Doug You are correct.

Tionesta is where half my ancestry and my camp is and I've been hunting the ANF around there since 1969. I can remember no particularly significant winter kill from ice storms in that area in all that time although I do remember hearing reports of severe kills quite a while back to the east of Forest County in some of the counties that make up 2G.

Over the years we have had to adjust our hunting areas as food supplies changed with the changing forests. For example, the 85 tornadoes created a haven for nice deer for several years providing both food from regenerating forests and dense cover. Those areas are now mostly pole timber with few deer. In areas where the gypsy moth wreaked havoc and some salvage or preventive timbering took place we experienced temporarily better deer hunting. In among the ANF land is also some private timber holdings and at least one of the larger timber companies is doing a superb job of managing their forests and the deer hunting therehas been very good.

Has any particualr woodlot in the Tionesta area been great for the last 40 years?A few, perhaps but mostly, it has been a changing game for the entire timeI've been hunting there. Some of my old favorite honey holes are now deer deserts but new "secret spots" have evolved and developed.

Very few of us as hunters have the luxury of calling the shots on how the timber gets managed. Being adaptable is the only way to have continued success when hunting the big woods areas that are either publicly held or privately held but open to public hunting.