It cant help that my neighbors and his brothers hunt Pa every season. They just go and bring there wv land owner tags. they can have as many as 5 each they use them instead of paying the non-residence fees. Last season they took 3 deer threw on a wv tag and headed home. i am sure they were not counted by the pgc as harvested deer.2 years ago they killed 7 deer among them...

Pa. Deer Count?
 

I hunt West Virgina every year, but live in Pa. I started about 20 years ago because deer populations are really down here. I do alright the second week in Pa., but am really back in. It does not take a college degree to figure out that issuing thousands of licenses where a hunter can go will not drop the deer population where he can not hunt. That really does not matter because the deer kill count is not even a ballpark figure. If it does not tally the way they want it, a few thousand are added here and there. The only guys saying the new commission plans are working hunt posted property and have their own rules anyway.( All the hunters I talked to.) The hunter deer kill report cards used to have a question "Public or Private land kill?". This suspiciously disappeared when complaints of few deer started to pile up. At one time there were too many deer in the mountains, but now it is time to stop beating them into the dirt. The Game Commission has had missing funds, abuse of power allegations, and just plain old stupidity plaguing it for the last 20-25 years and they want us to trust their judgment now? I don't think so.

I hope I run into them in the field one day.

The PGC is audited by the legislature every year, there has never been missing funds.

Public or Private was on the report cards whey the issued private land and public land anterless tags. They no longer issue that kind of tag.

:jaw:add to them that take their dmap tags and use them out of dmap areas on PRIVATELAND here in clinton county first week of deer.add crews shooting the little bucks as long as junior kid is in crew, they dont even look for 3 point rule.
add in mentoured youth with 8 year old girls shooting 10 point bucks on PUBLICLAND .are youth hunting the mentoured turkey week?are they sitting in truck or not there?
i could go on. its just unreal everytime rule is made people try find away around it.

i had 2 girls at wal-mart with their dad GETTING LICENSE.here was their comment. THIS IS STUPID, I AINT GOING HUNTING ANYHOW!dad turned and said, JUST SIGN IT.
funny almost all these people i see doing illegal things have BEARDS.what is it with beard hillybilly look?

is all of the above being done? YOU BET IT IS........

this is what woirries me... from what I've just read in this thread...the attitude of Pa hunters is NOT the attitude we want in our woods..."kill whatever moves..hunt 'em to the last". I know it does exsist in some WV hunters, but not to the degree of what I'm hearing coming from Pa. I'm not saying all Pa hunters are bad, but this thread tends to lead to thinking that MANY are!!! I'm glad I hunt private ground where THAT isn't now, nor ever will be an issue... but I feel for those hunting public areas. maybe non-resident tags oughtta be $400.. I'd vote for that.

my former neighbor goes to wv every year. your week was always a week before ours here in dec.he would come back with 2 deer,spike/doe.both looked like size of my dog they wee so small.then he would kill 5 here in pa legally a few years ago when the pgc/dcnr issued all tags.
his house was falling down and he lives to kill,he will kill everything .has to get meat.then you have ones that want to kill because they say,TOO MANY DEER,EVEN 1 IS TOO MANY, I AM HELPING THE DCNR TO GROW TREES..

so, you have 2 types out there, some poor and some rich all have to kill until nothing is left.

oh i forgot, THEY WILL SAY THEY SEE LOTS OF DEER AND WE DONT KNOW HOW TO HUNT....

as paul harvey said, GOOD DAY!

Wco r.w.j.
 

You must be a newbie. I always filled out a deer kill report card and it asked if you got it on public or private land. It may have been doe tags, but not crop tags, just regular tags. I never used any special tags. That disappeared soon after that goofball Gary Alt took over. As far as the missing funds, a couple of people on the commission resigned because of misuse of commission property, using food and cover corp for personnel use, illegally killing deer. Our news paper said there could be no investigation because the game commission was not really part of the state government. I have broken the game laws on occasion, but never intentionally. If you hunt enough something is bound to happen, but the other poster is right, a lot of the new laws support the violaters. I also have seen a dozen hunters with a kid each come back on state game lands the last day of rifle. O.K. to carry a bow and a modern muzzle loader during the early season, when only doe is legal with a loader, but buck is legal with a bow. What in the world was the commission thinking?

The question of whether you got your deer on public or private land was on the report card during the time period when second or third unsold antlerless deer license were legal for use on private land. That was back in the late 1990’s. The question might also have been on the report for a period of time prior to that so the agency could determine the percentage of the antlerless harvest coming from to two different areas. Once they had several years of data to provide that answer and the antlerless license was no long restricted to just private land the question became mostly irrelevant to changes in the deer management program. The other problem was in the fact that it was determined that a very high percentage of the hunters didn’t know if they were on public or private land so they didn’t provide the correct information. Incorrect information is worse then useless when you are using it for management decisions.

As for your allegations of misconduct or missing funds by Game Commission personnel, that was investigated by the Attorney General’s Office after the allegations were brought forward by other Game Commission personnel. After a full investigation most of the allegations were determined to be unfounded with no supporting evidence though it was established that a degree of misconduct had occurred with one individual who have over used Commission equipment for person use. Though it was misconduct it was not criminal, no financial gains were found to have existed and no charges were filed.

There is no question that some hunters find any number of ways for circumventing the laws that protect our resources. When you become aware of people doing so you should call the Game Commission Regional Office and report it.

Dick Bodenhorn

Please don’t judge the quality of all Pennsylvania Sportsmen on the things you read on this message board. I have been dealing with both the worst and the best of hunters for over three decades and I find that though Pennsylvania has its share of criminal minded hunters the fact still remains that the vast majority are honorable and honest hunters.

Granted many don’t have the best understanding of the complexities of deer management, the wildlife/habitat relationships or the predator/prey relationships but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about or respect the values of the resources.

Dick Bodenhorn