RE: PA question?
Personally, I think the state's deer herd is in better shape than it has been for years. Growing up I would agree that I did see a lot of deer. The first day of buck season I could almost be guaranteed to see at least 30 deer. Granted, every single one of them was a doe but I saw deer. If I did see a buck chances are it was a 70 pound spike that was running for it's life after being shot at 50 times so I couldn't get a shot anyway. People are claiming to be "meat hunters" when they argue against antler restrictions yet they want to be able to shoot that 70 lb spike over a 110 lb doe. Hmmm, "meat hunters" who "don't care about the size of the rack" but yet shooting an animal that weighs 40 lbs less. I would go to the local butcher shop the first weekend and if there was 200 inches of antler in the entire cooler you were lucky. Now, the average buck I'm seeing is at least 100" and 2.5 years old with some of the bigger ones going into the 170's. As far as the numbers of deer I will say I am seeing fewer but in no way are they close to being gone. Whenever I hear that statement from another hunter my first question I ask is "How often do you get to hunt?" The typical response is " Well, I take off for the first day and then I might get out the first weekend of rifle. But that spot has been great for the past 20 years so they should still be there." My standard response is then "Oh, so the same tree stump that you've hunted forever doesn't have deer running by it this year so they must be all gone". I guess the bottom line is... Are there fewer deer? YES...Are they almost gone? - Absolutely not ...Are they harder to hunt? - yes, you may actually have to "hunt" for them now...Are there bigger buck? - As far as I'm concerned with what I'm seeing scouting and on trail cams...no doubt.