PA GOBBLER

i love it when people from other states chime in on here, better yet like Delaware where there're deer harvest last year was 14,000+... turns out, it was a record... see PA is a little bigger and has just a few more hunters... on another post DE deer i ask how many est. deer, how many hunters, how much public land and i didn't get an answer..
bullmoose i see what your saying and that is a good idea, but the thing is we have some really nice public land here in PA its just being shot out and it doesn't need to be that way, the PGC are giving the telling the hunters to do that by saying the deer need cut and giving out the tags.. if we all go to private land who is left to hunt this public land? i see DE wants to do some HR so i say some PA hunters should go there and help them out... i dont want to cut up DE its just PA is a lot different than DE, fact PA is different than any state..

AJ52

PA Gobbler - Your point is well taken.

My point was and still is there must be something Good to say about the PA wildlife management. I refuse to believe PA is that bad off. We know you guys have some legitimate issues up there as we do in little ole Delaware.We're dealing with it by getting involved in meetings and QDM.

I suggest the Nay Sayers become part of the Solution rather than adding fuel to the problems by generating dozens - hundreds - and thousands of negative posts. All this trash talk about PA doesn't speak highly for a hunters home state.[&o]

BTBowhunter

Pa is indeed different and unique and that will help us in the long run. Even with shrinking numbers we have more hunters than almost any other state. Hunting here isn't doomed but we're in for some challenging times.

On the other hand, the herd reduction arguement is not unique to PA. Many states other than Pa are attempting some type of HR. I've seen the same type of battles from many other states.

We've heard from lots of other states and the same arguement rages on in many of them. Pa just has more hunters on both sides.

ddear

Just what do you suggest that we do to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem? Are you suggesting we all keep quite and just blindly accept all the misinformation and false claims that have been made over the past 5 years? If so, what would that accomplish?

thesource

Let me "chime in from another state" in support of ddear and others.

AJ52, you "may refuse to believe PA is that bad off", but that doesn't mean its not so. In the southern tier of NY, our deer have been getting hammered. Our herd decreased 40% in 2 years. 2/3 of NY's WMU are below targets.

I think that the "Naysayers" DID become part of the solution, by loudly raising their voices and attracting the attention of NY DEC. As a result, DEC announced that building the herd is the priority for the next few years.

You may not know what's really going on unless you are right there in the trenches.

I have to laugh at those armchair biologists that keep saying "manage the herd", and "kill more does", and "earn a buck." In your neck of the woods, this could be the gospel truth. Depending on YOUR region, this may be the most ridiculous rhetoric ever.

PA GOBBLER

AJ- i didnt know you were from PA so now i know and you kinda know what its like here then.. i know QDM works in and would work in a lot of states but i think w/ PA having so many hunters, and a lot of private land that dont have access to, it wont work here now.. and letting our voices be heard on message boards in one way to get a point out.. i do not think that the PGC is 100% against the hunters but they arent 100 % for us and they should be since we pay the bills..
BT- your right PA has A LOT of hunters and i just dont think PGC has the money to micro-manage the herd like they need to do.. but i think by telling us to kill more and more doe is a wrong approach for them to take..
i think both sides have good points but its something to keep talking about not just be quiet and not voice your thoughts and let it just happen and then complain later.. one of the biggest reasons i come on the NE section is to give and get info about PA deer.. i do learn a lot here about it.. i just dont want our voices to get shut down on a very important issue..

PA GOBBLER

hey im sorry i wasent meaning i didnt think people from other states shouldnt chime in, but sometimes when your not from an area or never hunted an area like PA its hard to understand everything going on... i take that back to everyone

thesource

No offense taken - I was actually reiterating your point. Your hunting situation is as you find it....not how some guy 200 miles away envisions it.

BTBowhunter

Its good that we have plenty of posters that care enough to keep the subject going and going and going .... kind like the energizer bunny. I'll just offer this up: the ability to use a calculator and the willingness to hammer away at it for hours to come up with a way of stating your case does not make one an expert. If a point is to be made, it shouldn't take statistical smoke and mirrors to make it. More importantly, constantly criticising without offering a better way is counterproductive. Anyone from any state can see that and should feel free to point it out.

Saying it over and over doesnt make it so..... unless you say it over and over and no one objects!!!

ddear

Analyzing the data may not make one an expert but it certainly makes one much better informed. If we only relied on what the PGC tells us , one might think that the harvest of 2,5+ buck more than doubled due to AR's ,since the percentage of 2.5+ buck in the harvest increased from 20% to 50%. But, in fact, the number of 2.5+ buck harvested only increased by 9.4 K or 18%. They also told us the 2005 anterless allocation was conservative, but when one considers how much the herd has been reduced , the 879K tags in proportion to the number of anterless deer available , the allocation is far from being conservative and will result in additional significant herd reduction.