DougE

The old hunting days got us into the position that we're in now.Think about some of the stuff you posted.On one hand you say hunters are killing all the deer but then you saying,pressure and shooting is way down.If that's the case,who's killing all the deer?Way too many hunter are neglecting to realize how easily fawn recruitment is effected when the habitat is poor,especially during bad winters.Northcentral Pa has a habitat problem caused largly bydecades of excessive deer numbers.Until the habitat starts to recover,we need to keep killing the does.

BOB7255KHZ

Well....I live in the ANF , and yepp the deer in Warren / Forest Co. are down in comparison to other years. I do alot of scouting because I have thet time do so.....I also put on 150 miles a day of driving the back roads around here......well it don't look to good. Like last year.....tons of apples on the ground.....tons of acorns.....no tracks near them. Even in winter, the trails have no prints. One can walk miles with out seeing a foot print ....even old ones.
Years ago it sounded like a war zone sounding through the valleys on opening morning.....recentl years very quiet for the most part ....with the same amount of hunters parked along the roadsides.
I too am a bow hunter and have been for many years. Oh yes , there are still deer around....but not like it was .
But in the same token , some counties seem to be looking very good and should deliver a good take.
We are all sportsman here and want the best from our hunts, and the best for our enviroment.....I guess we must enjoy what we have, after all ....." it's the hunt , not the kill"........enjoy urselves.
BOB

aldo88

Show me where I said the pressure was way down? Yeah I said the shooting is down but when you have how many years of being able to get how many deer per year the population is gonna go down. When did they start the bonus tags? In the 80's. SO we are talking 20+ years of being able to get more than one deer. Hmmmmmmmm dont you think the population is gonna go down? There isnt as much shooting now as there used to be. Why? There are alot of different reasons. But alot of the hunters that are out there are shooting more than 1 deer. Hell most of you admitted to it. Did you do that in the 70's? Back then hunters were also more choosey on what they shot. You got one deer so you wanted to make it a good one. Now you can get at least two so some shoot the first thing that comes along. Some shoot yearlings and see that they are too small and just let them lay there. Now dont you think if you were able to only shoot one deer you make make it a big one? Also not once did I say that we should go back to the 2 week, 3 day forever. I said for a couple of years. BTW check your geography, Warren isnt considered North Central Pa. It is in the Northwest........

ron3775

This agruement is starting to take the wrong turn. I didn't want people to start picking on geography/spelling test. I just wanted to see what people thought. Most people so far have agreed with me. Not visisting the whole state, I didn't know about the condition of the habitat of the North Central area. I have hunted in the southwest and south cental PA regions. When I was younger, I used to hunt in Greene County, where on any given day you could see anywhere from 20 to 50 deer a day. Now hunting down there is pretty much a waste of time. The first day last season it used to be like someone said "sounded like a war zone", now the first day seems like any other day of hunting. Maybe they should start using the regions for other then Antler restrictions then.

DougE

You specifically said there wasn't alot of pressure in your area.Despite having bonus tags,the deer population continued to rise throughout the 90's as evidenced by the increased antlered kill.I'm not trying to attack your hunting skills and I believe that you scout.However,why would you scout an area,find little sign and then hunt there anyway?I hear alot of people say that and I just fail to understand that line of reasoning.There's alot of places that I don't hunt in a given year because there's little sign.That doesn't mean that hunters killed all the deer in that areathough.

Hunters were not more choosey back in the 70's and 80's.Most killed the first legal deer they saw in their scope.That's why we killed more than 75% of our 1.5 years olds each year.The PGC now gives hunters two weeks to take their time andbe more selective.A 3 day doe season would ruin that.

There is no doubt that we have less deer today but that was the plan.We killed record numbers of antlerless deerand we had twoback to back winters that severly impacted fawn recruitment.Habitat conditions have played a huge role in our declining deer population.That problem in starting to get better so why take deer management in the other direction?

I shoot several deer every year and I'll continue to do so.I'm not one of the one's complaining about no deer though.I''ve had alot ofopening days where I only saw 5 or 6 deer.I hunted in Susquehanna county this past opening day in an area that was loaded with deer.I was on my buddy's property and they only hunt the perimeter,sitting from morning till dark.He promised I'd see deer all day but I ended up seeing one doe with a fawn.On my home that night,there were deer all over the place so just because I only saw two deer,that doesn't mean there weren't anyway.That was actually the worstfirst day I've ever had and there's 3 to 4 times as many deer out there than there is where I hunt in 2G.Sometimes you see them and some times you don't.I don't expect to see 30+ deer on the first day of deer season and anyone that does is purely selfish.

Hunters need to embrace the idea of helping the habitat instead of expecting instant gratification.

germain

From what I see Doug it doesn't matter if it's three days or two weeks,plenty of hunters play the brown it's down game.The other year a fawn ran past my son with a few spots on it yet and some A-hole shot it.The new excuse is they have been hunting for almost two weeks so if they see a deer it's going down.Some people just can't pass up a deer no matter how small.
As for fawn recruitment vs herd reduction it's too ironic that the herd crashed after the massive increases of anterless tags and extended seasons.I still believe AR is the culprit for low deer numbers in 99% of the state.Granted there are areas with poor habitat but it's been that way for a long long time yet deer were plentiful.I hunted in Potter in the 70,s and 80,s where you could see 200 yards in some places yet 50 deer a day was a common sight.And we had some bad winters in those years to boot.Why was there so many deer back then with habitat just as poor as today?
I should add that we took some real nice wallhangers back then after we figured out ya gotta go in the thick nasty stuff where a hunter had a 60 yard shot tops.Not only were there more deer back then from our experiences there were more and bigger buck too.

DougE

Rich,there may have been more bigger bucks then but the average size of the bucks in each age class has gone way up.There have been boom andbust cycles before in the northwoods.Do you remeber the winter of 1978?Fawn recruitment was certainly effected that year and the following two years harvests showed.I don't remember any winters during the 80's wherethe snow was to deep to walk through for several months.We had two bad snow storms in 1993.One was right before doe season and one was in march but they didn't last all winter.The conditions were brutal up here in 2004.We had several feet of snow with a heavy crust that lasted from the beginning of feb through most of march.If you don't think that had an effect on deer numbers,your simply not being rational.2003 was't quite as bad but is was worse than most previous winters and there was a poor mast crop both years so deer went into those winters in poor shape.Never in the past 20 years did we have to back to back brutal winters with poor mast production like we did those years.Did we kill alot of deer prior to and during those years?Of course we did but we needed to.

The truth is,the habitat is extremely poor through much of this region.It's poor for the deer,other animals and the timber industry which this region relies very heavily on.If anyone wants more deer than the habitat can handle without further damage,they're being selfish.

If the habitat isn't having an effect on deer numbers,why are they coming up with few deer in some of the most remote and underhunted areas of the state?There used to be a huge amount of deer in the Quehanna wild area.FLIR and pellet counts are coming up with very remoteareas that have no deer or 2 dpsm.Who's killing those deer?

I have 2-3 trail cameras out from june until the end of septemberThe next time you're up,come over and look at pictures and the negatives.I got a total of 2 fawns on film during the summer of 2004.Last year we had a mild winter and I got a bunch.This yearmost mature does have twins and a few have triplets.The habitat plays a huge role in fawn recruitment during bad winters when the habitat is as stressed as it is in most parts of 2G.

BTBowhunter

The PGc has generated plenty of data showing the average age of our harvested buckshas gone up. data on body size and antler size will change much more gradually.
I've got a hunch that no data would convince some here and there's always someone clever enough to use a calculator and some smoke and mirrors to attempt to cloud the issues and discredit any data they dont like

All you have to do is survey the states taxidermists to see that they aretaking in"more and bigger bucks"

ChuckS

I haven't seen anything from the PGC to support that either, I'll have to go search the PGCsite. Knowing them it will take a few years to get the stats available. I have heard a few people quote numbers such ataverage # of points and antlers spreads in various taxidermy shops and buck-pools.
Personally I have noticed larger bodied (weight)deer in my area and also in McKean county but that is somewhat subjective. It woul=d only make sense that with fewer deer thus more browse available that the deer would be larger. Isn't that what your seeing in your area?


That would be an incorrect interpretation of that study.

ChuckS

DougE

I've seen no evidence from the PGC to back that up.However,I have spoken with Cliff Cessna,the biggest taxidermist in this area.He'sages and records each deer that he mounts(over 200 a year).I don't have his records handy but the size of the racks have been going up over the past 20 years for deer in each age class.He's also getting in more deer in the older classes.I went to pick up a buck with my buddy last year and he had several in that were between 6-9 years old.I know personal observation is worthless because a person is only seeing things in a relatively small area.However,the number and size of the bucks I'm seeing this year is better than it's ever been.


Idon't discount the possiblilty that we couldeventually see a decrease inantler size due to highgrading.That's up in the air though since most of our doe are bred before the bucks are killed.