Screamin Steel

Are you for real? Seems to me that recent reports show grouse at a statewide average increasing and wild turkey populations at or near record levels, but hey...if the habitat doomsday scenario justifies more HR in your mind, have at it. You make it sound like PA is turning into a moonscape, and all because of the deer. Bet you buy into global warming too, sport.

sproulman

it used to be back in 60s i could walk out of my home in town, walk up any hollow and shoot AT grouse all day.

reasons were GOOD HABITAT,HARDLY SAW HUNTER,LOT OF TRAPPERS KILLING FOX/COONS, LACK OF HAWKS,MOST SHOT A OWL WHEN THEY SAW ONE.

now we have, BAD HABITAT,COYOTES, HAWKS, OWLS, FOX,FISHERS,RACCOONS AND HUNTING PRESSURE ON AREAS WITH GOOD HABITAT .this year i was only turkey hunting for 2 days in spring do to dad being sick.in those 2 days i saw 18 hunters in about a 3 mile area.why, because feed/turkeys were all there in one area and hunters today are scouting more than ever before.30 years ago i would not see hunters ever.

this is causing the game to be hunted out.just like fish we stock, they fish hole out as soon as we dump them in.

i cant get many to help while hunting, i say, CAN YOU LEAVE GROUSE GO AND ONLY KILL ONE.they wont,same with doe hunting, they will drive same area over and over until they clean the doe out.

Buck Hunter 1

Sproul agree on hunting the grouse, terrible numbers out there and i used to be poart of the surveys back in the 80's. I watched the grouse siting.drumming/flushiung/shooting numbers drop dramatically ovr a 10 year period until I quit becaus ei moved. I have watched and read about the 10 year cyclyes but don't know if I can remember them coming back in any numbers like the 70's - early 80's. Predators I feel is the big reason for this gamse drop, rabbits etc. I have been maintaining small game habitat for years and not allowing small game hunting on that patch, #'s of flushes etc.have been down, but carcasses which include turkey are up!! Again, i beleive if yu can, do not depend on the PGC to help you get control of your ground, you have to do it. But they will write tickets because you take care of your ground! Depradation from flying and ground predators has killed small game hunting in my area. No I don't want to hunt a stocked bird or pay for a ranch hunt, I want wild birds. Rabbits are so infrequent you jump up in the air when one flushes out of a pile of brush. Take control of your area, be careful and start a rebuilding process of youre woods and hunting areas. We started with the deer 8-9 years ago and have been including small game as we grow. Good luck!

ManySpurs

I sure don't see any shortage of turkeys. And the grouse populations in these parts are pretty darned good. I seen a good number of broods this spring. Ain't no shortage of songbirds either. They were so loud at dawn this spring that unless you were pretty close to a gobbler, the songbird noise drowned out the gobbles.

I dunno where people come up with these idears.[:'(]

bawanajim

I haven't heard a grouse here in five years. Crows have become the state bird.[:@]

bluebird2

When the vast majority of the forests are in the pole and saw timber stage you aren't going to have a lot of grouse no matter how much we reduce the herd.

bawanajim

I know its hard for you to fathom a post without HR,AR,MSY,CC,DPSM or any other of your made of fiction novelty ideas, but habitat is the key to wildlife and world is a hell of a lot bigger than what you see out your window. I live in Crawford county, its not pole timber or any other of you deer free idea of what wood lots look like.

sproulman

if we are looking at grouse numbers ,say here in clinton county from now back to lets say 1980s.IT IS MUCH BETTER.
why.from what i am seeing its do to HABITAT.everywhere we had big fire or trees were removed, in about 6 years we have grouse/turkeys.you can walk open woods and see very little grouse ,ONLY during afternoon when they take nap do you see them in laural .

problem is now the hunters ,us and predators are keying into these areas.remember me saying 18 hunters in small area after turkeys.no way the game is spread out like the 60s was,its all contained in small areas and pressure is on game bigtime.same with deer hunting,you can drive for miles and not see a hunter then 12 trucks in 1 area .

does that mean you can come out and just hunt area with good habitat and get grouse,NO WAY,ITS BEING OVERHUNTED.2 years ago was first time i saw hunters driving for grouse,they had 5 drivers and 4 on watch.they ruined my hunt that day and i moved to another area.they did not care if i was already in that spot.in one way thats good because grouse will be flushed out of area when the hunters arrive,most wont hunt away from the clearcut areas etc.I DO and i do see more grouse but they are extremely hard to hunt and i have to worry more about snakes and porkys/traps.

bluebird2

In 2000 Crawford Co had 158 SM of pole timber , 285 SM of saw timber and onlt 42 SM of seedling /saplings.

R.S.B.

That is nothing more then your highly uninformed opinion.

I too believe the 2000 Penna. deer population most likely was in the 1.6 million range but, that is exactly the reason we needed herd reduction long before that year and also why we have so few deer in many areas today.

The deer populations would never have got that high had it not been for having several years of excellent mast crop years being combined with virtually no adverse or deep winter snow conditions. Those ideal environmental factors combined with record low female deer harvests allowed the deer herd to very rapidly increase way beyond what the habitat could sustain long term.

When the deer herds across much of the state increased to those levels everyone paying any attention to what was happening with the habitat quickly recognized the deer habitat was very rapidly declining to the point we were going to have a deer population crash if the herd wasn’t soon reduced to a long term sustainable level. That herd reduction initiative was finally started in 2000 but was simply too little and too late to allow sufficient habitat recovery prior to the harsh winters that hit the northern and mountainous regions of the state in the winters of 2002 through 2004.

Besides having the more harsh winters in recent years we have also now experienced about a six year run of poor mast crop conditions in many if not most areas of the state. Those factors have combined to hold fawn recruitment at much lower levels then what had been occurring in the late 1990s and early in the 2000s.

We would undoubtedly have more deer over much of the state today if those herd reductions had started years earlier before the deer herds so severally damaged their winter food supplies. Just because you refuse to accept the real facts of habitat and environmental variables or how they affect deer densities certainly doesn’t mean more knowledgeable people can’t or shouldn’t understand them.

R.S. Bodenhorn