NO, I think the snow cover had them screwed up, they'll start moving soon!!!!

hiding under snow, i never thought to look there, thanks.

I wouldn't expect the farmers to change for pheasants Denny.But the midwest does have some fine programs on pheasant habitat improvements along with programs to open private lands to hunting.
But now that the pheasant is basically gone why not push for better grouse habitat?The PGC grouse biologist has been asking for improvements through better clearcutting practices.He also is concerned over the decreasing grouse numbers in the state.
As for deer I think it's foolish to ask folks from the NC where we have all that state land to head SW where access is limited.There's not enough land to hunt around the populated areas.It would be a dang shame to not use the thousands of acres of state land we have open to hunting.
The PGC is behind the eightball compared to the rest of the nation and they need to get with the program.They can start by paying attention to the overharvested areas of this state.
Like I said in another post,license sales increased nation wide and drastically decreased here.Something is wrong.

"germain" you are right on the mark.

"Like I said in another post,license sales increased nation wide and drastically decreased here.Something is wrong."

Something is wrong and it's spelled M A N A G E M E N T, or the lack of it!

Fred,they found deer in every area and didn't try to sugar coat the fact that der numbers were lower than they thought in certain areas.They ran out of time because of weather conditions and didn't get to fly over district 9.Deer numbers are certainly down in this area but being it's a huge tangled mess because of a tornado in 1985,I imagine they would have found plenty of deer.In fact,I'd be surprised if they wouldn't have found the highest dd in this area.If anything,not flying over this area hurt their cause so I doubt the reason they didn't fly over your area was because they found no deer.I don't know what part of the Sproul your talking about because they flew over huge areas of it and found deer.You need to go on their website and see for yourself.

You're correct.I do dispise the USP.They're a bunch of misguided clowns that are doing more harm to the hunters of this state by filing a baseless lawsuit.They have nothing to go on.All they keep going back to is theiracid rain theory.Yet,they can't explain why there's decent regeneration inside the exclosures.I guess they feel those fences filter out the acid rain.I heard a guy from the USP speak in this town last year.He wasn't all that radical but the way people acted at that meeting made me embarrased to call myself a hunter.That was the first time I ever felt that way.

I'm not an expert on Clinton county.I do drive through that are several times a year on my way to visit my mother.The habitat that I see when I go through that area is far less than ideal though.

I didn't advocate that NCinhabitants drive to the suburban areas to hunt, I indicated that those from suburbiawith camps in the NC, might be better served to hunt closer to their homes for awhile, where the deer are nowoften more abundant than they currently are in many NC areas.

Agreed that more may need be done for grouse habitat on SGLs and that was part of the purpose for the grouse study: to learn what may or may not work in improving conditions for grouse. I do nothing to improve conditions for grouse on my own little parcel up north, other than to let stands of sumac and "aspen"alone, or provide brush piles for them as a byproduct of clearing some areas.

There have been grouse there since I was too young to hunt them. There have been periods when we'd flush a half dozen birds and periods whenwe only flushed a pair or two. I don't hunt them unless I've personally flushed at least three distinct pairs. They haveplenty of cover, assortedapples, berries and large stands of hemlocks. Grouse are either plentiful there, or they ain't. It's been that way as long as I can remember.

As for C-Horse's contention that rank and file workers somehow discovered extra birds to fill the plannedcutback for youth hunt stockings, that's something he may have info on. All I know is that the folks in charge made the decision to add the birds to keep closerthe number originally allocated for the youth hunt stocking.

They had X number of birds to start with. If they hadbirds toput back into theoriginalyouth hunt number, then they probablycame from some other previously-planned allocation.

Not sure where you guys got the data on hunting licenses increasing on a national basis, versus declining sales in PA. Ino longer read many hunting magazines, so it may be so. I have read that license sales and deer harvests, are declining in many of the states surrounding ours and at percentage rates not unlike ours.

I saw the national info on a news show denny.The discussion was anti hunting vs hunting.I was surprised to see the number of hunters actually increase nationwide in these modern times.Good news though.

You may be right about it being the DCR doing theFLIR. studies.On the PCN Network they had something on there several months ago about the deer managment program. They had several legislators asking questions to the PGC and DCNR about deer populations. One legislator ( I wish I knew his name )ask if flyovers were done over DMAP areas. The answer was YES. That same legislator and one other said they would be very interested in some of the other areas they did the fly overs because they hunted there And noticed a sever decline in the numbers of deer they were seeing.

Opinions vs. Facts.......Yeah, I guess facts are better, but it is Opinions that will make or break the PGC.

How much worse can it get? What will the DCNR do that the PGC isn't doing already?

What measurements are the PGC using to determine if deer numbers are still too high, just right, or too low?

They don't have an accurate way to guage the deer population.

I'm sure that the high deer populations in the NC part of the state did impact the habitat. But, I also feel that the mature trees and heavy tree canopy do much to prevent the new growth that deer need.

I just think that the PGC waas selling doe license to make money with no real idea of the actual deer population.

What you need to realize is that the habitat is so degraded in many parts of the north central part of the state that there's nothing for the deer to eat during a bad winter.We were fortunate throughout most of the nineties because the winters were pretty mild.Deer depend on browse in the winter and need close to 5 pounds a day to sustain them.Take and fill a bad up with 5 pound of small twiggs and see how long it takes you to fill it up.No do it for sixty days strait and multiply that by how many deer you think that area should have.It doesn't take long to figure out that just a small number of deer can severly effect such degraded habitat.

Let's face the facts; the PGC sells an exorbitant amount of antlerless tags as a source of revenue.
If the agency has to adjust the doe allocations to suit the enviornment in the North Central areas they will loose mucho bucks.
It sells "chances" on an Elk tag as a form of revenue.
It sells DMAP tags as a source of revenue.
It's going to sell a second Turkey Tag this coming year as a source of revenue.

They don't need a Board of Commissioners to direct the agency, they simply need sales reps.