Bob you dont have a clue but you want to insult others!! So What, you harvested 4 deer last year between 2 states big whoop!! Do you know what your target goal is for your Co.? And Whats wrong with hunting 150 yards off a road, I do alot of hunting with in 150- 300 yards of the nearest road. Pike

deaddeer and j pike.........i'm not saying there is anything wrong with hunting 100 - 150 yds off the road....but when guys cry about not seeing deer the instant they get out of the car is lame....out here in pike co. we have a real big problem with slob hunters that do noting but cry and cry some more....i have a spot that i hunt and can see the road down the hill and across the railroad tracks that is maybe 150 - 200 yds in....and they ride up and down the road till they see a deer cross the road or is out in someones yard and start blasting away....as they stang in the road...."thats the guys that get my blood boiling"....and i seem to come across more and more of them....i don't see any deer they cry....alt is a big loss to pa's game comm they cry....and so on and so on....i know there are a shortage of deer here and there....but no matter where i drive in this county or others i still see deer just as i would have 2 years ago give or take a few but they are there....oh yeah and what about guys you hear "if it's brown it's down" then complain about no deer anymore....i wasn't classifing anyone but i have had enough of the slobs....we have alot to deal with without them giving the anti's more fuel to use againest us don't ya think????????????????????????????????????????????? ????.........................bob

Bob,I have no tolerance for road hunters myself.I never have and never will shoot at a deer from a vehicle.Regardless of what you think,Alt's plan is to reduce the the herd to 13 dpsm.Maybe it hasn't happened where you hunt but it has happened in some of the areas where I hunt.I've been out four mornings a week for the past month scouting and hunting for turkeys.Most of that time has been spent on moshannon state forest.So far I haven' t seen one single deer and almost no sign on public land.Alot of this area has been timbered lately and you find very few tracks crossing al the skidder paths.I've seen more elk tracks than deer tracks and I've never even seen a live elk in this part of their range.Do I blame ALT for this?You bet.This area has seen the biggest increase in allocations over the past few years and is the only area of the state that is below the deer density goals.Rather than "tweaking" the plan as he promised,we'll still have more doe tags this year than last year.That makes alot of sense when other areas are still three times above the goal,get a decrease in the allocations.The guy's a bozo.No way can our hunting be better than ever when we reach his deer density goals.

How many pa hunters are pleased?

Put me down as a no.

The last two years have been lousy hunting. I hunted in two separate counties and after talking to many other hunters hve concluded that it was very poor. Of course I was not shocked when the commission released this seasons numbers and they were down. We heard very little shooting all season.

As for the density goals, they are ridiculas and are a blatant gift to the Pa. timber industry that is currently leading the commission around by the nose. I think 2004 will be interesting, those that love a smaller herd will be getting it. And those that were more traditional hunters will IMO be more vocal this fall if the season is another flop.

Buck harvests have dropped for several years, the commission is on thin ice and if it drops again I think we should can the plan.

Oh, btw most of my fiends who I hunt with feel the way I do. This plan has not produced anything close to what was promised, it was mostly a lie to get herd reductions at any cost. Our group is less than happy.

I've only deer hunted for three years now but I'll throw my two cents into the pot anyway. I'm in a rural farming area (Armstrong Co.) and there are plenty of deer here - I think too many as there are always roadkills even during summer. I was out walking last week and watched 13 deer cross a field, plus I seen three others separately. I started thinking about how many of them would have fawns. Perhaps half? Let's say half having twins? 16 deer plus 12 more fawns = 28 deer. Now this is just on my property and a couple of surrounding farms. How many more are there that we don't even see?

During last years archery season (of which I hunted all but two days) I seen deer every day - and bucks on almost every day. I would say half of them were legal to shoot but I never had the opportunity (except once). The two previous years I only saw a couple of bucks the whole season. I would like to think that due to the AR's there will be twice as many this year. I think this year should show if the restrictions are working. I have never gotten a buck yet but I think I would have last year if there were no restrictions as I had more chances.

I also hunted in Allegheny county last year where there has been many more licenses given for the last couple of years. I hardly seen any deer there - does that mean that the herd has been thinned out there? I think only in certain places. The places in Allegheny where there are too many deer are where you can't hunt.

I think the only problem here where I live is that there are too many deer. I do think that some places have more deer than others and that there should be more licenses given in those areas. But, how can you really determine which are the high and low areas without a lot of study?

I see deer everywhere I go - day or night. It was interesting seeing about a dozen in the afternoon on the slope where Rt. 28 meets the Highland Park bridge. I also seen four of them bedding on a VERY steep slope off Rt. 28 near where the 31st St. bridge connects. I've also seen them in the woods as you come out the Ft. Pitt tunnel up Greentree hill. I'm sorry that some of you are not seeing any deer...

Sorry to ramble but in a nutshell, I am pleased with the AR's so far, but displeased with the overpopulation in some areas. Let's see what happens this coming season before we really get upset. Also...you have to take the weather into consideration for last years bad season...........

Do you realize that the goal for Armstrong Co. is 14 DPSM and in Jan. 2003 you had 29 DPSM? Do you realize that if Alt's plan is successful ,the buck harvest in Armstrong Co. will drop from the 3,110 harvested in 2003 to less than 1555.. Compare that to the 4,495 buck harvested in Armstrong Co. in 2000 , and tell me if you still want to see Alt's plan succeed?

Deaddeer:

The AR's are intended to protect bucks and allow them to mature alittle bit more. If the buck harvest in 2004 is less then it was in 2003 or 2000, then that clearly shows that the AR's are working and Alt's plan is doing what it is suppose to.

I dont know why it bothers you that there will be less bucks killed in 2004. The vast majortiy of those bucks are 1 1/2 year old 4-6 pointers, so what difference does that make anyway? I would rather let a 1 1/2 year old 4 pt. buck walk, then shoot him and cut his horns off and through them in a box or hang them on the wall in the garage.

Why do you people enjoy killing 1 1/2 year old bucks?? And if you really are just a "meat hunter" and not a "trophy hunter" then why dont you kill a doe?

The first problem is the more bucks that are sasved by AR,the more bucks will be lost to non-hunting mortality ,which is a waste of the resource and lowers the buck harvest. Lower buck harvests mean lower success rates which means more hunters will quit. When the buck harvest was at 200K /yr. a PA hunter could expect to harvest a buck once every five years. With AR and herd reduction a hunter will only harvest one buck for every ten years of hunting. PA needs every hunter we currently have to control the herd ,but we won't retain the hunters we have and recruit new hunters with a success rate of one buck every 10 years.

AR does not have the same effect on hunters where they are allowed two or 3 buck/yr. like in Miss. ,ARk. and MI, and where they are not trying to cut the herd by 50%. Things are a lot different in PA and AR is doomed to fail when we harvest so many of our buck as BB. What sense does it make to save 38K 1.5 buck when at the same time we increased the BB harvest by 33K?

Deaddeer:

"PA hunter could expect to harvest a buck once every five years. With AR and herd reduction a hunter will only harvest one buck for every ten years of hunting"

A buck every 5-10 years???? Man, If I lived in PA I would be a golfer. I cant imagine odds like that, I see atleast 10 bucks everytime I sit in a stand. But this goes to show why they implemented AR restrictions, they are trying to improve your odds of killing a buck. It is not going to happen over night, but it will happen. Once AR's have been in place for a few years, your odds are going to be alot better. That statement "with AR's, hunters will harvest 1 buck every ten years'' to me that dosent make sense. How could it?? You are not allowed to harvest bucks, so that means there will be more bucks out there, which means your odds get better, not worse.



"PA needs every hunter we currently have to control the herd"

Well if this is true, then why are all of ya'll complaining about all the does that are killed?? It sounds like Pa needs to close buck season for a year or 2 and only sell doe tags.

"PA needs every hunter we currently have, but we won't retain the hunters we have and recruit new hunters"

PA is a small state, yet there are over 1 million guys who hunt there each year, so yes you could afford to lose some hunters. And the hunters that you lose would be the ones that like to kill 1 1/2 year old spikes, so losing them aint no big deal.


"What sense does it make to save 38K 1.5 buck when at the same time we increased the BB harvest by 33K?"

That statement makes no sense.... It kinda sounds like a firefighter saying "what good does it do saving that house, that one next door is going to burn down". Why dosent PA make it illegal to shoot button bucks?? That would solve that problem. And besides, why would somebody want to shoot a button buck when they could shoot one of the millions of does that are running around????


Another thing, why do so many people like killing 1 1/2 year old bucks? Shoot a doe, let the bucks grow...................

In a stable herd AR increases the number of total buck ,but it decreases the number of legal buck, due to number of adult buck that are lost to non-hunting mortality . In PA we loose 18% of our adult buck to non-hunting mortality,so for every additional 50K buck saved by AR , we loose 9 K ,and the sustainable buck harvest is reduced by 9 K.

Since the goal is to reduce the herd from 1.1M OWD to 570K OWD they can't protect BB and have any chance of of reducing the anterless herd. In 2002 they issued 1 M anterless tags and we harvested 352 K anterless deer and the herd still increased by 1.6%. Therefore ,we need every hunter we currently have, including those that shoot spikes and Y's. The rack hunters are the ones that pass on doe while waiting for that big buck,but the spike hunter is more likely to take the first legal deer that comes along.