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The Mismanagement of the PA Deer Herd

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The Mismanagement of the PA Deer Herd

Old 09-30-2010, 07:03 PM
  #41  
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very good info.nice to read what is TRUTH.again i offer anyone to come to clinton county and they can go out with me and make SPROULS terd survey
i dont look at terds, i look at MEAT.live on hoof deer
its like QDMA group, what a bunch of fibbers.
too this day i cant understand why they fib like they do.i am missing their motive somewhere along the line.
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Old 10-01-2010, 05:47 AM
  #42  
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Originally Posted by Mr. Deer Hunter
I'm sitting here, reading these posts, trying to understand what all the fighting is about. In the past 12 years, I have hunted steady from the first day of the season to the last.

I have hunted Jefferson, Elk, Clearfield, Indiana, Armstrong, Clarion, McKean, Warren, Bradford, Forrest, Clinton counties in that period of time.

One of my favorite hunting spots was a place they call Lolita - which is located in the Allegheny National forest.
My family traditionally hunted there for 70+ years.
Probably as long as there was a deer hunting season.

When my dad first started hunting - which was around 1952, he said you saw lot's of deer up there, but most of them were does and spikes and it was not legal to shoot spikes.
He told a story about how in 1954 or 55, when he was serving in the US Navy, he came home for hunting season and he was hunting with his family, when he got back to the vehicle at the end of the day, his dad asked him what he had saw and he said a bunch of does and one spike.
My grandpa said - why didn't you shoot, and my dad said because Spikes are not legal and my grandpa said - yes they are - they changed the rules this year.
I believe the place where they hunted was called Grundy's camp.
It was as far back into the woods as you were allowed to drive your car. There was a gate or a wire across the road.

50 years later, when I tried to get my dad to go back, he did once or twice, but it was on a Wednesday after the main hunters had already left. There is always one gang up there that comes from Vermont - you see them every year, around the same place and they always manage to get a deer. A guy that parks a camper beside the road next to the creek that always has a nice buck hanging from a tree and a couple of other campers along the road going towards the pines from Lolita towards Marionville through the forest.

In 2002 - you could easily see 20 deer in the woods before you ever got to that spot if you took the short cut through the woods through Clear Creek State Park, down to Heath Pump station and across the new bridge - across the Clarion River and then up over the hill on the new road to the woods.
After the DMAP permits - you don't see deer anymore.
After they put all the fences up - you see even less deer roaming around.

I loved hunting up around the Hallton Hilton, but the hills were too steep. I also liked hunting up in the Brockway Game Lands - Empire Ridge and Rock Shanty.

The problem is, there are no deer up around Brockway anymore.

2 deer per a square mile - they might as well be extinct.
If the deer herds up and you have a herd of 8 deer, that might be all the deer in any one particular township.

If you go up around Spring Creek Twp or Millstone, you can't walk that far in a week to be able to cover all that territory in any one township.

The PGC is more interested in growing timber, selling gas rights and raising Elk then it is in growing deer. The special interest groups is the ones that has the most money and screams the loudest.
By 2005 - a group of hunters that could have bought our hunting camp in Jefferson county and didn't, came back to Jefferson county on a Wednesday afternoon with a nice 5 point buck on the roof of their Jeep and told us that they were hunting in a hunting lodge near St Mary's and was hunting in a place in McKean county and that they shot the last buck in McKean county and that they were not going to go back there ever again.

This group consistently shot nice bucks at our camp for 30 years and they live in Sewickley Heights and they said they have more deer in their backyards then what we have in any of the northern counties.

For anyone to go on television, be interviewed in a magazine or tell a group of hunters that they need to come back to their traditional spots and that everything is better now - just 6 years later, would be the biggest lie's we have heard since Vietnam.

On top of Clearfield Mountain - you can still see for a mile beneath the tree canopy. On the sides of RT 322, from Clearfield towards SB Elliot, there are no deer to be found grazing on the green grass that grows along side the roads.
On Boone mountain - you no longer see a sea of Blaze Orange hunters going through the woods on opening day. All along Caledonia Pike - the camps are empty. Medix Run - no hunters because there are no deer.

The best thing the PGC did to pee in their own pot was when they gave away Elk licenses to be raffled off by The National Wild Turkey Federation and did not give any licenses to The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, who donated money to the PGC to build the wildlife viewing area near Windslow Hill. You no longer hear about the RMEF because they washed their hands of the whole situation and refuse to get involved anymore.

Their whole reason for helping was to get a foot in the door to get their hands on some Elk Tags so they could hunt trophy Elk in Pennsylvania. They could have bought elk and land and hunted cheaper then what it cost them to help the PGC.

Just go into any bar in the Northern counties and ask the residents where the deer are and they will tell you. The deer lives beside the houses between Kane and Marionville. By doing that, they are away from public hunting pressure - because you can't hunt beside a house. The have their choice of food to eat - both from peoples bird feeders, deer feeders, and from the plants in the gardens and the shrubbery.

When you go to southern Jefferson county and ask the same question, their answer would be that most of the deer are on posted property. The property owners acts as if the deer are theirs and they patrol their land and will have who ever trespasses arrested.

Our problem is - when hunters from the north gets disgusted, they either move south to where they can find one or two easy deer or they quit. If they quit, the PGC just sells more tags.
Each hunter that wants can pretty much get 3 tags in 2D - even though it has a 4 points antler restrictions for adult hunters - but kids can shoot anything with antlers and the parents just take them along so they can shoot more deer and then they just get the kids to tag them for them. The worst thing the PGC ever did was remove the age restriction and allow hunters to make their own deer tags out of a piece of paper and put their kids names on it and allow them to go back to shooting spikes and anything with less then 4 points to one side.

All it did was make the landowners close up more land to public hunting and make the deer on public lands even more scarce.

Gary Alt had two things in mind when he instituted his plan.
First was to get Pennsylvania into the same league as Colorado, where you have to compete for a deer tag and where you have an opportunity to hunt for trophy whitetail deer. We had very few trophy deer before the antler restrictions.

The second goal was to fill his pockets with as much money as quickly as possible and then split. Gary took as much graft and corruption as he could and then he retired, which was the goal of the PGC.

The biggest waste of money was when they closed the Game School near Brockway and moved it to Harrisburgh so it would be closer to the state capitol. When the Game School was located near Brockway - you had all kinds of deer because you had a whole team of potential game wardens on the property - patrolling the area.

Even down near Knoxdale at one time in SGL 31, they had a stone camp that was used to house a Game Warden in deer season, who patrolled the lines between the hunting preserve and the open for public areas in the Game Lands. Back then we had all kinds of deer.
Today, the game warden doesn't even get out of his truck anymore.

There is no money to be made in fines when there is no limit to the amount of deer that you can legally shoot in one season.
The Game Warden probably makes more revenue by fine's for people with loaded guns in their vehicles or leaning against their vehicles then he does from people illegally shooting more deer then they are entitled to.

A couple more years and we will all be going to a zoo to see a deer.
Rockton mountain is a pathetic mess because the deer completely devistated the area up there.It's coming back in places now that the herd has been reduced but that area simply can't handle many deer.Interestingly,I just drove through SB Elliot state park the other day on rt 153.Areas that just a few year ago you could see for several hundred yards have filled in nicely.Now it would be tough to a se a deer 50 yards into the woods.There's some fantastic oak regeneration just off rt 153 between Parker dama nd SB Elliot state Park.

I live about 1 mile from Fire tower road which is on Boone mountain.No deer is a laugh.The bottom end of Boone mountain has lot's of deer if you actually hunt where deer should be.Seneca respurce corp owns much of that property and there's huge clearcuts that are loaded with deer.Getting them out or seeing them is a different story but the deer are there.I hunted there several times last season and either killed deer or passed on deer every single time.I also hunted an area of Moshannon state forest that's less than 2 miles from there and had two days where my buddy and I saw over 30 deer each morning we hunted.There isn't alot of pressure so the deer just sit tight.If you get in and move them,you'll see deer.The habitat in that whole area is coming back and so are the deer.

Got any proof that anyone from the PGC filled their pockets with money and then split.That had to be one of the most ridiculous posts I've ever read and I've read some real winners.

The hunting is still good where you claim there's no deer.I live here and hunt it religously.

Last edited by DougE; 10-01-2010 at 05:52 AM.
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Old 10-01-2010, 05:51 AM
  #43  
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Originally Posted by sproulman
very good info.nice to read what is TRUTH.again i offer anyone to come to clinton county and they can go out with me and make SPROULS terd survey
i dont look at terds, i look at MEAT.live on hoof deer
its like QDMA group, what a bunch of fibbers.
too this day i cant understand why they fib like they do.i am missing their motive somewhere along the line.

Sproul,the pellet counts just back up what the live pictures of the deer show.Do you think they're lying about the dead deer that they're checking in during deer season?
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Old 10-01-2010, 08:26 AM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by DougE
Sproul,the pellet counts just back up what the live pictures of the deer show.Do you think they're lying about the dead deer that they're checking in during deer season?
after listening to QDMA discussing all DEAD deer they are finding from eating corn,7 dead in 100 yds,i believe very little today.
i was at meeting last night and spoke.
they stated the meeting was for info.yes it was INFO but not balanced and no info from negative things.
this was on gas drilling in pa.

douge, i have been too enough meeting and field trips over 46 yrs .dad had me on his lap at age 10 at many meetings.
i know when things are TRUTH and not right.
hard part is finding out what MOTIVE today is of the TEAM PLAYERS who do not tell TRUTH.
i know POSITIONS,TEAM PLAYER,SELF INTEREST drives most of this.
as before, if anyone wants to see for themselves TRUTH of what is with deer i will be more than happy to take anyone out in woods for FIELD trip and then to a few friends for lunch for their storys here in clinton county,pa..
we hunt grouse almost every day from around oct to end in feb,weather permitting and coyotes/fox all winter.
right now we are getting ready to hunt archery ,BUCKS ONLY .

i think that a bible should be used at every meeting held and speakers take oath.
but way things are today, FIBBING or distorting the TRUTH for personel gain, i dont think bible would help.
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Old 10-01-2010, 10:43 AM
  #45  
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Originally Posted by sproulman
after listening to QDMA discussing all DEAD deer they are finding from eating corn,7 dead in 100 yds,i believe very little today.
i was at meeting last night and spoke.
they stated the meeting was for info.yes it was INFO but not balanced and no info from negative things.
this was on gas drilling in pa.

douge, i have been too enough meeting and field trips over 46 yrs .dad had me on his lap at age 10 at many meetings.
i know when things are TRUTH and not right.
hard part is finding out what MOTIVE today is of the TEAM PLAYERS who do not tell TRUTH.
i know POSITIONS,TEAM PLAYER,SELF INTEREST drives most of this.
as before, if anyone wants to see for themselves TRUTH of what is with deer i will be more than happy to take anyone out in woods for FIELD trip and then to a few friends for lunch for their storys here in clinton county,pa..
we hunt grouse almost every day from around oct to end in feb,weather permitting and coyotes/fox all winter.
right now we are getting ready to hunt archery ,BUCKS ONLY .

i think that a bible should be used at every meeting held and speakers take oath.
but way things are today, FIBBING or distorting the TRUTH for personel gain, i dont think bible would help.
So in other words,these dead deer that are required to get checked in are just being made up?No one is saying there's a high deer density on that property.Twenty deer per square mile,give or take a few is not a high deer density for seeing loads of deer but it's about all the habitat can take in most areas in 2G.Thing is,hunters were used to hunting at such ridiculous deer densities that they were spoiled.

I just bought a house and 12 acres less than a mile away from the one spot he was talking about.It's all pasture except for one small strip of woods about 75 yards wide that seperates my horse pasture from some overgrown fields.Visability is good in all directions and I've been building a barn and putting up fence every night for the past two months.I seeing some does,fawns and occassional small buck running around but nothing to write home about.Back in August I PUT A TRAIL CAMERA IN THAT SMALL STRIP OF WOODS AND i'VE GOTTEN PICTURES OF AT LEAST 12 DIFFERENT BUCKS,4 OF WHICH HAVE AT LEAST 19-20 INCH SPREADS.Funny thing is,every picture is at night and I NEVER SEE ANY OF THOSE DEER.I pulled the card this morning and had 56 pictures since last sunday with not bait out.Personal observations mean very little.especially in areas with little pressure.
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Old 10-01-2010, 12:15 PM
  #46  
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So in other words,these dead deer that are required to get checked in are just being made up?No one is saying there's a high deer density on that property.Twenty deer per square mile,give or take a few is not a high deer density for seeing loads of deer but it's about all the habitat can take in most areas in 2G.Thing is,hunters were used to hunting at such ridiculous deer densities that they were spoiled
So , now the habitat can support 20 DPSM while awhile ago you were claiming the habitat was controlling the herd at less than 10 DPSM. I wish you would make up your mind. A lot of todays hunters never saw the high deer densities of the early 70's and since then very few NC counties had herds of over 30 DPSM. So ,a lot of hunters were used to seeing relatively few deer and now they are seeing even less.
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Old 10-04-2010, 03:47 AM
  #47  
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our deer are mostly all gone here ever since the persecution of doe started. here in 4c Lehigh county around the blue mtn(lower eastern corner), we call this area the dead zone here.
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Old 10-04-2010, 06:04 AM
  #48  
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Originally Posted by bluebird2
So , now the habitat can support 20 DPSM while awhile ago you were claiming the habitat was controlling the herd at less than 10 DPSM. I wish you would make up your mind. A lot of todays hunters never saw the high deer densities of the early 70's and since then very few NC counties had herds of over 30 DPSM. So ,a lot of hunters were used to seeing relatively few deer and now they are seeing even less.
I've never stated that the habitat couldn't support more than 20 deer.It can but the damage to the habitat cointinues to get worse and the health of the deer continues to decline.Didn't you comment on the low body weights of the deer in that area?
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Old 10-04-2010, 06:17 AM
  #49  
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You stated that the poor habitat in 2G was controlling the herd in 2G even though the average deer density has been reduced to 8 -10 DPSM. Areas with contiguous stands of pole and saw timber ,on soils with low nutrient value will always produce smaller deer than mixed farmland and wood lots.
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Old 10-04-2010, 09:54 AM
  #50  
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Originally Posted by TheBoneGrinders
our deer are mostly all gone here ever since the persecution of doe started. here in 4c Lehigh county around the blue mtn(lower eastern corner), we call this area the dead zone here.
wmu2g clinton county is as bad as your location. then you have some that killl 5 to 8 doe that are left.they just dont care anymore.poaching/kids tag on deer thing are ruining our hunting even worst than the HR.they shoot fawns and mother too.

THEY ARE DISGUSTING and out of 10 hunters i would say 7 will shoot a fawn or use kids tag .brown its down with kids tag......
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