PA WMA 2D
 

Looks like the bucks only first week has been passed in 2D. I love it, people stay in the woods. I watch and hear people shoot brown, down and out of the woods on the first day.
I do think the 4 point one side is provising larger deer and hopefully w/this law not all the button buclks are massacreed the first day.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

yes buck hunter i hunt 5a 4a and 2g i only archery hunt in 2g mckean county so it hasnt affected me much yet if it did i wouldnt mind its a welcome change now the people who were shooting anything the first few days maybe they wont scare the bucks back so soon now even since the change i still didnt show doe until the saturdays.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

All this is going to do is overly focus on bucks that first week which will allow many more to be killed, which will make 09 a very down year.
I am very displeased that this went thru.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Quote:

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All this is going to do is overly focus on bucks that first week which will allow many more to be killed

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rybohunter, How can you not overly focus on them now? You have tocount 4 on one side prior to pulling the trigger, statistics show that 50% of the buck kill happens on the first day, after that I don't see the hunters in the field and the deer are settled pretty much back to routine.
In addtion to the long bow season, There is plenty of opportunity to kill meat deer and shoot large bucks undisturbed.

I guess I am not understanding what you are saying or meaning with that comment. You have about 6-9 weeks bow hunting ANY deer. I have 1 week w/ a gun buck only. Personally I pop does for meat and hunt bigger bucks. I pass many young or small bucks who are carrying 4 on one side. I also spend time hunting in the woods. I do concentrate on bucks!!!

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Yea you completely misunderstood me.

I feel that having the 1st week buck only will make for a higher overall buck harvest because that will be all you can shoot during that time. With concurrent seasons, some guys are likely to shoot does, and take timeaway from the pursuit of bucks. It's just my opinion that more bucks will get shot over the course of a one week buck only/one week concurrent setup, than would during a 2 week concurrent season. That's all. Has not a thing to do with comparing bow/gun or counting points or whatever.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Well, not all deer hunters are bow hunters.for one thing. You just can't make that analogy.
What I fail to understand is why in the world a hunter has to wait until the first Saturday to shoot a doe in 2D??? This is a far cry from the situation in 2G and others. In the areas I hunt in 2D, there are plenty of deer, and truthfully, some serious harvesting needs to be done. I don't get it................

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

I live on the 2B-2D line and I don't know of any part of 2D where there aren't plenty of does. I can see Rybo's point.Some guys would quit after shooting a doe early on. Maybe they don't go back out and thereforeless pressure is put on the bucks. I guess we'll all know soon enough.

I don't think it will result in lower doe kills because we'll effectively have two "opening days"

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

I wasn't dissing Rybow, merely questioning the thoughts. I know 2D is loaded w/ doe, we have herds of 20 and 30 deer feeding pur plots. I am up in northern 2D and you can't go anywhere w/out running into deer.
Just as an aside, we try to kill our does early on, someone brought in the theory of shooting them before rut, less prego does whacked and less does in the herd. It t is bad enough that we pretty much know where the bucks are as they don't have to travel for companionship.

Interesting that 1-2 hours north, my friends are selling camps they have had for 30 years because no deer.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

It's all about quality habitat buck hunter.Poor habitat=few deer.Decades of having too many deer devistated the habitat in the northern tier.Now there's less deer and the habitat is starting to recover.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

There are a lot fewer deer in the northern tier because harvests have been exceeding recruitment for many years. Studies show that even the poor habitat in the northern tier can support more than 30 DPSM.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Studies from where? The USP?

I smell a deaddeer!

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Here is the link to the study on by de Calesta and Susan Stout on, "The Relative Deer Density and Sustainability".

http://www.fortgrundsow.com/RDD%20253.jpg

The graph shows that our forests can support over 40 DPSM on a sustainable basis. The report was also referenced in the Audubon Deer conference report.

Here is a better link to the to the same graph.

http://www.fortgrundsow.com/RDD%20Curve.jpg

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

The first link is completely unreadable and the second merely shows a graph with no index defining what the numbers and letters are.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Found the study on my own and that chart you put uplists deer density as a variable. What that chart says is that recruitment is at its highest when deer density is at 40%- 50% of the lands carrying capacity.

You have taken part of the study results out of context much like a former (banned) member used to do here regularly.


I still smell that deaddeer!

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

You are correct that the study shows max. recruitment occurs at 50% of the max. carrying capacity. But the graph also shows that max. recruitment occurs at around 43 DPSM. Nothing was taken out of context and it is a well established and accepted principle that the MSY carrying capacity is 50-60% of the max. carrying capacity.

If you have the link to the report on the Audubon Conference , the graph is explained there in simpiler terms.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Again, you left out something very important! First, thegraphs I could finddid not include a firm dpsm number but feel free to post one. Also, the areaused for that particular graph was NOT 100% forested but contained a substantial amount offields. Thats a vast difference to much of the overbrowsed heavily forested areas in 2G and 2F as well as many other areas with similar poor habitat.

Again, apples and oranges and statements of incomplete fact. Maybe you should run for office. If you arent deaddeer, beenthere, ddearetc under a new alias, you sure are beginning to sound like his clone.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

The densities I provided were from the study by de Calesta and that study was conducted in contiguos hardwoods of NW PA, Here is a quote which describes the study.

"Based on a 10-year, deer-enclosure study (de-
Calesta 1994) we estimated K and RDD levels associ-
ated with deer impact on many forest resources. The
study incorporated 4 65-ha study sites in northwest-
ern Pennsylvania divided into 4 deer enclosures. We
designed the study intending to maintain white-tailed
deer densities of 4, 8, 16, and 32/km2 within the en-
closures for 10 years. As all sites were within large
blocks of contiguous second-growth forest, we
opened each enclosure by 10% clearcutting and 30%
thinning for forage creation. We used only adult fe-
male deer, and we replaced losses due to escapes,
predation, starvation, or poaching every spring to
maintain desired densities. the basic relationships of K to RDD values extracted
from the study will apply to other landscapes, pro-
viding a useful starting point for integrating manage-
ment of deer and other forest resources based on
deer density and forage availability. Absolute deer
densities at each of the RDD values may differ among
landscapes with different quality and quantity of deer
forage, but we hypothesize that the ratios of RDD to
K will be consistent.
We summarized the interactions of deer with plant
communities as a function of RDD and integrated re-
sults of deer impact studies with McCullough

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

I'd like to see the complete study, not parts and pieces.Some quotes from the one page link:

"K carrying capacity = the population density at which mortality is balanced by recruitment so that net recruitment is zero."

"If deer densities associated with sustainable deer harvest and impacts on various forest resources can be expressed relative to K, and if the relationship is consistent accross differing landscapes, then managers will have a useful diagnostic tool...

"Use of this tool will require techniques for estimating K at appropriate scales."

Lots of "IF" statements in that clip. You quote this report like it is science but it clearly leaves plenty of room for "estimating", "If/Then Statements", etc...

I agree Deadear is back....and his numbers are like the energizer bunny they just keep going and going and.....

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

Here is the link to the study.

http://www.deerandforests.org/resour...ainability.pdf

None of the numbers I posted are my numbers. They are all numbers and goals published by professional deer managers.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

And this report you post, now thatIwas able to read the whole document,does not support your cry for 40 dpsm. It clearly states that at higher deer densities the ecosystem is impacted negatively. This report actually appears to support the way the Game Commission is going about reducing the deer herd to allow the ecosytem to recover from the many years of higher deer densities. Interesting read.

RE: PA WMA 2D
 

I didn't say that 30 DPSM wouldn't effect the habitat, I simply said that the habitat in 2G could support 30 DPSM at or below the MSY carrying capacity and that is what the report shows. It also shows the PGC is managing the herd at RDDt, which is the MSY for max. timber production.