Time To Turn The PGC Into Scrap!!
05-27-2010, 06:14 PM
#91
Fork Horn
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 147
pats. douge observation is way dofferent than i am seeing.I AM SEEING LOTS OF HUNTERS DRIVING THE SAME AREAS OVER AND OVER here in clinton county. .20 in crew,most seasoned hunters that know woods ....
in all years i hunted i NEVER heard of old deer like over 5 yrs old.reason today it may happen is because of the 3/4 point rule on buck, i dont know but it is not NORMAL even today to see buck over 4 yrs old on SFL..
if so its usually PRIVATELAND nearby or safety zone where you cant hunt and buck gets away.it is not NORMAL or common for a buck to be old on STATEFORESTLAND.just to much hunting pressure for a trophy buck to survive.
if nice buck is seen on SFL hundereds of hunters will know it. you think a trophy buck is going to get away on SFL with all those hunters after it.not only hunters but poachers will LIVE in that area after that buck. they will spotlight and ride that area to death.
i reported on here the biggest buck in my area was found with horns cut off. pgc knows its our local poacher with bedroom full of mounts.then heads missing in other area off rt144, was it same poacher?
all these trophy bucks were near PRIVATELAND on SFL.BUCK IS NOT GOING TO GET OLD ON SFL.
as douge and rsb said,IT DOES HAPPEN BUT THERE IS REASON IT DOES,it is not for lack of hunting pressure.nope dont buy that one !
sproul has spoken!
in all years i hunted i NEVER heard of old deer like over 5 yrs old.reason today it may happen is because of the 3/4 point rule on buck, i dont know but it is not NORMAL even today to see buck over 4 yrs old on SFL..
if so its usually PRIVATELAND nearby or safety zone where you cant hunt and buck gets away.it is not NORMAL or common for a buck to be old on STATEFORESTLAND.just to much hunting pressure for a trophy buck to survive.
if nice buck is seen on SFL hundereds of hunters will know it. you think a trophy buck is going to get away on SFL with all those hunters after it.not only hunters but poachers will LIVE in that area after that buck. they will spotlight and ride that area to death.
i reported on here the biggest buck in my area was found with horns cut off. pgc knows its our local poacher with bedroom full of mounts.then heads missing in other area off rt144, was it same poacher?
all these trophy bucks were near PRIVATELAND on SFL.BUCK IS NOT GOING TO GET OLD ON SFL.
as douge and rsb said,IT DOES HAPPEN BUT THERE IS REASON IT DOES,it is not for lack of hunting pressure.nope dont buy that one !
sproul has spoken!
The public land of the northern tier is very much under hunted and under harvested.
Dick Bodenhorn
05-27-2010, 06:45 PM
#92
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: PA.
Posts: 5,195
Pat,the northern tier is a vast area with alot of steep terrain.The hunting pressure is very light in all but the most accessible spots.There's so much room for deer to get away from hunters that deer do get old up here.Look at what R.S.B posted.They have a couple hundred deer tagged and they KNOW FOR A FACT that only 8% are getting harvested by hunters.A deer has a better chance of dying from old age on the public land in the northern tier than on any private land unless it's fenced off and not hunted at all.
There was also a study done in Sproul's area a few years ago where they put GPS monitors on hunters and tracked their movements.Very few traveled more than a 1/4 mile from the road.This isn't a slam at hunters because honestly,I would never be willing to hike back in much farther than that to drag a deer out of those steep hollows and ravines.There's very little pressure and the pressure that is there is close to the roads or accessible areas.
Many of the areas I hunt are within a 15-25 minutes of the largest population center in this part of the state.I rarely ever see another hunter actually in the woods after the first day.Even on the first day,I hardly see any.Hunters are not wiping out the deer in 2G like Sproul is trying to claim.
There was also a study done in Sproul's area a few years ago where they put GPS monitors on hunters and tracked their movements.Very few traveled more than a 1/4 mile from the road.This isn't a slam at hunters because honestly,I would never be willing to hike back in much farther than that to drag a deer out of those steep hollows and ravines.There's very little pressure and the pressure that is there is close to the roads or accessible areas.
Many of the areas I hunt are within a 15-25 minutes of the largest population center in this part of the state.I rarely ever see another hunter actually in the woods after the first day.Even on the first day,I hardly see any.Hunters are not wiping out the deer in 2G like Sproul is trying to claim.
if you believe the 1/4 mile thing douge,unreal if you do.but thats your view......first deer are not wayback,food is not wayback. next the trails roads etc go WAYBACK.next you are underestimating how efficient us hunters are in crews.wayback areas are usually full of laural and not much to eat. laural helps a deer to hide but with snow, no way...
food and water is not WAYBACK.its near roads etc, you know that.......
you have to ask why was study done.what did it show. it showed that we dont know how to hunt and dont go more than a 1/4 mile into woods.it showed that deer grow old and die.
trust me, very few deer get to ripe old age of 4 on stateforestland in clinton county.
Last edited by sproulman; 05-27-2010 at 06:48 PM.
05-28-2010, 07:12 AM
#94
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,262
Yes,I do believe it Sproul.I used to think I hunted way back in until I bought a GPS.That was a wake-up call.
Why in the world would you make a claim that all of the food and water is near roads?That's friggin ridiculous.I do agree that you don't have to go very far from a road to be successful in most cases but the fact is,deer have huge area of undisturbed mountains to escape pressure.
Why in the world would you make a claim that all of the food and water is near roads?That's friggin ridiculous.I do agree that you don't have to go very far from a road to be successful in most cases but the fact is,deer have huge area of undisturbed mountains to escape pressure.
05-28-2010, 08:23 AM
#95
Fork Horn
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Lancaster co. PA
Posts: 277
They keep collaring more does each winter to have collars on deer to replace the collars that have quit functioning due to the battery going dead. There are also deer with just ear tags that can’t be seen by a hunter in the population and they aren’t being harvested either so it isn’t hunters just not shooting the marked ones.
During the 2007 deer season Pennsylvania Game Commission deer aging teams pulled teeth from over 5000 adult bucks and sent them to Matson’s Laboratory in Montana for accurate aging by cross sectioning.
They found that 73% of them were 2 ½ years old, 19% were 3 1/2, 5% were 4 ½ and of the remaining 3% one was 10 ½ years. The one 10 ½ was harvested in the Quehanna Wild Area during the last legal hour of the last day of the season.
Dick Bodenhorn
During the 2007 deer season Pennsylvania Game Commission deer aging teams pulled teeth from over 5000 adult bucks and sent them to Matson’s Laboratory in Montana for accurate aging by cross sectioning.
They found that 73% of them were 2 ½ years old, 19% were 3 1/2, 5% were 4 ½ and of the remaining 3% one was 10 ½ years. The one 10 ½ was harvested in the Quehanna Wild Area during the last legal hour of the last day of the season.
Dick Bodenhorn
Yum, that 10 year old sounds tasty.
05-28-2010, 08:47 AM
#96
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: York, PA.
Posts: 1,313
They keep collaring more does each winter to have collars on deer to replace the collars that have quit functioning due to the battery going dead. There are also deer with just ear tags that can’t be seen by a hunter in the population and they aren’t being harvested either so it isn’t hunters just not shooting the marked ones.
During the 2007 deer season Pennsylvania Game Commission deer aging teams pulled teeth from over 5000 adult bucks and sent them to Matson’s Laboratory in Montana for accurate aging by cross sectioning.
They found that 73% of them were 2 ½ years old, 19% were 3 1/2, 5% were 4 ½ and of the remaining 3% one was 10 ½ years. The one 10 ½ was harvested in the Quehanna Wild Area during the last legal hour of the last day of the season.
Dick Bodenhorn
During the 2007 deer season Pennsylvania Game Commission deer aging teams pulled teeth from over 5000 adult bucks and sent them to Matson’s Laboratory in Montana for accurate aging by cross sectioning.
They found that 73% of them were 2 ½ years old, 19% were 3 1/2, 5% were 4 ½ and of the remaining 3% one was 10 ½ years. The one 10 ½ was harvested in the Quehanna Wild Area during the last legal hour of the last day of the season.
Dick Bodenhorn
Last edited by J Pike; 05-28-2010 at 08:55 AM.
05-28-2010, 08:52 AM
#97
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: York, PA.
Posts: 1,313
RSB. remember the survey the local taxidermist in your area was doing a couple of years ago? Ageing, scoring, and measuring the spread of every buck he recieved to compare them to the previous and future years? Could you post those results again. Pike
05-28-2010, 09:16 AM
#98
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: York, PA.
Posts: 1,313
Actually ALL of the studies show that the public land deer of the big woods areas have a very high survival rate through the hunting seasons and are also older than the private land deer.
The public land of the northern tier is very much under hunted and under harvested.
Dick Bodenhorn
The public land of the northern tier is very much under hunted and under harvested.
Dick Bodenhorn
The majority of hunters in PA. wont shoot a doe more than a mile back in because a doe just isnt worth the drag to them. Its as simple as that!! Pike
05-28-2010, 01:02 PM
#99
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,262
Jeff,you'd have to hunt this area to fully understand.There's very little pressure after the first day and few people ever go back in more than 1/4 mile.I hunt alot of remote places.By remote,I just mean away from civilization not just way back in.There are loads of places where I never cut another bootprint,even though there's been snow on the ground for over a month.There's simply too much sprawling land for the limited amount of hunters.I hunted two different areas on state forest on the first day this year and last year.In 2008,I saw one hunter the first day and none the rest of the season.This past year,I saw 4 on the first day and none the rest of the season.I saw doe this fall that was almost pure white.I know for a fact that she's at least 4.5 years old and I also know that she'd be dead if most hunters had a chance at her.She sticks out like a sore thumb and lives her entire life on state forest land.I'm still amazed she's hasn't gotten shot but there's just not much pressure.
I know the taxidermist who R.S.B got that information from.I don't know the exact statistics but I know that he's mounting way more big bucks every year.Prior to AR,he mounted about two a year that had spreads of 20 inches.For the past several years he's doing 50+/year.He used to do around 200-250 whitetails a year,Now he does over 400 most years.I have a picture on my desk that he took on the last thursday of the 2008 season.He has a truckload of capes that he's taking from his skinning shed to the main studio.It looks like something from Iowa with several of those bucks scoring well above 140 inches.I'll fax it to you if you'd like.
Very few hunters in Pa would ever quarter a deer.They don't even quarter the elk that are shot or the bears.
I know the taxidermist who R.S.B got that information from.I don't know the exact statistics but I know that he's mounting way more big bucks every year.Prior to AR,he mounted about two a year that had spreads of 20 inches.For the past several years he's doing 50+/year.He used to do around 200-250 whitetails a year,Now he does over 400 most years.I have a picture on my desk that he took on the last thursday of the 2008 season.He has a truckload of capes that he's taking from his skinning shed to the main studio.It looks like something from Iowa with several of those bucks scoring well above 140 inches.I'll fax it to you if you'd like.
Very few hunters in Pa would ever quarter a deer.They don't even quarter the elk that are shot or the bears.
05-28-2010, 01:26 PM
#100
Fork Horn
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 147
Actually all of the recent deer research is very clearly showing that a high percentage of the deer both bucks and does of the more remote areas of the state avoid becoming a hunter harvest.
Here is part of what Penn State Graduate Student Andrew Norton had to say in the June 2010 “Game News” article he submitted after having analyzed the data from over 1000 Pennsylvania deer being tracked via radio collars over the past decade.
“……WMU 2G typically has much lower harvest rates. This is thought to be primarily driven by lower hunting pressure. Rugged terrain and limited road access can provide safe havens fro the deer further decreasing harvest rates.
Nowhere is the influence of hunting pressure more evident than in the mature buck population. While older bucks seem to be elusive and wary, hunters still harvest up to two-thirds of the mature buck population in WMUs with relatively high hunting pressure. Alternatively, in WMUs with lower hunting pressure (like unit 2G), less than 40 percent of the mature bucks are killed.”
Another indicator of increased numbers of bucks reaching older ages in the more remote areas comes from aging data on several hundred bucks taken to a unit 2G taxidermist.
In 2006 there were 260 bucks aged while in 2007 only 148 ages were recovered from his shop. Here are the aging results:
Age…………Percent of total
2.5……………..40.4 %
3.5……………..35.3 %
4.5……………..13.7 %
5.5………………3.9 %
6.5 +……………2.5 %
To even further support that there are more older bucks than ever before and that many of the mature bucks avoid harvest I am going to post a picture of shed antlers we have found on the game lands over the past couple years.
Dick Bodenhorn
Here is part of what Penn State Graduate Student Andrew Norton had to say in the June 2010 “Game News” article he submitted after having analyzed the data from over 1000 Pennsylvania deer being tracked via radio collars over the past decade.
“……WMU 2G typically has much lower harvest rates. This is thought to be primarily driven by lower hunting pressure. Rugged terrain and limited road access can provide safe havens fro the deer further decreasing harvest rates.
Nowhere is the influence of hunting pressure more evident than in the mature buck population. While older bucks seem to be elusive and wary, hunters still harvest up to two-thirds of the mature buck population in WMUs with relatively high hunting pressure. Alternatively, in WMUs with lower hunting pressure (like unit 2G), less than 40 percent of the mature bucks are killed.”
Another indicator of increased numbers of bucks reaching older ages in the more remote areas comes from aging data on several hundred bucks taken to a unit 2G taxidermist.
In 2006 there were 260 bucks aged while in 2007 only 148 ages were recovered from his shop. Here are the aging results:
Age…………Percent of total
2.5……………..40.4 %
3.5……………..35.3 %
4.5……………..13.7 %
5.5………………3.9 %
6.5 +……………2.5 %
To even further support that there are more older bucks than ever before and that many of the mature bucks avoid harvest I am going to post a picture of shed antlers we have found on the game lands over the past couple years.
Dick Bodenhorn