RE: PA... the heaviest hunted state?
 

You mean if I lay a $20 down on the bar in another state they are going to swipe it? Bummer.

Pa is unique indeed. Right or wrong if you grew up hunting land that was "open" its very easy to continue to do. As far as the heaviest hunted, that's definitely true to a point. Some areas get hunted REAL hard, others I just get hunting the 1st few hours of deer season and that's about it. As far as being a trophy state, trophy bucks do exist in many places and would exist in the entire state if the mindset of the average hunter here was not of shooting the 1st thing by them. It is sad that the state has to issue a mandate to keep hunters from doing what hunters in many states already practice.

RE: PA... the heaviest hunted state?
 

Where in Warren do you hunt. I hunt a little in corry, not too far from you I think. See any big bears down there??

RE: PA... the heaviest hunted state?
 

Corry is in Erie County. I'm nowhere near there. Hard to come up with a town that's real close. How 'bout Clarendon? Not real close but gettin' warm. No big bears down here, nothin' good to eat for 'em, dont think they like dirt, ferns and moss.

RE: PA... the heaviest hunted state?
 

Another heated PA topic, gotta love them.

Now, as far as pressure goes, this state takes the cake. Rifle season seems like a redneck reunion around here. Billy Bob and Jethro bring their aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, pets, kitchen appliances, ect... out into the woods, sit down on their buckets, open the cooler full of beer, and have a good ol time at trying to down anything that runs past.

The problem doesn't lie in the amount of hunters, the amount of animals, the amount of private/public land, ect... The problem lies in the hunters. Too many hunters have it in their minds that they can hunt anywhere. I see it all the time. They don't see a posted sign so they think that they landowner "wont mind". How can they know what the landowner wants without talking to them?

I see this all the time, two years ago, my best-friends uncles farm had road hunters driving around it shooting at any deer they saw. When the PGC was called, the guys were caught and said that they had the right to hunt the property because their weren't any posted signs.

It is a pretty sad sight when people have to put up hundereds of big yellow signs on their property just for people to realize that it is private.

reflexkid,

How would you like somebody comming and stealing your car and justifying it by saying "it didn't say that I couldn't use it". How about somebody breaking into your house and justifying it by saying that "there were no signs telling me to keep out". It is illegal, ill-moral, and it is what gives us hunters a nice big slap in the face. I am not trying to be rude here, just stating what I believe in.

As far as the deer herd goes, this state is definetly going in the right direction. I was spotting last evening on my best-friends uncles farm (about 300 acres) and I saw a total of 15 deer, with 11 being bucks, 2 being fawns, and 2 being does. Of these 11 bucks, I would say that 7 were in the P&Y caliber. Granted that this land is managed by all of us that HAVE PERMISSION to hunt it, but that is still impressive. The biggest bucks were saw last night were a 12 pt and a 10 pt. The 12 was short in tine length but we guessed him to be in the 26" to 28" outside spread range. The 10 was just a monster, probablly 21" spread with nice tines all the way around and great mass. These are the type of deer that I dreamed about when I first started hunting 9 years ago. Now, a big buck back when I started is just an average deer now.

This brings up another problem, leases. I am already seeing this starting up around here. The deer herd is MUCH healthier and the bucks are much bigger, so the land-owners with the large tracts are using this to make some extra $$$$ They are posting the property and leasing it out.

Pretty soon, PA is going to be a state where you have to have family that owns private land or your gonna be stuck on public ground, and maybe that is a good thing as it might just make alot of the guys who invited themselves onto private ground think about what happened because of them.

RE: PA... the heaviest hunted state?
 

LOL, not me...closer to 5'-9" @ 250, but the wife is closer....5'-7" @ 120! I just went off on a little tangent last post. Rifle season around here in the ANF is not as pressured as it used to be like Livbucks said. Archery season is like having all 513,000 acreas to yourself....kind of nice if you ask me.;)

I don't recall who posted it, but I'm not one to be anywhere near a road on the rifle opener. Some folks just start walking into the woods and follow the ridge to the next to the next etc. not just the guys that actually did some homework. Getting as far away from roads as possible isn't necessarily going to get you all that far from the roads here either. Last year we were screwed because the Forest Service(or maybe vigilante hunters) opened a road that wasn't on the list of roads to be open for hunting season. I was near that road....it wasn't open when I drove by it all fall long or the Saturday morning before rifle season. We got bombarded with hunters at first light that drove in that road....live and learn....get as far away as you can from any road. Sad thing is we were set up in an excape corridor that would have produced if some fellow wouldn't have set up 100 yards down the hollow with his scent blowing in the wrong direction....ruined my our day![:@]

RE: PA... the heaviest hunted state?
 

anyone know how bucks county is during archery season on the public lands..