Originally Posted by super_hunt54

Actually Rock, Pa has some damn fine farmland and dirt in a LOT of areas. The main reasons behind the generally smaller body size of the past was poor conservation practices leading to horrible habitat to population numbers. Not to mention the "if it's brown it's down" mentality and the lazy stump "hunters" <--(note the quotations) and basically just plain old stupidity abounding among the hunting community. While OT and I often argue about the aggressiveness of the deer reduction program in several areas I hunted up in Northern Pa, the overall state population of deer were really helped and seem MUCH healthier now. Larger bodies, bigger racks, just over all good looking deer are coming back. They have always had good quality, high nutrition browse, just not enough to feed the out of control population.