As someone who spends a lot of time in both New England, and PA hunting I think I can provide some good input.

PA does not have it nearly as hard as a lot of people think it is. I do think the hunting in PA could be improved and with the amount of farm land and crops, I think it has the potential to be nearly as good as alot of the "Big Buck" states in the midwest. There are too many hunters though, and it would take drastic changes such as shorter seasons for rifle (buck and doe), less deer tags per hunter, and continued AR, probably a lot of other things too......I am a salesmen, not a game biologist.

Vermont is hurting LOTS more than PA. We have had a huge percentage of the farms stop operations and planting of crops since 10 years ago. The majority of the woods are maple, or softwoods i.e. not a lot of mast producing hardwoods. Hunters have the ability to take 3 deer per year, 3 of which can be bucks if using the right tags. No open rifle season for does, and no AR. I personally am able to score consistently, however it is usually on a large doe. This year, I did shoot a yearling buck because it was walking to where I know another hunter was that is notorious for shooting anything legal. I watched the buck for 1/2 an hour, and decided to shoot only if it went in his direction. I before this passed 1 other yearling buck during archery in favor of a larger buck, or a mature doe. We have serious problems with does not getting bred. I saw personally the same 4 does every day during archery season, and 2 bucks. That's it in over 100 hours hunting.....I hunted other spots too and saw nothing. 3 of those does had no fawns. Predators run wild here too..........I know numerous people that shoot deer in the evening and decide to track in the morning to only find half a deer and yote tracks everywhere. I have seen almost as many predators this year as I have deer. I was the only person to even see a buck during any seasons this year on over 900 acres that is hunted pretty hard by others.

I will continue to hunt Vermont every year that is possible though. The big bucks are few and far inbetween, however I still manage to put meat in the freezer every year (usually archery) and it allows me to hunt the spots my father and I did when I was a kid. The deer also have the genetics up here to be much bigger animals. 200+lb dressed mature bucks aren't that rare amongst the few mature bucks that are harvested. I hope the Fish and Game department finally does something about AR and limiting number of deer shot per person......we need help up here much worse than PA ever did, VT makes PA look like Texas.

On the good side, the turkeys are everywhere and Vermont is a hidden gem when it comes to them............called 6 legal birds last year in 3 days with 2 of them being mature toms. I saw many more turkeys this year than I did deer when in the woods, but unfortunately they compete with the deer for browse and the state is literally infested with them. They don't even really get pressured like they do in PA for some reason.