I agree so much on this germainI will see how next few years go in my area, imight bepretty excited.
My thoughts on this year is different than past. First I want to say that while hunting in an area w/ very high hunting pressure it has been tough the last few years. Hunting and seeing little to no deer and still having to deal w/ so many hunters all around in the only areas that have had some sign of deer. [/align] Late summer while walking an area w/ low deer numbers and a section that got hit by an ice storm a few years ago and knocked a lot of trees down, I saw some re growth like ive never seen in my life. Now this area before the deer kill and the ice storm was the worst habitat around w/ lots of ferns. well the oaks were coming up like you would not believe. So I started thinking is it the deer or the open canopy, im guessing it's both. [/align] Now this gets me thinking about the cuts and fences that are being put up, would it not be a good advantage for usnow w/ the low deer numbers and the financial problems the PGCare in to maybe slow down on the fences? We have a lot of old strip mines and they could take some of the money from the fences and create some food plots in the general areas of the cuts. Yes I know that the deer will still eat the browse but just like farm land the plots will take some pressure off the browse least until winter. [/align] Now to the rifle season, I was thinking this is going to be like all the rest not much deer to be seen and hunters everywhere. But what happened was this year no hunters. I mean not a one. It was like my dad and I and brother had our own private land to hunt. It was great, we still didn't see many deer but the ones that we saw where feeding at different times of the day not even pressured at all. So for all the people that say they never see hunters and so on and I always thought they were crazy well I saw it myself and loved every second of it.[/align]here are the numbers...[/align]Me hunted 6 days from dark to dark cept the first day made it till 3:30 w/ the wind and fog. saw 17 deer of 7 that was the last day, 5 buck and 3 yotes. no deer killed but got one yote[/align] Dad hunted all 12 days saw 15 deer no bucks that he knew of and a 400+ bear.. no deer killed[/align] Brother hunted 5 days saw 7 deer, no bucks.. no deer killed[/align]Not a great season for deer sightings but we all agreed that not seeing orange all around us was priceless. And getting to hunt w/ my dad and brother is always good so I would have to say I had a good season. [/align][/align]