hatchet jack

There not being overharvested they were overharvested. Thats why the Hunter numbers have been down in the last 5 years or so. Thats part of the reason the Deer are starting to make a comeback in the State Forest/SGL I hunt in Pike Co. I know what your saying about the habitat and the amount of Deer per Sq mile thats a fact. I still think the PGC went overboard with the amount of Doe tags and the 2 week Doe fest during Buck season. They Had Gary Alt sell us a bag of goods/ BS Deer plan . I agree something had to be done. They should of went about it with a REAL Deer Doctor not some front Man/Bear Biologist and more scientifically. It was a knee Jerk reaction by the PGC and it was wrong.

Hatchet Jack

Tundra10

And why numbers are down state wide. The PGC counts on people like yourself. To each their own.

dougl

I never particularly cared for Alt of the way he sold the plan.The message was dead nuts on but the delivery was poor.I still maintain that something had to be done fast and drastic and they did exactly what needed to be done.The gains in the habitat have been huge around here.DCNR took every one of their units out of dmap two years ago in this district and haven't had to fence a timber sale in about 5 years.Just north of here in elk state forest,they started to fence less timber sales but now that the herd is increasing,they have to fence more this year.Now is not the time to let the herd increase in the northcentral part of the state.

dougl

The numbers needed to come down drastically.I kill a pile of deer every year on public land and really have no problems doing it.I don't see dozens of deer a day like used to be common but they aren't hard to find if you understand what they need and when they need it.I'm not complaining about a lack of deer and I'll continue to shoot as many as I can until I see good habitat with few deer.To dater,I've yet to see a place in the northcentral part of the state that had good habitat and few deer.I see alot of places with poor habitat and few deer and letting the herd increase in those areas would be just plain stupid.

hatchet jack

I don't Hunt the Northcentral part of the state so I can't say what the habitat is. I hunt the Southeast and the Northeast/Pike co and Suskie co. I know they fenced in many spots to do their Deer damage study. Most of them fences are no longer up.

Hatchet Jack

NeverWill

Are you sure this is how it works. I have often wondered if it is the opposite. I think the PGC might use success rates as a sign that the population is growing and then if more people are killing they have to increase the tags to thin the herd.

I say this because you saw them touting the growing success rates as a sign of a healthy and growing deer herd.

I think the PGC's whole deer management by the numbers system is worthless and never told the real story.

My area for about 20 miles around was devastated by over hunting of does, yet they kept increasing the quantity of tags.

Just a thought. Not sure my opinion is right but I stopped reporting my kills when I read their explanations of the herd.

dougl

The fences were simply to get advanced regeneration past the deer.Very few were for any typr of a deer damage study.

I grew up in Wyoming county and occasionally hunt in Susquehanna county.I have a friend that owns a pile of land up there and things have changed greatly.Many of the big farms are no longer farming allowing the field to just grow up.The last time I hunted up there was about 4 years ago and truthfully,the woods were more overbrowsed and the habitat worse than what I see in the northcentral part pf the state.He has several hundred acres just outside of Montrose.He had some of it timbered a year before I was there and there was literally zero preferred regeneration.The only thing growing was beech and striped maple and it was taking over because the deer leave it alone after they wiped out anything of value.My buddy thought the habitat was great and all I could do was shake my head.Deer need high quality browse during the winter and the truth is,far too many areas don't have enough.It doesn't matter how many deer you have if you don't have sufficient feed to get them through winter.Once the habitat get's so poor,it takes far less deer to impact it and that's what much of Pa was faced with.They did exactly what needed to be done as hard of a pill that was to swallow.

dougl

If you're not reporting your kills than you're a huge part of the problem.They know how many deer they want killed and they know how many doe tags it takes to kill one doe.If success rates fall,they have to issue more tags to get the desired harvest.

The PGC's harvest numbers are statistically accurate enough to manage the herd.They aren't worthless.They never will have exact numbers.That's flat out impossible.They need to know harvest trends and the current system shows those trends just fine.

NeverWill

With Alt's intent being to destroy our great hunting heritage I don't buy your explanation.

Destruction had to have been his intent because no one could have failed as miserably as he did.

dougl

Why would Alt want to destroy hunting?What would be his motivation?I really never cared for Alt and never regarded him that highly as a deer biologist.Still,the habitat accross the northern part of Pa was trashed and it was never going to improve unless the deer herd was drastically reduced.That's a fact that's been challenged in court and to date,not a single biologist or forester with any credibility has been able to debunk.For decades,the biologists and foresters pleaded to reduce the deer herd but there was never a board of commissioners that would see it through because of political pressure.

I live right smack in the middle of the WMU's that took the biggest hit with herd reductions.We most certainly have less deer than we did 30 yers ago but the habitat is coming back,the deer are coming back and the bucks are bigger and healthier then they've ever been.To be honest,while we do have less deer,I've never seen the hunting as good as it is today.The opportunities we have are tremendous.