Crazyhorse,I have no interst in hunting 5C when the hunting is just fine around here.I have a buddy that owns 200 acres in Sinnemahoning.He's a forester for the US forest service and bought the property for the timber.The property has never been posted and it's bordered on 3 sides by state forest land.Most of it is actually unhuntable because it's so steep.He timbered the property in 2001-2002 and dmap'd the property because he wasn't seeing any regeneration except birch and striped maple.The surrounding habitat was so poor that the deer flocked to his cut and ravaged anything of value.You couldn't find an oak or red maple sapling no matter how hard you looked.I went up there on the last day of rifle season without ever setting foot on the property before.The only thing I had was a photo copy of a topo map.I had him circle the areas where he had it timbered,figuring that would be the best place to start.I didn't expect much because several of my friends have camps up there and they all told me not to waste my time.The PGC killed all the deer up there.As it turned out,it took me an hour andfouty five minutes to climb to the top where it flattens out and the timbering was done.I never crossed a single track on the way up the mountain.I don't know if you ever hunted that area or seen it it but it's strait up and down.Once I got to the top,there were fresh tracks all over those cuts going back and forth between patches of laurel.I sat for about 10 minutes to catch my breathwhen I saw a lone deer walking through.It turned out to be a legal buck but all I had was a dmap tag.I took a walk around that top and still hunted the edge looking over a bench.At 9:30am I was standing there within 50 yards of the state forest boundary when I noticed a bunch of deer meandering out of the striped maple.I shot the biggest doe that gave me the best shot and deer just exploded out of that cut-over.There had to be close to 20 deer in that one bunch,which is more than I've seen at one time in a long time.And yes,I was skinning a deer by lunchtime even though I never scouted an area that's over an hour a way from my house.Come to think of it,I think I did have a snack when I got home.

Interestingly,this spot is open to hunting.In fact,the landowner encouages it.It's bordered by state forest on three sides and I never crossed a single footprint in the two hours I still-hunted that area.It's not a far out of the way spot either.You can look right down onrt 120 and 872.The other thing I noticed was that the habitat was absolutely terrible.There was no understory except some mountain laurel and blueberry.Other than the area that was cut,there was no browse at all.All the deer congregated there because there was nothing else to eat and it will be worthless in another couple years when the striped maple is out of the deer's reach.

The people that have camps up there are screaming about no deer.Yet,I saw no evidence of anyone hunting one of the few areas that actually had food.That area is way too steep to hunt most of the ridges but there are fewer deer in most places up there.So who shot all the deer?The answer is,no one.The habitat is so poor that I guarantee the winters of 2003 and 2004 tookit's toll on adult deer and recruitment.No way canyou blame an overharvest on the situation up there and that's the situation accoss much of the northern tier.