
I'm not a complainer like some folks I know. I hunt often and hard but boy have times changed! For now we just have to make the best of it.
And beleave it or not, we have about 600 acrs, and our nabors (withabout 1500 arcs) are good hunters, legit hunters and so are we. So i am not sure why our deer numbers are so low, we do see a good amount of does at least an average of 5 a night in the feilds but it seems the buck pop is really low.
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