Red, I kind of know what you mean. Our previous season was poor and I already commented I was not impressed with last year. But in preparing for this year we are already seeing the effects of a smaller herd. At the farm here in southern pa, we are seeing less deer this spring in the fields, I attribute that to last years zeal in guys taking 2 and 3 does just because they could. Now we have more guys coming by and asking to hunt because where they normally hunt the deer have "dried up"?

So more competition in the areas that do allow hunting, and yet the no access areas remain undisturbed and overstocked with deer.

Due to hunters shifting to meet the changing population we will be looking at more hunters on the farm and we have gone thru winter and spring seeing less deer. We have yet to see a buck. In my opinion the antler restriction has been way overdone with hype. We are not seeing anymore buck than before, and with less deer around we actually see less.

I know that there are still areas with lots of deer. I talked to a guy who still see's 20 deer in a field at night out in western pa, and he thinks things are just ducky. But eventually the reductions will catch up with him too.

From what I am seeing so far into this summer, I think my county harvest will drop in does and buck. And since buck harvests have dropped the last 3 years that ain't too cool. Here the habitat does not limit the population, we have skads of it, but they have said we can onlysupport 17 dpfsm ?????

I wish the PGC had never gotten caught up in the hype of horns. If other states chose to, thats thier perogative, but in pa we sent home a lot of hunters with decent bucks. And we have been harvesting more antlerless than antlered deer for many, many years, so nobody can say we were not doing our part to manage the herd before Dr. Alt began his reductions.

In a way, I am glad most of our deer biologists are abandoning the PGC and leaving. I hope we can hire a biologst that isn't so willing to lie or so hung up on the bigger better deal (BBD).