I know it seems logical that the posted property of Allegheny County and other areas with posted property, or limited access, is what allows the deer herd to avoid over harvest in those areas. But, I don’t believe that is the real case. I have hunted in both Allegheny and Washington County, on both public and posted private land, and have also hunted the large expanses of public land in the northern tier.

I can tell you right now, with absolute certainty, that we have far more unhunted land serving as deer sanctuaries in these remote areas around here then anything you could find in Allegheny or Washington County combined.

Though the southern counties, and management units, have a good number of small protected properties they are both relatively small and most also get some hunting pressure. The thing that really saves the deer there isn’t that they don’t get hunted, but more the fact that the habitat is so thick you can’t see the deer inside them or even chase the deer out of them to where hunters can shoot them.

I tried to chase deer out of some of those thick brambles on the private land I hunted so my sons and hunting companions could shot them. By the time I had gone a hundred yards I was so tore up I looked like I have been attacked by a bobcat. Though I could hear deer going back behind me I couldn’t see them to shot one of them. In short the vast majority of the deer were unharvestable simply because the habitat wouldn’t permit hunters to maneuver the deer to where they could be shot. The deer simply become nocturnal and unavailable for harvest.

In the northern tier we have very similar types of habitat though much larger, and of far less food value, then the blocks of private land in the southwest. But, they are impenetrable and under harvested for a different reason. Here in the northern tier we have impenetrable laurel patches that are huge, some as much as 25-50 acres, which are so thick you can’t fight your way through them, even though the deer get inside them to avoid hunters. I have tried to chase deer out of them too, but it simply can’t be done. They just move out of your way and let you go past. The deer can here you the entire time you are busting your way through and they simply move to one side or the other and let you go past them. I have tried to track deer out there, in the snow, and it simply can’t be done and you will not see them while you are in there either. I once wounded one, in late muzzle loader season, and it got into one of those laurel patches. It took me about two hour to get to see it as it circled back and forth and over our own trail several times. I couldn’t get it to come out of the laurel and I never did get to see until it had lost too much blood and was just too weak to go any further.

Besides the laurel patches we have lots of 50 to 60 acre clear-cuts that are so think the deer can hear you moving in them the entire time and once again they just move out of your way as you try to chase them out. We also have areas with large swamps of several hundred acres that are full of deer, but you can’t go in after them because the water is just too deep and risky. We sometimes kill a few deer in the early morning or late evening around those areas as they slip up because don’t stick with their normal nocturnal movements and patterns.

I have never seen man tracks in many of those areas because they are simply not huntable even though they have deer tracks all around them from deer that move in and out of them at night.

We also have a number of large land tracts with very limited hunting that protect tons of deer. One hunting club is just shy of 9000 acres (that is about 14 square miles) where they only have 100 members and hunt only 4-point to a side and larger bucks. Their membership voted not to harvest any does last year. There is another area nearby that is over 12,000 acres (over 18 square miles) that is only open to a couple dozen high paying guests and there are typically less then 20 does killed per year on that land and then only because they permit their drives a day or two per year to hunt the land.

I would suspect areas like that protect far more deer then any place in Allegheny County, or anywhere else in the southwestern counties. Though I will agree that there are many small protected properties in the southwest that act as safe havens for deer, I think they are but a drop in the bucket compared to the safe havens for deer here in the northern tier areas. We have much larger areas that are either unhuntable or only open to small numbers of hunters that all to often don’t even harvest antlerless deer on those lands.

During the time I hunted in Allegheny and Washington Counties I would see more hunters per hunting hour then I see while hunting here in the more remote areas of the north central during the entire deer season.

People will have a mighty hard time convincing me that the difference in deer densities, between the two areas, has anything to do with the availability of areas for deer to escape hunters. I am very much convinced that the difference in the deer densities, between the northern areas and the southern areas, is almost entirely habitat related.

I am convinced that difference rests in the fact that the northern areas have protected the deer instead of the habitat to the point the habitat was destroyed and can no longer support very many deer. Conversely the southwestern areas of the state started harvesting more deer as soon as the deer numbers started to increase there. By doing that they protected the habitat instead of over protecting the deer. That has allowed the deer herds in those areas to stay higher then they could have if they had protected the deer instead of the habitat.

Every single piece of factual evidence or logical conclusion I can find or come up with indicates that if we want to have the maximum numbers of deer in the future we need to stop protecting the deer and start protecting the deer food. If the food is there the deer will be there too. But, if the food isn’t there it will be impossible to have many deer there. That would violate the most basic laws of nature and that simply doesn’t happen for more then short term periods of time.

R.S. Bodenhorn