Time To Turn The PGC Into Scrap!!
 

You have two states similar in square miles, Pa. has half a million more hunters than Ohio. If you want to make a comparison, find a state with similar to Pa in square miles and with a million hunters if you want to compare success rates.

We don't have a million hunters in PA.

Jeff

remeber back a few years ago? PA was in herd reduction mode and killing half a million deer year. Ohio is now in herd reduction mode and killing big numbers for their state. When they get their herd knocked down the statewide harvest numbers will drop as well. I thought you would be smart enough to realize this.

WV Gino

Why?? We have over 500,000 more deer hunters that are armed with HIGH POWERED RIFLES and more and longer Firearm seasons, compared to OH. gun hunters having to use shot guns and ML.'s and shorter firearm seasons. Also as any hunter know's a deer's weakness is HUNTING PRESSURE, and forcing them to be up on their feet during daylight hours is the easiest way to kill them. And our additional 500,000 + deer hunters can create a heck of a lot of hunting pressure! Yet we can only manage to harvest 48,000 + more deer? Are you kidding me? Pike

Gino the increased tags issued by the ODNR. is only expected to harvest an additional 10,000 deer per year. The ODNR.'s Target Goal of 560,000 whitetail deer is still their target goal and has been since I been hunting in OH. The ODNR's target goal has not changed, but some years the ODNR, has reduced the amount of tags because of harvesting too many deer the previous year(s) and some years they increase them because of not harvesting enough deer the previous year(s). Pike

Gino in 2007 the ODNR. did a study on how many of their hunters actually fill every one (up to 3) of the tags available to them.
They found out that only 8,000 of their 400,000 deer hunters tagged out per year. The reason given, Most OH. hunters have no desire to harvest more than 2 deer per year.
So Gino in your opinion, how many of those 8,000 hunters would even try to harvest a 4th, 5th or 6th deer per year? Pike

Does Pa still have the report card system? i know many hunters who dont send them in. as well as people who dont get a deer send one in for an ego trip . they need to do a check in system to get tag for deer. That way processor cant touch deer till checked in. But there are those who do there own so would it work?

Here is an ESPN article from last spring after the 2009 season

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/h...ory?id=3999776


In Ohio, where reducing the deer herd is job one for the DNR's Division of Wildlife, a record 252,017 deer were killed during the 2008-09 hunting season, an increase of almost 20,000 deer over the previous year and the most since the previous record of 237,316 were harvested in 2006-2007.
"I was very pleased with the season. Hunters were encouraged to take more does and they continued to put heavy pressure on the antlerless deer," says David M. Graham, chief of the Division of Wildlife. "But work remains to lower the deer population, particularly in eastern Ohio." This, in a state that resumed legalized deer hunting in 1943, when 168 whitetails were killed in the three-county area open to hunting.


Gino

How many people actually report their harvest on the report cards? Not many I'd be willing to guess.

Jeff, what criteria has OH used to establish those management goals? Herd health? Human conflict? Or regeneration of certain trees and wildlflowers?

SS. The ODNR says their target goal of 25 deer per square mile ( which is basicly 50% of max. carrying cap.)is the perfect DD. goal because it ensures the health of the habitat, the herd, the health of the other species that share the habitat. It also keeps all parties invloved happy, the hunter of OH. the farmers and the insurance companies.

Gino, when the bags limits of r certain seasons were increased in 2008 in certain WMU.'s the goal was to harvest an additional 10,000 deer per year, to get the herd down to its target goal of 560,000 whitetails, whoever the herd continue's to grow and so does the harvest #'s, Meanwhile in PA. we continue to to reduce the herd (even though you try to claim that HR. is over) and our herd and deer harvest continue's to decrease. Years ago, I posted a thread on HPA. that was titled, welcome to Ohio (minus the huge bucks) I stated in 5 + years our yearly deer harvest will be very similar to OH.'s even though we have alot more hunters.
Well I would say we have now reached that point, and the harvest numbers for both state's will continue to get even closer, even after the ODNR has the herd back close to its target goal. Pike

SS. The ODNR says their target goal of 25 deer per square mile ( which is basicly 50% of max. carrying cap.)is the perfect DD. goal because it ensures the health of the habitat, the herd, the health of the other species that share the habitat. It also keeps all parties invloved happy, the hunter of OH. the farmers and the insurance companies. ( you see unlike the hunters of PA., the hunters of OH. actually have a say on how the herd is managed, as well as things like sunday hunting etc.)

Gino, when the bags limits in OH. of certain seasons were increased in 2008 in certain WMU.'s the goal was to harvest an additional 10,000 deer per year, to get the herd down to its target goal of 560,000 whitetails, whoever the herd continue's to grow and so does the harvest #'s, Meanwhile in PA. we continue to to reduce the herd (even though you try to claim that HR. is over) and our herd and deer harvest continue's to decrease. Years ago, I posted a thread on HPA. that was titled, welcome to Ohio (minus the huge bucks) I stated in 5 + years our yearly deer harvest will be very similar to OH.'s even though we have alot more hunters.
Well I would say we have now reached that point, and the harvest numbers for both state's will continue to get even closer, even after the ODNR has the herd back close to its target goal. Pike

Pike

Ohio is 44,825 sq miles. At 25 deer per square mile the statewide goal would be 1,120,625 deer. The 25 DPSM must per per square mile of what the DNR considers deer habitat. Assuming your 560k and 25 figures are correct, it looks like the OH DNR only considers 50% of Ohio to be deer habitat. So just how is this any differnet than what PA is doing?

Another thing, let's say the OH DNR get's to a pre-season figure of 560k deer. You won't have sustainable harvests of 280k a year. Think more like 140k.

Gino

Well put. But if your hand is clenched in an anger fist, it's hard to grasp anything. But your premise is correct, they always want to compare oranges to apples.

Nice thumbnail, lmfao!

Gino, there isnt anything wrong with that!! I never said there was, (who would consider a walmart parking lot or a sub-division as deeer habitat?)But OH. does consider Non forested habitat such as farmland to be deer habitat but the PGC. does not.

I also never said that OH. should have substainable harvest's of 280K a year! Because they never had one deer harvest of 280K
There is nothing wrong with 400,000 OH. hunters harvesting 230-235K ACTUAL deer per year, (remember the ODNR uses worst case scenerio when it comes to deer harvest and the PGC. uses their ESTIMATED best case scenerio) I always considered that to be pretty good actually! But the Problem I have is that in the very near future PA.'s ESTIMATED deer harvest is going to drop to under 300K and remain there. And for 900,000+ hunters that is pathetic.Pike

No clenched hands or anger fist here, I got some of the best deer hunting in the entire country! Pike

LMAO is right!! OHIO has had the same deer density goals for over a decade!! And it hasnt changed and wont change.
For example, the OH. Farm Bureau which is a lot more powerfull than ours, tried to get the ODNR to reduce their deer population by over 50%, and used deer/car collisions as their un biased reasons! The ODNR during the hearing asked "" doesnt the OFB. own the NATIONWIDE INSURANCE Co.? And isnt the OFB's headquarters located in the Nationwide building (which the OFB also owns) located in Columbus OH.? As you can imagine the OFB. got shot down. Comparing OH. to PA. is comparing apples to apples, if anything its not fair to compare OH.'s harvest numbers to PA.'s because we have over twice as many hunters, more and longer firearms seasons, and the use of HIGH POWERED RIFLES.
Now go back to celebrating your OBama Care Victory! And get rested up for your next global warming lawsuit. Pike

Yeah, nice pic in your signature. Making fun at the expense of someone with Downe's Syndrome is pretty low, even for a PGC cheerleader.:mad:

the banner wavers for the PGC can write anything they wish yet the facts cannot be skewed....Pa's deer harvest was down again that's how many years in a row now? While anterless tags an herd reduction extra seasons haven't been been reduced at the same rates......cut it like you wish there just aren't many deer left in most of the state.
It has indeed come to a time to oust the status quo and restructurethe PGC!!

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.

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.

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

All good points, Pike.

Poor Pennsylvania
 

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.

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

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.

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

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.............

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.

Please post a link where the PGC claims to know exactly how many deer are out there.They estimate the size of the herd based on harvest estimates.For years,the was no way to do that with elk because there was no season.The elk were also concentrated in a a few small areas of the state which made ariel counts possible.Regardless,those counts were still an estimate.

Here you go sproul.In 2008,hunters reported killing 2.44 doe per square mile and 1.79/spquare mile in district 10(Sproul state forest)with dmap tags.That doesn't include bucks and that doesn't include doe that were harvested using regular antlerless tags.It's also a reported harvest,not a calculated harvest.I think it's obvious that hunters are killing as many if not more than 3 dpsm in Clinton county.If that's the case,and the evidence points that way,there's no way you could have a dd of only 3 dpsm.Also,a large adult doe mortality is being done there.I forget exactly how many adult doe have been collared but I believe the last I saw,at least 175 have been trapped and collared.The last report I read,showed that less than 8% of the adult doe are being harvested by hunters in that region.Your doom and gloom stories about these large crews of guys combing the hillsides and killing every last deer just don't wash.

I do not have to post a link to show the game commission stating that there was 38 deer per square wooded mile. When the bonus-bonus doe tag years were in mode, that statement was in the Pa. Game News and had been in the magazine long before that. Don't try to muddy the waters, if they actually used kill reports to estimate deer density, that shows they had to know how many deer were there before the hunting season. In the game news it was a stated many times what the deer density for the state was. That is the official publication for the game commission. Maybe you should subscribe to it.

At 38 deer per square mile it would mean there were more than 1.7 million deer in the state. Do you remember back in about 2002 how hunters went nuts when the Pennsylvania Game Commission estimated there were 1.6 million deer? Hunters simply went nuts and said no way were there that many deer and the Game Commission was just making up numbers. Now when it fits your agenda you want people to believe there were even more deer than the all time highest Game Commission estimate. What is up with that? Are you now saying there really were even more deer than the Game Commission estimated?

Dick Bodenhorn

Any number the PGC ever published was an esimate.They never claimed to know exactly how many deer were out there as you claimed.

I never said what I thought the deer density was. I am telling you the Pa. game commission stated over and over that there were 38 deer per square wooded mile even after there were record kills a couple years in a row. You can't spread your B/S the statements are in print. Look in the back issues of the Pa. Game News, and you will see that number stated repeatedly. I am kind of curious, what state game lands do you two hunt on?

I'm not disputing that at one time there were 38 deer per forested square miles.In fact,I believe it was actually alot more in many places.What I'm disputing is your claim that they ever claimed to know EXACTLY how mnay deer were in Pa.They never provided anything other than an estimate.

By the way,I hunt SGL 93,77 and 87.However,the vast majority of my time during rifle season is spent either in Moshannon state forest or Elk state forest.

first i would not be complaining with 20 dpsm in clinton,dont know where you think that.
next 3 dpsm may be HIGH.this is do to many miles without a single deer.areas i know and hunters i know and crews who give me ACCURATE report of what they saw for 2 weeks of hunting,that 3 dpsm would be very accurate.
big crews are not killing a lot. 1 know got 7 bucks and 2 doe for 2 weeks. other got 3 bucks and 1 doe.other got 2 doe.other got 3 doe ..
actually if not kids were along the actual count on bucks would be DOWN as they would have to look and count points....
1 crew actually saw more bear than deer,total of 6 bear.

notice i dont comment on areas or countys where i dont know what is going on.deer situation is worst right now than i ever saw in clinton county.
so now you have it.i am better than any fly over infra red deer counting machine and i dont charge.:party:

Sproulman
 

I agree, I really know the area I like to hunt. A decent acorn crop, not bumper, but decent and in late January there is nuts rotting all over the ground. Good ones, not junk chestnut oak acorns. You can get a bad year for rubbing, but not 6-7 bad years in a row. I am not some disgruntled hunter that comes home with nothing every year. Many a year I stop when I have what we need weather I have a doe tag left or not. If I get one in another state I don't use the doe tag. If I get a road kill I don't use the doe tag. I and others get irritated when the game commission and their flunkies treat real hunters like they are retarded. From their actions in the last 15 years it is no wonder well over half the hunters can't stand them. If that is their way of establishing a repore with the average hunter, I can't imagine what they would do if they wanted to snub them.

So you're saying that there should be so many deer out there that they clean up every last one.If the acorns were rotting in January,they were no good to begin with so it's no wonder the deer didn't touch them.