Martin Cougar

I believe the weather had a small role in the harvest.

I think the bigger reason why there is a decline is due to the aggressive herd reductions over the past few years. I feel that public land is hurting in many areas. Lower deer numbers = lower harvest.

SchuylkillOutdoorsman

The deer population is hurting at least on the gamelands it is.

PABowhntr

I have not read the article yet but I am gonna be ticked if Alt uses the "17%" lower harvest as a reason for increasing doe tag allocations or just the potential for an increased doe harvest next year....especially if it is a blanket policy across the state.

TreePhantom

Face it: we are creatures of habit. Not everyone can scout 24/7/365. We go to the same places every year. We go to where we had luck. We will always go to the honey hole even if it does'nt produce in a few years. We always hear "this is a good spot, Joe Shmoe shot a big 14 point here one year."

So many hunters near camp that are B!tch!ng don't shoot deer anyways. Not even in the "golden days."

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always be where you've always been."-author unknown.

This past season proved that.

SchuylkillOutdoorsman

I hear that, yup its time to go and find some new hunting land.
2 years in a row now for me with a tag at the end of the season [:'(]

Pinwheel 12

We went down the first week of Bow season before the deer even knew what was going on, and for the first time in over 15 years came home empty. We saw a couple of nicer bucks but none that offered a shot, but the kicker was that the overall population was WAY down from previous years, even when shining we saw less than 1/3 of what we normally had seen in years past.

We'll be going to the midwest this coming year. I think PA royally screwed up a good thing just for egos and cash--you may get a few decent deer out of it, but they are going to lose a boatload of revenue in the process and substantially hurt their overall herd in the process if it continues as is. This 1 million doe tag stuff isn't cutting it either--IMHO each person should buy their license with an either-sex tag--have the PGC charge whatever they wish to gain their revenue-- but once you harvest A deer, you are done. None of this multiple deer stuff each year-- to me that is in a nutshell what is killing our hunting to begin with. I remember back when it was an HONOR to shoot a deer, ANY deer, in a given state. Now it is just nothing more than a big killing field and the end result is big money for the State governments.. Very sad. JMHO. Pinhweel 12

Martin Cougar

PABowhntr

That is EXACTLY what I see happening. Since the harvest this year is lower - I see them increasing the allocations next year.

T_in_PA

Heck, I had a 25% increase in harvest over last year! [8D]
Heck, I had 3 tags left at the end of the season. But then... I could take 7 deer this year. LOL

MikeE51848

Well you know they will, Dr Alt was all ready to lengthen doe season to three weeks.

MikeE51848

Topped ya, went 6 seasons without filling a tag. Some years there were misses, other years just bad luck, like the buck I shot on SGL 217 which died in the arms of a private land hunter.