My take on PA deer
First off, I am a NY Hunter, due to personal reasons, I was only able to hunt PA 1 day this year... Opening Day. I hunted on Public Land (open to hunting by a tree company). I had a good area scouted out. I hunted all day and passed on 1 deer, a button buck. Shortly after I passed on it, it wandered towards another hunter who was about 200 yards from me.. and he shot it. On my drive home at dusk, (about 10 miles through PA) I saw about a dozen deer hanging on camp poles, and on back of cars. Every deer I saw was antlerless. The last time I hunted this hollow about 3 years ago, I saw several bucks hanging. After getting home, I got 2 phone calls from friends. One shot a button buck and the other guy, hunting the same hollow I did, said that he saw only 1 deer all day. A few years ago, this guy always... I mean always got his deer. Usually it was a forkhorn or spike with the occassional 6 ptr. But, the bottomline is that he was happy and proud of what he harvested.
Times are a changing... I don't know if for the better or worst... but I do know of better and happier times not too long ago. I don't plan on quitting PA hunting, I love hunting and I have some good spots on public land... but it's getting more difficult to see a deer than even 3 years ago... Is this for the better? By the way, where I hunted was in McKean County. In my opinion, too many button bucks are getting killed. In the past hunters waited for that spike or any antlered buck. Now that deer sightings are down, hunters don't want to get skunked so they are killing the first deer they see. How is killing button bucks improving the deer herd?