I think mrbb touched on the main reason they have it like that. Back when we lived in Pa, the state had the number one sales in archery tags in the country. They had a ton of deer, way over populated, to match those tag sales. Since they went with their whitetail population reducing programs, the state wide herd population has come to a more sustainable number. I'm also pretty sure the number of archery stamps sold have dropped as well. I'm thinking the breeding times falling into those 2 weeks is a good thing to keep the herd stabilized. In my opinion, they went a bit to far in some parts of the state with the herd reduction. So without those timely 2 weeks un-harassed breeding, in some parts of the state, the herd would be pretty much decimated.

One thing is a given in PA, no matter what the PGC does thee would be people who complain about it and those who are never satisfied.

Can you explain "we have nothing to do"? If I recall PA right, archery doesn't get you another tag, just more time.


Can you bow hunt during gun season? With your bow, but following gun rules (we can do that in NH)


Are you against gun hunting? Not against, but you don't want to?

Yes, you can. I think he's referring to the two week gap right now. From last Saturday until November 27th there is no deer season in during most of the state.


Small game is in, there's a four day bear season, some fall turkey areas are in.


But no deer season. Typically falls during the peak of the rut.


-Jake

Nothing to do?! Hogwash. You can still hunt turkey and small game. Then bear comes in followed immediately by rifle deer.
If there was anything I would like changed in PA it would be to allow Sunday hunting. But unfortunately I'm afraid that will never happen. At least not in the near future.

What I'm saying is, they take archery season out when it starts to heat up and it's still 2 weeks to go until gun season. I like to rifle hunt just as much as bowhunt, now the rut is happening and your chances to see more deer are greater. We have two weeks (16 days) and no deer season!

The horror!

To each their own but where I'm from (Southwestern, PA) there are NOT many people who hunt small game. We prefer deer hunting.

your not alone, small game hunting is a dying sport, and IMO its simply due to the fact small game numbers are so low in most places, minus maybe back yards where rabbits and squirrel numbers can be off the cart, but no legal hunting due to safety zones LOL
to be honest even deer hunter numbers have been dropping IMO< and again for same reasons the traditions of deer camp and the likes have slowly been slipping away as to say 10-15 yrs ago, when there were much more die hard deer camp like hunters!

I agree mrbb. I mainly bowhunt in state gamelands and there are some Saturdays where I am the ONLY hunter in these said 2500+ acres. Never hear any shooting going on (turkey, squirrel) during archery other than the shooting range.