bluebird2

I had a good year, I saw a deer!!!!!

livbucks

I saw virtually no hunters and heard exactly one shot in our annual two day trip to 2F. This is the same as it has been for the last several years. Hunters are not keeping the deer down. It is attributable to other factors at this point. When you see mature does with no fawns, there is a problem in the woodpile.

bluebird2

Alt claimed that ARs would increase the breeding rates and shorten the breeding window and the predators would be swamped with fawns thereby increasing recruitment . I said he was lying because with the reduction in the adult doe their would be a lot fewer fawns born and the negative effect of predation would increase instead of decreasing.

Buck Hunter 1

have to have the time to spend in the woods. If you make it buck only the first week and guys have doe tags , they are not going to take time form work to hunt buck only on a first day. I am thinking this past Saturday w/ doe open in 2D would have been good and this week as the doe tags come into play. In our area 1/2 the hunters were around for the first day/week. No one moving deer. Processor only saw a 1/4 of the deer he had last years 1st week so far. We got the deer, just seems no one has the time to hunt them anymore. Another thing though, i saw a lot more guys hunting bows this year, both X and high tech compounds.A the deer seasonsre changing so that guys want to spend more time on the rut? It has become so easy to kill a deer (doe) in gun season that maybe the hunting challenge is swinging towards the bow or ML seasons?

muzzyman88

I hunt private ground in 4D, which usually doesn't have a deer scarcity problem in most areas. However, from my stand, I can hear a good ways onto a big tract of public ground and didn't hear much shooting. Talking with some guys that hunt over there, they're not seeing much, a couple deer and lots of turkeys.

It's simple. The PGC has accomplished what it set out to do. They wanted the deer killed. They got the deer killed. Areas with high hunter densities in the past put a big hurt on the deer populations in those areas once the new regulations came in. Now, those very same hunters aren't hunting anymore or hunting a lot less because they simply aren't seeing anything. Kids aren't interested in spending a cold day in the woods watching squirrels.

The PGC sold this plan to us by telling us we'd all see much bigger, more mature bucks. I like the AR, and continue to support it. However, I believe they pulled the wool over most of our eyes. PA will never be an Illinois, Kansas, Texas or any other mid western state where big bucks are the norm. We still have many more hunters than most of those states. And, we're packed into smaller areas to boot. PA is most mountainous, the feed is not there to support wide spread big bucks. Sure, we always hear or see about a few big bucks taken each year. But again, its no Illinois, don't kid yourself.

IMO, the bottom line is that the PGC went way overboard. They removed way too many deer in areas that didn't need it to begin with. Now, people are losing interest or only go out a day or two. They're now grabbing at straws trying to figure out how they're going to pay their light bill by legalizing crossbows, allowing people to use guns during traditional archery seasons, letting you blast a doe all season long, etc.

Just what the heck did the PGC think was going to happen?

Cornelius08

Good post muzzyman. I agree with everything said.

PAThwacker

I hunted archery hard, and only seen immature bucks. I adjusted from hunting the big woods (waste of time, no sign, no food, nothing but an immature canopy wasteland),and concentrated 50 yards from homes with bow, or 150 with gun. You gotta do what you gotta do with the birdfeeders and swingsets. Sad but true......just ask the PGC.

bowfly

Our season has been a bit slow to start, not as much shooting as normal, but food sources (corn cut during thanksgiving week) shifted many deer where i hunt rifle...though, i did see a total of 16 deer total during the first week, including two non-legal bucks for my WMU I was hunting 4E...I did take a fat doe in the snow on Saturday at 4:52, which was really cool, she came up with a 3 point and a fawn from last year...cool night, the doe was just icing on the cake

DougE

This is by far the best year I've ever had in 2G.

Cornelius08

Yeah. We know doug. And according to you previously, so was last year and the year before that and the year before....

Keep repeating every day on every board for the next 10 seasons and maybe sooner or later more than the tiny handful of the same usual suspects will agree with you that the pgc plan isnt a complete and utter failure.