ORIGINAL: WillCz
You have to visit the mountain of 4c just north of the homeland for the waves and waves of Amish and Mennonite farmers hunting for food. I have seen multiple groups of 20 or less drivers, somtime 5-10 women and kids not holding weapons driving and driving over and over until the deer are gone. The kids and women are there purely for tags. The carts loaded with deer are all you need to see. Farm carts pulled by bicyles and people just hauling them out.
The excessive tags on public land are just plain wrong. All you have to do is get out there and see what has happened.
As a kid - 30 years ago, I endured the inbalance in the herd and the doe season after 2 weeks of chasing them into hiding and I think I am a pretty darn dedicated hunter that lives and sleeps the sport. I didn't need the brown it goes down to keep me interested.
The youth and elderly tags were put in place to make sure the smaller bucks and more does get killed.
I've seen and heard of big groups of Amish putting on big group drives in Clarion and the southern edge of Forest county and I willagree that they tend to take plenty of deer but they are in it for the meat and tend to focus on shooting does. It
could be that a few small bucks fall in the process but my point is that penalizing thejunior hunters is not the way to address the problem. By the way, the Amish make their living from farming and can therefore legally shoot any deer all year round for crop damage. It's been that way as long as I can personally remember and some say I'm beginning to get a bit long in the tooth so that's been a while!