ORIGINAL: Nefarious12
I keep hearing everyone complain about not seeing deer and they keep blaming the Pa game commission... well I see it differently... I blame the hunters.. We as hunters need to stop shooting doe!!! If we keep on the pace we are at the deer population will hit dangerously low numbers and ruin hunting forever in PA... also had a game commissioner tell me this too... A bunch of us started the other year buying the doe tags and not using them... hunt bucks only!! what thrill is it shooting a doe anyways.. let the kids take a crack at them not adults... I drove by a hunting camp the first week of the season and saw 5 does hanging on a meat pole... that takes out 10-15 deer for next season... maryland is heading in the same direction as PA is... I shake my heads at guys who shoot doe and tell them not to complain if they stop seeing deer... I do like the point restriction that PA has and it is starting to work... but if we completely shoot off all the does like guys are there will be no bucks either... please take it into consideration to not shoot does unless your in a very populated are with deer... spread the word also to other hunters... Also take this into consideration... when most of us Pa hunters started hunting there were deer all over... the new generation hunters go out and see NOTHING!! that is no fun .. most kids these days would rather play x-box or other video games instead of sitting in the woods and not seeing anything... we are ruining hunting for PA and forever! Think about it!
The Game Commission is broke, that is why they sold so many licenses.
But buying a license and then not using it is like buying a new car and then driving it into a tree. You aren't going to hurt Ford or Chevrolets feelings if you just destroyed your own car. You paid for it and you can do what ever you want.
Just remember, I saw at least a dozen people shoot deer and then not tag them. I saw at aleast 11 people road hunt a deer out of that group. I saw two people that shot spikes and then said either that they were senior citizens and didn't have to abide by the antler restrictions or that they had children under the age of 12 with them that shot the deer and that it was legal. Only I never saw the kids.
There is a lot of shenanigains going on out there and one little old doe isn't going to make a difference in a state that has 750,000 hunters and Millions of acres of land for them to hunt on.
You are just fooling yourself to think that the hunters are doing all the damage. Farmers are allowed to kill as many as they need to - to keep the crop damage down. One farmer in my area shot over 120 deer in one year- next to the PA gamelands because he felt that they were cutting into his crop production.
This year in the same gamelands I saw two old does at quitting time running across a reclaimed strip job. That was the only deer in 5175 acres I saw and I hunted pretty hard!
Then there are the coyotes, which you cannot step on a rock along the road without stepping on coyote poop.
What are they eating?
Eliminate doe season for 3 years and the deer will come back. Just that the PGC does not want the deer numbers we once had. They want you to go out and hunt for a deer and not just ride around in a car and shoot out the window like your dad did.