PA Deer Management is Almost OK

[chr103yod]

I think they almost have the right idea. The one huge problem is they treat allof the land the same in each region. I hunt in 3D, and on private land there are tons of deer all the communities are loaded with deer. State land is barren. We have never in 30 years seen so few deer. I lived in VA for 5 years and they had different regulations for public and private land. They also broke it down by counties not huge regions. Counties with too many you could shoot doe all season on private land. You could also buy bonus doe tags for 5 dollars. Public land it was only open for one weekend. If the public land had a large deer population doe was open for a week or two.The only thing they were missing was AR's. I wish PA would wake up and realize 90% of hunters hunt on Public land, all of the areas where the deer are a "problem" are areas you can't hunt.

[DougE]

90% of the hunters in Pa do not hunt on public land.80%of the land in Pa is privately owned.You can't tell me that 90% of the hunters are jammed on to 20% of the land.

[cardeer]

LOL

[DougE]

Lets here an intellegent answer why I'm wrong Cardeer.Do you really think there's over 720000 hunterd jammed on20% of the land in Pa?

[PABowhntr]

90% of the hunters in Pa do not hunt on public land.80%of the land in Pa is privately owned.You can't tell me that 90% of the hunters are jammed on to 20% of the land.

Doug,

The humorous answer would be....Yeah, but you don't hunt where I hunt.

It may seem, at times, that heavily pressured public land in PA does hold most of the hunters. Percentage-wise I am sure that private land holds significantly more hunters but then you did say that 80% of PA land is private so even if it had twice the hunters the ratio of hunters per acre would still be drastically weighted toward public land....especially if you are comparing land in the southeast section of PA.

Just offering a different perspective.

[DennyF]

Maybe what Doug meant, was thatabout 90% of the peoplehunting this 20% of the (public)land, generallyoccupy only about the10% of it that's within a hundred yards of the nearest access road?

Perhaps that contributes to theperception of it being over-crowded?

These percentage things is confusin' sometimes.

[germain]

These days alot of private land is now being managed to not overharvest.You don't have that luxury with public land.
In these parts there is a coop of landowners who enrolled thousands of acres in QDM.There's a ten year wait to get on a lease in there.I talked to a kid last year that shot a couple does and then a big ten point.Lots of deer on that land with very few hunters.The SGL against this land is the opposite.Very few deer and lots of hunters.
More landowners are leasing and/or posting which is fine it's their land but it's forcing more hunters onto the public land.In my opinion the SGL's are going to be forced to manage differently then the private land.

[cardeer]

ORIGINAL: DougE

Lets here an intellegent answer why I'm wrong Cardeer.Do you really think there's over 720000 hunterd jammed on20% of the land in Pa?

No Doug,but I did count over 50 walk by me 2 years ago the first morning of gun season; I should of answered I dont care anymore .I moved on to another state and bought property

[Bionicrooster]

The important thing is we have another thread on PA deer management!

[DougE]

I saw a total of two hunters on public land this year while i WAS ACTUALLY HUNTING.i