sproulman

you did right thing.you are buck hunter and pass on doe when there are few.
you are welcome in my neck of woods in wmu2g .yes there are not many deer and anyone who shoots doe in these areas is only ruiningr hunting for all of us.


it should be 1 deer and your done in wmu2g of pa.

DougE

Actually,the people that ruined the hunting in 2G are the ones that demanded more deer than the habitat could support without destroying it more.Unfortunately,there's still alot of those people left.

sproulman

i think most agree on deer need to eat and have food etc.
douge,if they say we can handle say 11 deer per sq mile in clinton and we have say 2 or 3 or none,how are we expected to act.
unless forest is opened up for sun etc ,i cant see things growing .burning would be great thing to do.lots of ideas but very few are allowed.very few things to increase the deer.
then with few deer that are left we let hunters kill 3 /4 or 5 deer each.that is wrong and should be stopped.

with way things are now it should be 1 DEER AND YOUR DONE.no carry loaded gun to act like you are shooting coyotes after you harvest a deer.
actually hunting is getting DISGUSTING.not due to lack of deer but hunters that have to fill freezer at all costs not concerned if a deer is left in area they clean out.
real management done there for future.

if the 11 dpsm as they said we should have in wmu2g was allowed i feel that would be great.thats all we are asking not NO DEER or 2 or 3 dpsm .

moosemike

What's killing hunting in PA is not even the low deer numbers as much as the shrinking places where one can hunt. I've lost places almost every year for the last ten. I've never seen it this hard to get permission in my life. It sure is easy to lose permission though. Especially when the land owners relatives or buddies decide they want it all for themselves.

wvhuntin4me

yes that was always a problem, Those are the places with lots of deer. In my younger years i would sneak into those places and bow hunt. I tried offering money to lease there land . they just looked at me like i was wierd. "pay to hunt"? thats what they would say with a confused look on there face.

DougE

Sproul,a mature forest should have a mid-level understory that provides browse for deer.If it doesn't,deer are the main culprit.Huge areas of the northern tier are in this situation.Because of the state of the habitat,it takes alot less deer to continue to have an impact and alot longer for it to recover with low deer numbers.We're paying for the sins of our past.

I'm willing to bet that there's very few areas of Pa that have less than 11 dpsm,except in the poorest of habitat conditions.I'm also willing to bet that the majority of hunters wouldn't be happy with anything close to 11 dpsm.they still complain about no deer.In fact,they still complain about no deer at 20 dpsm.Hunters in Pa were spoiled by ridiculous deer densities and expect hunting to be easy.I was reading a post on another from a guy in Armstrong county.He claimed that they found 30 dead deer on their 200 acres property that dies from EHD.Nw they aren't shooting any does.Holy crap.That's over 100 dpsm and they don't see a problem with that.

germain

Doug,these SGL's down here are below 11 DPSM with plenty of understory.Matter of fact the greenbriar is so thick alot of places you can't even bow hunt.Simple it's overhunted.
Here's where I disagree with you.I know a few areas that held lots of deer yet had great oak regen in the sun.My woods by camp were basically ferns until I opened the canopy.Now thick as can be with various regen including oaks and wildflowers.A mere 25 feet away in the shade nothing but ferns.Ferns love shade.

sproulman

douge, i was sitting today trying to get a gobbler to call, like you, no answer.in this spot i own 100 acres.in this area i took out about 12 trees. lets say about a 100 yd circle.
this was done 4 years ago. in this area there is still lots of trees.
there is all kinds of growth in this area but go out the circle and FERNS are only thing growing .

now ,remember i dont kill ANY doe on my land, none.i had 15 on those 100 acres but i believe its around 10 now.i saw 4 today .
if deer are eating everything to death than why is that area growing.i wish i knew how to put the pics on here to show you.
or you could come down and i can show you.
get sun into area and do a little burning and things will grow.
yes deer have to eat but my 10 deer are NOT destroying my property.

DougE

Rich,I have no doubt about the game lands near urban areas are hit pretty hard.They should definately be managed differently.I'm still betting that most have a preseason densitity higher than 11 dpsm.How long they stay in those game lands once the pressure starts is another story.

Yep,you shouldn't expect oaks to grow in the shade.I never claimed you should but you don't need complete sun either.There are alot of shade tolerant plants that should be growing in the understory.Most aren't there because the deer ate them all.After years of having the deer change the composition if the forest,the understory got filled in by species that deer don't eat,ferns are a good example.Once they get estabished,it'sd extremely hard to get regeneration with opening up the canopy and probably treating with herbisides.Yes,you can say that the current deer herd isn't having the biggest impact in those areas but it's proven that the deer put the forests in that shape to begin with and it makes no sense to add more deer to those situations.Some of the areas like you describe are starting to come back and I can show you evidence.It won't happen overnight however.

Ferns actually take off in sunlight but they survive in the shade.If they were a prefered browse species,they wouldn't be a problem.

DougE

If you have 10 deer on your property and they only stay on your property,you have 64 dpsm right now.I wish you could post the pictures because I highly doubt that you have anything growing that the deer want to eat.At 64 dpsm the deer will completly wipe out the regeneration in a 100 yard circle in a very small period of time.It may be growing now and it may resist the deer but I'll gauarantee that it another year or two,anything that's still there will not be a prefered browse species.

I can show you a 70 acre exclosure in moshannon state forest that was fenced after a shelterwood cut was done.The oak regeneration was fantastic three years ago.Last year I took a guy from another board there to show him a shelterwood cut.Every single oak seedling was completely browsed down because three deer got in that exclosure.THat's right,three deer browsed every oak seedling in the exclosure.Deer are picky eaters and they hit the most prefered species first.There's still a ton of maple regeneration in there but now the maple took over because the deer ate the oak.That's exactly how deer impact the habitat.I took R.S.B. to that area and he took a bunch of pictures.Maybe I can get him to post some.I can show you example after example of cuts that failed during the 90's.Today they are fencing less and less because the deer herd is down.In fact,I can show you a 75 acre cleaercut that was cut on SGL 44 in 1990.The cut failed and turned into a meadow.Six years later,the PGC put up a couple dozen small exclosures and now you can't walk through them.It wasn't insects,acid rain or poil soil that caused that.It was the deer and that same story can be retold time after time in the northern tier.