Bocajnala

I have been hunting deer in PA for eight years now. In those eight years I have seen a dramatic drop in deer numbers, yes I have been seeing bigger and bigger buck...but where have all the deer gone?? I hunt Indianna county by the way..... are others seeing so few deer???

White-tail-deer

lost horn

You have been hunting eight years in Pa. and don't know where the deer went !! I guess you have never heardof Gary Alt either.[:@]

If it's brown.........it's down.
If it's brown.........it's down.
If it's brown.........it's down.
If it's brown.........it's down.

Bocajnala

lol, theres one response. just to let you know sir, I had a buck and two doe tags, and I let doe walk all season, because we were hardly seeing any... the most I saw at one time was three. In the past years the amount has been dropping and dropping. we shoot all the coyotes we can to and it has not seemed to help.(a local farmer told us that was the problem) I got all my deer in Ohio this year, and out of five hunters we only got one buck and two doe. We are prolly not hunitng our camp next year at all, hoping to get the numbers back.

Pawildman

Well, if you think the hunting is tough in Indiana County, you sure don't want to try it in the Northcentral counties!!! There may be spots in Indiana Co. that are low on deer, but for the most part, things are in pretty good shape, I feel. Posted ground is becoming a huge problem everywhere, and Ind. Co. is no different. Get permission to hunt wooded areas around farms, and you should have success. I was unable to get to our camp in 2G for deer season this fall, but hunted at home here in Ind. Co. In the first 2 1/2 days I saw over 40 deer, of which 6 were small bucks, not eligible in this 4-pt or greater area I'm in.
Truth of the matter is that some deer need to be shot where I live. They eat everything the wife and I plant. Fruit trees, garden plants, shrubs, etc. I finally did kill two deer here, but that's not gonna stop all the damage we get.

Bocajnala

yea, I remember seasons where there were so many deer, and you could tell it was overpopultated....I saw less deer in the entire first week this year, then I saw opening day the first year I hunted. and I only saw one shooter buck and I let my cousin take him because I had alreadyshot an nice 8 point with my bow in ohio, turned out that buck was a really nice 7 pointer. and I htink he is getting it mouted. ..... We hunt farms in our area, posted property is a huge problem, but because my family all grew up there, we have permission to hunt most everything in the area.

Gundeck

I grew up hunting in Central PA. Back in those days, I hunted with my family. When I say family, I mean father, brother, uncles, cousins, etc. We used to put on drives on the ridges and mountain. I remember one season we put on two drives the first morning and filled our tags (all 24). I remember spotting for deer before season and seeing 300 in a night.

I think that the numbers are certainly lower these days, but I think changes in the way people hunt changes the number of deer people are seeing. When I was a kid, the deer had no choice but to move because of the way we hunted. Now, they know the safe areas and hang tight for a few weeks during the season. The same happens at my house in NY. After the first day of shotgun season, it is a ghost town. A week after the season, there are ten deer in my backyard again. But they are just "dumb" animals, right?

johnny2

Gary would not make a pimple on a deers ass....

The Rifleman

All I can say is that the weather has an impact on the deer. Hard winters kills off some of the deer that we think that we are going to save by not shooting them.

I was out in a place called PORTER - in Jefferson County tonight and all the land is posted and the deer are herded up right now and I saw about 20 - 30 deer on the way home from a friends house.

I then took a short cut home and went through the woods and saw one of the people that I know - hunts deer 365 days a year - having a pow wow along the road.

When I got to the bottom of the road, there was 10 deer in one field.

I laid hard on the horn and skerred them all into the woods.

Calling the Game Warden - in this case was not going to do any good. But scaring them into the woods - saved the day for those deer tonight.

Not shooting the deer is not going to save them, but cutting the season in half for muzzle loader and archery would.

Taking away the first 5 days of deer season in 2D and making it BUCK'S only will help a lot - for keeping the poachers from having the opportunity of shooting does - for two whole weeks.

BTBowhunter

WHAT A BONEHEADED STATEMENT TO MAKE!

If the goal was to reduce the kill, it'd be the doe tag allocation that would be dropped first.

It's an undisputed fact that archery and muzzleloader hunters harvest less deer percapita than the rifle hunters despite their longer seasons.

The only reason to make a statement like that isto try and divide hunters. PETA would be proud of you.[:'(]