Spotting deer in PA?
 

Are there dates when you are allowed to spot deer? I know you can't during hunting season, but is there a starting date?

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

no date ever listed, only that you can't do it after 11:00 pm.....and during rifle season, but the other seasons are fine

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Cant seem to find it but I beleive the spotting ban starts the evening before regular gun season and stays in effect till the regular gun season is over.

You are definitely fine for a few months... enjoy!

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

So you guys think it is still legal during archery season? I had always thought that it wasn't?

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

definitely legal in the archery season. It might be worth a call to the PGC if you will want to spot during that week of early muzzy/youth/senior doe season in October though.

Couldn't find it on the website but it should be in the license digest. I'll take a look atone later on and post what I find

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Yeah, I'd appreciate that BTBowhunter. I'll be in PA later this week to do some scouting, buy license, SPOT, etc. so I just wanted to find out whether I was going to be able to spot while I was there. But if I'm allowed to spot during archery, bonus! Didn't know that.

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Page 21 in the hunting and & trapping digest.


www.pgc.state.pa.us

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Thanks guys. Got what I needed.

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

We used to drive around a bit after firearms deer season started (was buck season back then) and spot a few places about the middle of the firstweek.

Made foran interesting comparison how much deer behavior, locationsand movement had changed, since the Sunday night before the season started and they hadn't been subjected to all thathuman presense for several days, not to mention having been shot at.

PAbanned all spotlighting once firearms season starts and the ban extends through the end of ANY extended firearms seasons (where applicable), probably to make it more difficult for someone to jacklight a deer during the season, but I kinda miss those short trips to observe deer aftersundown,once the season had started.

I don't usually start spotlighting until late October and mostly enjoy it the 3 nights at camp prior to opening day. As for locating bucks, I've personally never seen it pan out. Far too many timeswe saw bucks nearby Sunday night and never got a glimpse of them again, once the season opened the next day.

One year there was a dandy buck hanging around the farm down the road from camp for several weeks prior to the opener. All 3 boys and the farmer were excited about the prospect of getting a shot at him Monday morning. Sunday night when we spotlighted, the buck wasin the apple orchard next to their house. By dusk on Monday, dad and the boys were all disgusted that they hadn't seen him. Made 'em even more disgusted when I told them where the rascal had been about 10PM the night before.

:)

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

you are correct.

most of poaching seems to be from 11pm to 2 am area from what i have seen over years.
smart localpoachers do it during week and out of town ones do it during weekends.

i was in night bass tournament and was sitting in dark, up road at 1.35 am came the pick -up truck.

they stuck a CROSSBOW out window and shot a duck.
they had fishing line on arrow, dragged the duck to truck,bro its neck, threw it in bed, reloaded the CROSSBOW, shot and got another goose.

then slowly went down road.

sorry i got off topic.have fun spotlighting.;)

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

In the late 60s and early 70s when I went coon hunting with my cousin in Steuben, Potter and Tioga a few times, wasn't unusual to hear the occasional kaboom way off somewhere's at 1 o'clock in the morning. One night we were halfways up a steep hill and taking a break, whena shotwent off not too far away.

My cousin seldom says much, butcommented thatsomeone must've run out of 22 ammo and had to usetheir 30-06 to hunt coons. Couldn't see his face there in the dark, but assumed he grinned when he said that?

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Sproulman, how can you take a thread on spot lighting and turn it into a an anti Xbow campaign. And the story you tell is magnificent to say the least! I would love to learn how to tie a line on a 20 inch bolt and shoot a duck. Please start another thread on that topic as I have much to learn. ...... Spotting is fun and we keep logs of who saw what where. There is always jacklighters, ruins the game w/there 22 's. We have seendeer sparring, youngsters jumping and having fun just enjoyable to watch. We have seen coyotes on the stalk of fawns and herd, just amazing sites. I miss it here in OH.

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Hey! Dont question Sprouls stories! He never fibs!

I heard a similar story from that neck of the woods from a reliable source. I know he's reliable because he always shows up at the same bar every night and sits in the same stool for hours. Thats reliable!

It seems some Cameron county locals were shooting ducks with their crossbow at night. Well they were having a decent night and while reeling in a small duck, a huge bass swallowed it and so they had a record bass on the line. Unfortunately, the bass was eaten by a huge musky! After a long battle the musky was beached only to be snatched up by a coyote. They almost had the coyote in when a cougar snatched the coyote and took the line back out. The cougar put up a great fightand they almsot had it in when a saquatch grabbed the cougar and broke the line. The unlucky crossbow anglers started home discouraged as day was breaking but their bad luck wasn't over yet. As they passed through the stateforestland a big crew of kid hunters from the flatlands were putting on a big drive to get the last buck on the mountain. The buck broke from cover and the brown it's down crew opened up on him. There was so much lead flying sround that a locust limb was cut clean off and fell through their truck windsheild, bounced out and smashed their bassboat.

True Story!!!!!

RE: Spotting deer in PA?
 

Only problem I had with that entirepost, was your definition of "reliable".

We called them what shows up every night to occupy the same barstool, barflies. If they repeated the same tales night after night, we called them the local PITA barflies.

It's about the onlything I miss about drinkin' beer andhangin' out in ginmills, since I gave 'er up around 19 years ago...all that great outdoorslore one gets to hear.

[8D]