RE: pa hunting
I too am finding lots of deer.
I have very limited time to hunt but I have managed to get few hours of archery and early muzzle loader hunting in.
So far I have hunted a total of 16 hours, over parts of five days, in unit 2G. All of it on a large timber holding that is signed up in the Game Commission’s public access program and where I have a DMAP permit. During that time I have seen 26 deer. I passed up several small does and button bucks until last Wednesday when I harvested a large adult doe on one of my DMAP permits.
Last Monday I got off work at 3:00 and was on my bike heading back into an area on the Allegheny National Forest on my bike. I had plans of going in about 1.5 miles to an area with some oaks that produced a few acorns I figured the deer would be feeding in the evening. I never got that far. I was only in about a quarter mile when I saw a deer feeding in the edge of an opening. I stopped, got off the bike without being seen and just watched the deer for a while since I could tell it was a juvenile deer and I didn’t want to shoot it. Before long I saw another deer move into the opening. I watched it long enough to be convinced it was an adult doe and when it gave me a good broad side shot I harvested it on my ANF DMAP permit. The whole hunt lasted about 20 minutes.
That is a total of 28 deer seen, and two harvests, in about 16.5 hours of hunting over parts of six days. I have not seen even one other hunter in any of the times I have been out hunting.
Dick Bodenhorn