I hunt in s.clinton/n.centre co's wmu 4d, For 3 yrs i have been posting on HNI that the deer were gone and seen alot of other posters stating the same. The 1st year,,I was told in no uncertain terms that "my a$$ was out"!,, I was a slack hunter who did'nt go far enough from the truck and i better get used to it because things were going to change for the better.
The 2nd year: more or less the same thing but more and more guys/gals on here were reporting less & less deer sightings. But now we have the DCNR?Pgc? whoever the he!! it was gonna spend money to do flyovers with a chopper and infrared sumpin or other to tell us that the deer are there,Yep the deer are there guys,,,ya'll just aint huntin em hard enuff!
Now finally this year,,,i reportedat the end of the 1stweek of buck season that after 61 hours on stand i was proud to say that i saw a friggin deer,,one lousy 6pt.scrub buck that my son missed (fast shot thru the fog) But some on here still refused to believe that the deer just were not there,,they would rather blame bad weather and hunting the "same ole stand" was the cause of not seeing deer,,After all the PGC said they were there and they had hard "Facts" to prove that the deer were there.
I myself say BULLSH!T
What better knowledge can you get to prove any point that your trying to make than from a guy who knows what he's talking about?
Why do some people think that a guy who has been hunting all of his life like alot of guys on here have been is inferior when it comes to knowledge over lets say a friggin helicopter with sum unfriggin known type of heat sensing unit that can tell if a deer is on a certain piece of property?
Im from the old school where a guy tells me he's seeing a problem with the local deer herd and im believing him,,plain and simple.The man has been hunting for 40-50 years and all the sudden he's retarded???? I dont think so.
Im not the sharpest tool in the shed so to speak but i can tell ya this,,you think it's bad now,,just wait,,,because it's gonna get worse. Because some of us that just knew the PGC,,,DCNR,,and the rest of the so called "fact Holders" who knew everything about our deer herd talked some of us into going out in the stands and shooting every friggin doe we came across in the name of "bigger Bucks" Well,,now we have no doe,,,whats worse we have no Fawns.Like i said before im no scholar but no does,,,no fawns ,,means no bigger bucks,,He!!,,no bucks at all
Me,,,id rather see 30 does a day with their young in tow and shoot a spike buck than have what we currently have!

I don't have a problem going a little deeper into the Game Lands at all to find a deer. In fact, I lrelish the idea. The problem Ihave is that when I go in that extra mile or so I don't see Vern Ross or Mike Schmit. I've neverencountered Cal DuBrock. I looked for Rus Schleiden, Roxane Palone, John Reilly and Greg isabella. None of those people were there, deep in the Game Lands woods.

My guess is that they don't hunt the Game Lands or State Parks. I know that Roxane Palone hunts her mother's farm. I know that Rus Schleiden hunts his own very large farm, and I know that Greg Isabella hunts private land. Jerry Feaser hunted on Joe Neville's family farm this year.Even the great Dr. Gary Alt hunted his families farm.

So how could they possibly know what the conditions are like on the Game Lands and the State Parks?

There's nothing like first hand experience, is there?.

well said crazyhorse!

I think that these photos will drive home my accusation of agency mismanagement. These were taken on various New Jersey Wildlife Management Areas, which are the equivelent of our Pennsylvania Game Lands.

The dates of these photos are 20-DEC-05, 24-DEC-05, 29-DEC-05 and 31-DEC-05, respectively. We had a damn fine pheasant year in Jersey. (Note the Quail in a couple of the photos.) We did have one day that proved to be unproductive, but only because I missed two birds. I won't tell you how many Roosters I missed (You can shoot hens too.), I'm enbarrassed. And right now (02-JAN-06) I'm getting ready to go out again for a couple of hours.

Imagine, hunting small game on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.
Only in New Jersey!

Now, if a looser state such as New Jersey can manage a productive Pheasant Program, why can't a great hunting state such as Pennsylvania do at the very least the same? We certainly should be able to do better, or does New Jersey know something about manageing small game that Pennsylvania's wildlife managers don't?





Why couldn't these pictures have been taken in Pennsylvania?

Answer:AGENCY M I S M A N AG E M E N T !!!!

They still arent able to get rid of all the antlerless tags in 2B. The gamelands are what suck. You see more orange than trees. You need to know someone now to hunt on there land. Also, you have a bunch of knucklheads that just blast away, and dont follow any rules, so people are very hesitant to let them hunt on there land. Its a shame

Since I have been around the block a bit and used to be an avid pheasant hunter, I am really curious as to what you would do to manage pheasants in Pennsylvania. Don't be bashful. Give us a step-by-step program as to how you would bring back pheasant hunting. Obviously the game commission is a total failure at it, so maybe they could learn something from an expert such as you?

Windwalker,I agree that the deer are not the only factor effecting the current state of our forest.A closed canopy is certainly a huge factor.Regardless,under these current conditions,the carrying capacity is greatly diminished and it takes very few deer to impact the habitat.Our mature forests cannot handle a big herd during a bad winter.

Cutting allthe trees sounds like a good idea and it would help for a while.However,what will you do when it all turns to poletimber?Pole timber had a much smaller carrying capacity that saw timber.Currently DCNR is on a 100 year rotation with their timber so we always have a continuously renewable resource.That means they're supposed to cut about 1% a year.

Sproulman,I read an article today which reported that they actually colloared 64 doe in the sproul state forest last year.The report when on to say that only 8% of those deer were harvetsed.Now if that's the case,killing 8% of the doe population isn't doing anything to control or reduce the herd.Could it be that the habitat in the limiting factor effecting the size of the herd in that area?It also blows your theory out of the water about DCNR nor being able to find any deer in the sproul.They actually trapped 64 deer in a short period of time.

"patrkyhntr" , sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not an expert. Neither is the PGC when it comes to Pheasants. It's hard to deny that NJ has a working program and Pennsylvania has a REDUCTION program.

Come to the 22-JAN 06 PGC meeting in harrisburg and you can hear some of my thoughts on the matterfor yourself. Bring a friend.

I go away for the holidays and come back to this.

/sigh


Note to Denny from a remark on page 3 about the Corps Biologist lying: I have hunted the lake, there are that many deer there most of the year. At the FIRST sign of hunters or activity in the woods, they bug out to the many many private farms, hard to get to ridgetops, and thickest possible cover they can find. The sign is there, but the deer are smart enough to leave when the hunters and activity comes in.

Since you choose to criticize the "blame" commission's program as poor management, it is now your responsibility to state how it could be improved. What would you do first? Move the entire state to South Dakota? It is easy to criticize, but a bit harder to do the actual management, especially given the lack of money. This is a real problem. Do you have some solution for that? If it gets too bad, the only solution will be to have the DCNR take over game management, which will get rid of those lousy managers you seem so intent on replacing.

I assume that New Jersey's wonderful program is based upon wild breeding populations of ringnecks? How would you accomplish that, given the fact that Pennsylvania farms have zero habitat for ringnecks and most of our gamelands are forests? Come on now. Give us the benefit of your whizdumb. It is very easy to criticize. Not so easy to suggest better ways that work in PA. You dug yourself a hole, buddy. Now climb out of it if you can. And please don't suggest stocking more pen raised birds. Hunting them is not hunting any more than hunting deer in a fenced preserve is deer hunting, or fishing for stocked trout is fishing. By the way, I can find hunting like you experienced in NJ in PA on preserves too.

I would like to be in Harrisburg to hear you propose your new and innovative program to the "Blame" Commission, but a prior committment prevents my being enlightened. I must fly to Reno to attend the SCI convention.