Originally Posted by
cayugad
Many years ago, before the DNR decided to take control and manage the herd, in Wisconsin we used to have some fields where you would see twenty deer at a time.
Same thing here in Pa. while I have never seen as many as are in that video together, I have seen fifty or more deer together in fields many times. Up until Alt initiated his program of annihilation of the doe herd that was embraced by the Game Commission, we had a lot of deer. The antler restrictions and the management plan we now have has made for some really nice bucks being taken here in the Keystone State. But it didn't come without consequences. License sales continue to drop each year, many hunters just got tired of not seeing deer and quit. We used to have an estimated 1.2 MILLION hunters afield on opening day and the last estimate was down to around 700,000 and dropping. You all know how hard it is to keep a young person interested in anything for very long, try taking a new hunter out and expecting them to sit all day and stare at trees. It was normal to see 40-50 deer on opening day of rifle season here on my own property, this season's opener I saw THREE and last season I saw ONE! Now, I don't have to kill a deer to enjoy hunting, but I like to see deer when I hunt. The state's shoot anything that's brown policy has really knocked our herd down to a fraction of what it once was. My wife and I passed all the opportunities we had to take a doe throughout the rifle season and we both had doe tags. A lot of my friends and I are beginning to feel as though we have to do something to get our deer back by not shooting does. But the state could care less, they're only in it for the money. We now have WAY too many seasons/opportunities to kill does and there are WAY too many doe tags being issued. Any more if I do take an antlerless deer, it's in the late flintlock season when you have to work a lot harder to get one and I try to take a yearling and leave the older does that have been bred alone...BPS