Duck,
I have mixed feelings about the article's. I'm an average joe who jumps at every chance to go deer hunting so on one hand, while the earlier and more frequent oppertunity to gun hunt would be cool I can't help but think thatwe would be pushing the deer to the safe haven of NO HUNTING property earlier. I live and do 90% of my hunting in New Castle county. We have very little public hunting property. Basically two state parks and the C&D canal area. And whats worse is, as you mentioned, the State parks have their own rules and seasons. Hey I'm not complaining...well I guess I am. I love hunting at White Clay Creek State park. I live and work less than 10 min from the park. I drive through the park on my way to work and on my way home. It's a great park, however the hunting is very, very restricted. Some of the problems as I see them: Hunting is restricted to a twenty yard perimiter of a designated stand site. This limits a hunter ability to hunt. It's more like pot luck. You can't set up based on food or bedding areas etc. Another problem is that many of these stand sites are in plain view (Close) to main walking trails. Boy, the anit hunting public loves that! I can understand having tighter restrictions during gun season but the above mentioned restrictions are in place for bow season.
Some suggestions: As is currently, keep hunting restricted to certin parcels of property, determin an acceptle number of hunters per day for that area and then let the hunter hunt. Ask any of the regular hunters and they will tell you after one or two years the deer know to avoid the designated stand sites. As for the states concern on safety I would also recommend that all hunters be requirered to pass some sort of profeciency test, both shooting and a demonstration of how to use the hunters tree stand safely. This should keep the state rangers from having to keep every one in binocular range as they do now.
With the exception of opening day there are very few bow hunters at WCC. I believe much of the reason for this is because of the short bow season 3-4 weks and all the restrictions. If the state wants to decrease the population of deer in the parks then they will need to loosen up!
Sorry for being long winded and all the spelling mistakes but much like you I can talk hunting all day. I didnt even talk about all the state owned land that is not open to hunting. After a couple of day at the counties land use department I was blown away by learning about all the state owned land in NCC. When I called to aquire about access I was informed that all state owned land was considered animal sanctuary and not huntable. Dosen't sound like the state really wants to reduce the deer population to me!