glew22

Dosen't OH have a 4 month long bow season? How many of PA's 900K hunters only hunt the first day or two of the season? To me this seems like apples to oranges...What's the percent cover comparison between the states? Which state has easy access in suburbia in high dd areas? How does the historical management of both states match up over the 20th century. Comparing OH's highest harvest in history to the PA harvest in the 10th year of herd reduction and drawing conclusions about the success of the mgmt is flawed and oversimplified. That's like trying to explain football to a European by saying "Well one guy throws the ball, and the other one catches it." Just because a=b and b=c does not mean c=d.

DougE

Not only that but you can hunt sundays in Ohio which more than doubles the amount of time people can hunt.Ohio does have a shorter firearms season but you can hunt sundays which increases the amount of time people hunt on key days.

J Pike

LMAO!! PA. has 900,000 + hunters and a High Powered rifle 2 week rifle season as well as the early firearm seasons and OH. has 400,000 Shotgun hunters (and as you SHOULD know the whitetail deer's survival skills are no match for our orange army) that have a 9 day shotgun season and a 4 day ML. season.
I dont know how I can slant it in PA.'s favor any more but I will post
PA.'s firearm harvest to OH.'s firearm harvest (it wont make a difference) And like PA., OH., has the same problems with hunters getting access to land that isnt open to hunting. And as far as using PA.'s worst harvest in 10 years? using any other year is worthless, because this is it!! The harvest might get worse but it isnt going to get any better.
About your comment that alot of PA.'s 900,000 + hunters only hunt a day 2, that is comical!! OH. has the same type of hunters!!
But just to let you know, PA.'s hunters rank first in the entire nation for the following catagories. First in # of hunters per square mile,
First in the amount of time the average hunter spends afield per year!! First in the amount of $$$ spent on the sport. You wont find more dedicated hunters than you do in the state of PA. Is there any other excuse you want to dream up before we continue? Pike

Screamin Steel

All good points, Pike.

Valentine

They're losing deer populations; lost Congressional seats since 1930 and it continues.

I wish I studied psychology in school, I'd come up with a clearer answer and analogy.

There have been, I've watched, many complaints about deer reduction in PA for at least ten years. Before, during, and after. Non-relenting.

Some may wonder about the heated discussions on the subject of "DEER", and then wonder what kind of reception they'd get if they located a multi-million or a billion dollar industry in PA?

What would a non-hunting industrialist think of the public arguments on deer reduction?

But I never studied psychology. And sometimes I wish I had.

RSB

Actually Pike your analogy of the comparison between deer harvests in Pennsylvania verses Ohio is both flawed and biased.

Much of Pennsylvania has very poor deer habitat due to poor soils with mountainous rock outcroppings that carried way too many deer for many decades. Ohio’s soil types and deer history would be more accurately compared to the extreme western parts of the Pennsylvania deer range as are found in the units with the four-point antler restrictions. Both areas have also been experiencing deer herd growth for about the same amount of time so perhaps that is what would be a more accurate comparison in deer harvest data.

If you do that you will find that Ohio harvests about 5.83 deer per square mile while the WMUs of the western part of Pennsylvania with our best soil types and four-point restrictions harvested 10.58 deer per square mile last year. Even if you figure that only half of Ohio is deer habitat it still comes out about the same as the harvest in the parts of Pennsylvania that could logically be compared to the habitats of Ohio.

The parts of Pennsylvania that drag the statewide deer harvest averages down are the poor soil big woods and mountainous areas where we spent more than a half century over protecting the deer to the point they destroyed their food supplies and habitat until only few deer could exist there.

Dick Bodenhorn

Gunplummer

What a lot of nonsense the game commission is pushing. Before this circus started, we allegedly had 38 deer per square wooded mile in this state. Year after year of record harvests and it still stayed at 38 deer per square wooded mile. Even the clowns at the commission can not believe that is possible. The game commission admits they can not get an elk count without snow, somehow they know exactly how many deer there is in the state. An elk is almost three times the size of a deer and inhabits a very small area compared to deer. Am I the only one that sees something wrong there? Bigger deer my ass. The quality of deer where I hunt has gone down since this reduction started. I have old Game News with pictures of big, heavy deer from Potter and other northern counties taken in the 60s. The game commission did studies in the 50s,60s,70s ........and still can't get it right.

sproulman

my friend who makes WARMBAG ,he hunts ohio.he lives in florida.he was up 3 times and got NUTTIN. him like me only hunt bucks.so i think the herd reduction is causing less deer in ohio also.

www.thewarmbag.com

sproulman

i believe that pgc/dcnr said clinton county could hold 11 dpsm.we are at 3 dpsm.this pisses me off to no end.i would be very happy camper if we had 11 dpsm.............

DougE

No,you would still be complaining non-stops if clinton county had 20 dpsm.No way does clinton county have 3 dpsm.If it did,it wouldn't be able to support any harvests and constantly claim that huge crews keep killing deer.