What do you other Pa. Hunters think of the proposed change to the gun season next year. They are thinking of making it 3 weeks long, starting the Monday of Thanksgiving week. I personally am not in favor of it. I know it' s just in the talking stages now but maybe if enough of us voiced an opinion we could get the people heard.
How about letting bow season run up till Thanksgiving so we see more of the Rut?

I would like to see them legalize Sunday hunting and keep the rest of the seasons the same. Maybe lengthen gun season to 2 full weeks.

I am totally psyched that the PGC (more antiquated and unchanging over the years than the Pope in Rome) is finally debating issues and making decisions, albeit controversial ones. The three point antler restrictions and effort to manage locally vs statewide will pay dividends in the future..especially with regards to our decimated forests and therefpre also to our precious deer.

I would like to see a longer bow-season..or if not longer than start it two weeks later and let it run through Thanksgiving so we get the precious rut. Does anyone know what the pro' s and con' s are to this issue ??

As far a a longer deer season, I support it. While it would change the clubby and historical feel to our opening day and the two precious Saturdays in the season..this is the cost of modernizing things. More people will participate (including students) and deer hunting will become more of a Fall lifestyle (as it is in the South and most other states) vs that magical moment where you get lucky or you don' t. Having a longer season should also spread out the hunting more, so you won' t have 1 MM licensed hunters all heading out to the woods at 5.45 AM on the Monday after Thanksgiving taking their crap at the exact same time..

Badatta

I agree with ya. I hunt archery, and the gun season. A 3 week gun season would be devistating. I would really like to see the archery season extended for another week.

And bring on the Sunday hunting. That being done, the seasons could be kept the same.

Chris, I totally love the Antler restrictions, I think it' s a great move. Time will tell if it helps produce better racks this is a pretty hot-ly debated topic also. But I think it will.
I don' t think you' ll see a big change on when us ummm Flatlanders hit the woods though. Opening day is opening day regardless of what week it is, and that' s when the masses will hit the woods.

If the talk of herd reduction picks up how far behind can crossbows and inlines be?

I agree with you about lengthing the archery, I`ve really enjoyed this season seeing some nice bucks. Plus I also love the antler restrictions, because the bucks I`ve been seeing are bigger and better than those of the past years. I just hope they keep getting bigger, wouldn`t it be great to see bucks the size they should be??

Lengthing the the gun season would do nothing but take to many animals, maybe that`s what the pgc wants eh??

Personally i would like to have an extra week of archery, and if needed to have the 3rd week of rifle , put it on the end of the season. Most of us kids get out of school the monday after thanksgiving for inservice day , if that was pushed back a week , we would all have to skip. So give me that extra week at the end if nething , or jsut say the heck with that and give me sunday hunting.

DL, most of the rural schools have a scheduled holiday for the first day of deer season. That inservice day would most likely be moved as it was most likely put where it is becasue of severe absenteeism due to deer season.

I don' t see a need to lengthen the rifle season as almost all of the kill is taken on the first day and participation is way down by the time the first Saturday rolls around. I think the PGC might be trying to fight the bear population more than helping deer hunters as the seasons would then be concurrent.

I guess the overall impact will depend on how they treat the first week of the season, will you be able to hunt deer on Thanksgiving and moreover, will your wife allow you?

For me it would amount to an extra day and a half of hunting, i would still only take 3 days off work, but would get thanksgiving morning and black friday. So while more guys will have more time, i dont think it will be overly devasting since more than likely the woods will be deserted the second week (after Thanksgiving) and really empty the third week.

Also how are they planning to trear beat season? everyone can still hutn bear, or will it go back to a lottery system? If everyone can hunt bear that wants to then i think the bear population would be impacted much more than the deer population.

I doubt you will see archery extended any longer since it would interfere with Elk Season, unless they woudl prohibit archery hunting in the elk management areas.

keep gun season the same and extend archery season.