Cornelius08

Lanse, its all relative. There are very very few areas that do not have poorer hunting now than we did previously. In many areas that have little public land, the private is heavily hunted for the most part, and has been hit just as much as much of the public.

OUr harvest didnt drop to a 40 yr low buck harvest, have the herd decline to the extremes statewide total by only overharvesting the relatively small amount of public land that makes up the state.

Its been across the board blanket herd reduction. There are good highly off limits areas here and there scattered far and wide of course, but thats not saying much.

I hunt several properties across 3 adjoining counties. A couple public and several private. Much of the private is open for the asking and gets pressured just as much as the public.

We are very close to the point now where to have real good hunting, you hafta buy a good sized property, post it, and keep pgc's management plan as far away from it as possible.

bluebird2

I hunt all private land and the habitat is excellent but we probably have one third of the deer we had in the 80s and 90s. They issue huge numbers of antlerless tags in an attempt to reduce the herd in areas where hunters have limited access. But most of the tags are used on land that is open to hunting and in those areas the herd has been reduced to ridiculous levels.

White-tail-deer

Plenty of deer in 5B & 5C. Bigger buck being shot (notice I did not say Booner Buck, but BIGGER Buck before you two doom and gloomers jump down my throat).

BTBowhunter

Lanse it's all a matter of perspective. Pennsylvania is blessed with an abundance of public land. I'm not sure where Pa would rank bu I'd bet that it's right near the to of the list for total public acreage in a state with the high human density population it has.

Some areas of public land now have much lower deer densities but there are also vast areas of public land that are holding their own. There is no doubt that hunters in te North Central region who used to sit on their favorite spot and see 50-60 deer a day are now seing less deer but just a few counties to the east, still public ground mind you, it's still very well populated with deer but admittedly less than 10 years ago. the trade has beenbetter body size, health and antler quality. Many peopel have had to adapt but the deer hunting is still very good and often better for those that hunt more than a day a year.

Private land hunting is usually better but that depends on several variables including hunting pressure, food and cover. Much private land around here is still open to all for hunting. As with any state, private land is being closed to hunting way too fast but ther's still plenty out there to hunt

As for who's in the majority, I'll simply say that study after study shows that most people say nothing when they are content. someone who is unhappy is ten times more likley to get voal than someone who is satisfied. W have a very vocal minority but it is a minorityaccording toevery study and poll done so far

Plenty of deer in 2B, tons in 2D, and decent numbers in 2F

bluebird2

The PGC did a survey that showed 57% of the hunters rated the deer management plan as fair to poor. Unfortunately the PGC deleted that report from the PGC website. without a doubt the majority of the hunters support ARs because they have no idea we are harvesting fewer 2.5+ buck than we did in 2002, before any 1.5 bucks were saved by ARs.

RSB

The fact is that the deer hunting in Pennsylvania is still some of the best in the nation and based on the average harvests the state were hunters harvest the most deer per square mile.

Here is the deer harvest data per square mile of land mass for some of the surrounding states.

State…………..Five average deer harvest/sq. mile

Penna…………………….9.41
Maryland………………..9.25
Wisconsin……………….8.64
New Jersey………………8.29
Michigan…………………8.03
West Virginia…………….7.60
Delaware…………………6.63
Virginia………………….5.62
Ohio……………………..5.21
New York……………….4.82

As you can see the Pennsylvania deer populations must still be pretty good or hunters simply wouldn’t be able to harvest as many as they do.
Of course there are areas of Pennsylvania that have more deer then other areas, just like is true in every state.

I will post the five highest harvest units and the five lowest harvest units based on the five year harvest averages. All data is in harvests per square mile of land mass.

Ranking………..Unit………….Antlerless harvest…………….antlered harvest…………….total harvest

1.……………….2B…………………10.70. ………………………3.52.……………… ………14.22
2.……………….2A………………….9.49. ……………………….4.29.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦13.78
3.……………….2D………………….8.53. ……………………….4.11.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦12.64
4.……………….5C………………….7.94. ……………………….3.31.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦11.25
5.……………….1A………………….7.65. ……………………….2.95.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦10.60

18.………………2F………………….4.50. ……………………….2.64.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦7.14
19.………………5A………………….4.42. ……………………….1.97.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦6.39
20.………………3D………………….4.09. ……………………….2.00.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦6.09
21.………………4D………………….4.03. ……………………….2.33.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦6.36
22.………………2G………………….2.35. ……………………….1.65.……………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦4.00

Don’t put too much stock in all of the snotting and whining you hear from some of the hunters. Many of the ones complaining of no deer today were the same ones complaining about no deer from having killed too many ten and even fifteen and twenty years ago too. I have been listening to hunters complaining that the Game Commission is issuing too many doe tags and killing off to many of the deer every single year for over forty years. Even while the deer populations were very obviously increasing.
One of the problems today is that many of the hunters remember the days of twenty and thirty years ago when all of the state’s hunters had to hunt on about a third of the state to find deer. Back in those days all a hunter had to do was find any spot and stand there as deer, fleeing hordes of hunters ran past them all day long. Now our hunters are equally spread over the entire state so we have large areas where deer can escape the hunting pressure and aren’t being chased past hunters all day long. Now hunters have to hunt were the deer are instead of just where they want to sit and wait if they expect to see deer. Many hunters have refused or totally failed to adjust to the fact they now have to hunt their own deer up in it’s habitat instead of just sitting and waiting for someone to chase one past them though the open woods where most deer have no desire to ever go.

Make no mistake about it, Pennsylvania still has some of the best deer hunting in the nation and it is once again getting even better for the hunters that actually like to hunt.

R.S. Bodenhorn

BTBowhunter

Your ongoing drivel is getting so tiresome.

According to you, the majority of hunters support AR because they don't know any better.

The majority of wildlife professionals support all the basics of PA's plan but according toyou they are biased or they just don't understand.

Maybe it's not the majority of hunters, the PGC or even Dr Kroll Dr Samuel, Charles Alsheimer, QDMA etc etc who are wrong. Maybe its the few dinosaurs like Bluebird and Cornelius and the United Spike Shooters who are wrong.

4evrhtn

First, thanks for being the PAGC's sweetheart in regard to this thread. We need people like you to keep the discussions on Game Commission improvement from being one sided. I know nothing about you but Iwill tell you this. I am 30 yrs. old, have hunted since 1990 and have not shot a buck under 6 points since 92.I have harvested a buck all but 2 years that I hunted.
Do not confuse this success rate as being the result of what the PaGC has done. I just put the time in that is needed. I spend more time in the woods than most who work for the game commission. I am anything but lazy as the PaGC would have you thinkPAhunters are. I do not agree with the direction the PAGC has taken during the years I have hunted. The system is designed to minimize the deer herd while increasing turkey, coyoteand bear populations and little else except hawks. I do not expect to see a buck the first day 30 yds from my truck nor do I want to. I am a hunter. I love being in the woods. I don't expect hunting to be easy and I don't want it to be easy. However when having sat now nearly every night(this season)in the mountains and only having seen 1 yearling doe I can not understand your love affair with the PAGC. They are not doing right by us or the deer.
As far as you stats on kills per sq. mile. Have you researched the numbers on how many hunters there are per sq. mile in PA compared to others? If the hunting is so great in Pa, Why do we have the highest decline in hunters in comparison to the other states you listed? Numbers are one thing and this is why the system and methods are failing. The PAGC needs to get off their ass and get in the woods and stop hiding by this stat and that study without seeing the big picture- It's about consumer satisfaction and managing wildlife not how can we cut corners and get more $ out of the land. Must go to work or I would continue

fellas2

R.S. Bodenhorn,you on the PGC payroll or something ??? You rattle of these statistics like they are gospel,but fail to realize they are published by the same organization we are questioning.I said it before and i'll say it again,stats can and are manipulated in many ways to support whatever stance they would like to take.You post that 2A has the second highest harvest per square mile in the state,but as some one who has hunted there the past 20 odd years,I defy you to go to Greene County and find any place to hunt other than a few sections of State Game Lands that are over run with hunters and desolate with deer.Sure 2b has the highest rate.It's second in the state in populations so the deer that are there are confined to much smaller areas increasing the deer density.Coupled with hunters now staying around home to hunt since there are no deer left in the north central mountains,you are bound to have such skewed numbers.You find me private property to hunt on without having to pay
( hence my previous example of basecampleasing.com) and i'd be glad to hunt there.Why would a private landowner give permission to some one to hunt for free when they can lease the hunting rights for anywhere between $10-30 per acre which is quickly becoming the norm.If you hae been hunting for 40 years as you claim,you cannot deny the fact that there are not as many deer in huntable areas today as there used to be.You would have to agree that the PGC has failed miserably in the management of "all" small game with the exclusion of turkeys, and most big game.The introduction of coyotes, as well as EHD and other disease,in conjuntion with their poor management has put this state in downward spiral that it's currently in.If license sales are declining,they only have to look in the mirror for thr real culprits !!!

bluebird2

The funny thing is we still have some good hunting in areas where the PGC plan failed to achieve it's goals while at the same time those areas where the plan has worked as designed, we now have the worst hunting in 40 years. Just imagine how low the harvests would be if the PGC had achieved their goals statewide.