Buckshot, You'll find it a waste of time here to try and reason with a few whiners. All you'll do is waste a bunch of time and get a deluge of out of context statistics in return. We know that most hunters are pleased of at least cautiously optimistic about what's evolving in Pa.

I was around when Gary Alt took over the black bear program and there was a small but NOISY bunch then too predicting doom. Time will tell and I choose to let the professionals do their job in managing for the good of the resource. If that changes how and where I have to hunt, so be it. Most of the complaining seems to come from the " I can't find a deer to kill" crowd followed by the " I had to pass a small buck" gang.

Then there's the bean counter on steroids................

No jealous rage here, I just thought some folk might want to know exactly who they were dealing with.

I swear deadeer could come up with a formula about how the sun will not rise tommorrow morning.

So you going to tell everyone what those deer were or you want me too?



For all you guys reading all these posts, the bottom lines are:

No one can tell you how letting a small buck live through another year reduces antler size.

Deer grow bigger antlers in areas with fewer deer.

Less doe to breed equals healtheir bucks going into winter (less winter killed bucks)

More doe shot means more competetion between bucks and only the fittest, biggest and strongest bucks breed. No more of this scub horn bucks doing all the breeding.

And Yes I am pleased, the quality of deer is going up.



P.S. deerHuntress, Im cool real cool

Our group harvested 7 anterless deer and 6 were BB. We hunted archery, early ML, rifle and late ML and only had a chance at one other legal mature doe.





No one ever claimed that would happen andit is silly for for to claim that they did.

You can't cite one study that supports that claim.

BTBowhunter,I'll assume you were including me with your last comment.I never cmplained about AR one time because I don't shoot sub ar legal bucks anyway.I kill a nice buck every year with a bow on public land in the area of the state that has the lowest deer density.I shoot several doe each year and have always done so.In the last 23 years,I've never had an unfilled doe tag.I do shoot doe but I do it in areas that could use a reduction.Regardless of how bad Alt screws up the deer hunting in this state,it won't have an effect on my success because I put the time and effort in.

You eluded to Alt's success as a beer biologist.That he may be but he isn't much of a deer biologist.If he was,he wouldn't have admitted that it took Cindy dunn to lead him around by the hand and show him the effects of over browsing.Do any of you know who Cindy Dunn is?If not you haven't done your homework.Alt actually admitted that he was astonished at the amount of overbroesing and never noticed it in the 25 years he was in the woods working with bears.Just recently he was interviwed in field and stream.In the article he claimed that prior tp ar we had 14 adult doe for every adult buck.That statement is a flat out lie and an insult to every hunters intellegenceIf that were the case,it would mean that prior to ar,we had over 5 million pre season deer in this state.I never remember those days do you?

Alt is a liar and a scam artist that was put in charge of the deer management program to lower the herd to unpresedented levels.These levels are far below what science says is necessary.Alt claimed we would have more and bigger bucks.That's flat out impossible when you want the herd reduced to 13 dpsm statewide.

Wake up guys.This never did and never will have anything to do with bigger bucks.It's all about keeping opr state forests certified.If you don't believe me,read the article in the western Pa conservancy.In the article Cindy Dunn admits that drastic reductions were written right into the conditions of recertification.I have both that article and the actual forest certification report from 1998 where it is clearly stated.I'd be more than happy to send anyone a copy.

I'm all for Ar and balancing the herd with the habitat but not for the price of lies and deception.

Deaddeer discussion

This will shed some light on where Im coming from.

Deaddear, what do you want to bet. I know for a fact I can come up with at least one study, heck its even from a place you love to spout off about.

I love all the armchair experts. The deer managment plan was tweaked last year and sure it will be adjusted again. I believe most of the complaining is from those who believe it is thier right to shoot a buck no matter what's it's headgear.
The fact is much of Pa.'s forest is marginal habitat from overbrowsing and old growth ,lack of cutting. Grouse populations are down for the most part thru out the state also from poor habitat.
In northeast part of the state there is still plenty of deer. My friend took a buck that score over 160 this past season and that buck doesn't measure up to some of the bucks I've seen in the area. The biggest problem in this area is access with the explosion of building the area has seen.
I think most should just get over it, if Alt's plan doesn't work everyone will complain, he'll be canned and everything wil be back to "the good ole days" in just a matter of a few years.

Of course if the deer are so over populated they are starving or subject to extreme social stress, reducing the number of deer and allowing to habitat to recover,will eventaully produce latger racks. What I was referring to is a study that represents the conditions we have in PA where almost all of the state is close to the MSY ,carrying capacity. Our deer are not straving and they are not subject to exteme social stress , so reducing the herd will not result in larger racks in PA.

What would produce bigger racks would be regualtions that allow more 2.5 bucks to survive. But, AR has the opposite effect and shifts hunting pressure from the 1.5's to the 2.5+ buck, which lowers the percentage of 2.5+ buck that survive.

Of course if the deer are so over populated they are starving or subject to extreme social stress, reducing the number of deer and allowing to habitat to recover,will eventaully produce latger racks. What I was referring to is a study that represents the conditions we have in PA where almost all of the state is close to the MSY ,carrying capacity. Our deer are not straving and they are not subject to exteme social stress , so reducing the herd will not result in larger racks in PA.

What would produce bigger racks would be regualtions that allow more 2.5 bucks to survive. But, AR has the opposite effect and shifts hunting pressure from the 1.5's to the 2.5+ buck, which lowers the percentage of 2.5+ buck that survive.

You know I debated about replying to this post but, I just think it's funny how everyone wants to complain about not seeing any doe, they want to blame everyone else, but it is a fact that the hunters are at fault, did anybody force you to buy doe tags and fill them all? Did Alt make you harvest that doe? No he didn't, we got greedy, We saw bonus tags and our eyes lit up, We thought this is great we can shoot as many does as we can get tags for and we did, I heard alot of guys say when they opened doe with buck that if it's brown it's down. So who do we really have to blame? Be honest with yourselves, if we hadn't shot all those does with all those tags we had, Would we still be seeing the deer numbers that we used too? Alt knew exactly what he was doing, he knew human nature, he knew that if he moved the doe season from just a three day season, when most wouldn't take off for it to buck season that we would get greedy and shoot does. I keep saying we, meaning PA hunters. I hunt on a private track of land and I have planted pretty large food plots cause I am not waiting on the PGC to provide food as someone said it would cost them alot of money to plant them. We have regulated what we shoot on the property and it is producing some nice bucks and I am still seeing the deer population. This property is boardered by game lands so I'm sure the deer population from there is also benefiting from the food sources. I'm not trying to start an arguement just trying to open some eyes. Pat

Pat, it is tempting to want to blame hunters. They as a group are an easy target, as they are not often unified. But you cannot.

Any individual hunter can pass on shooting does in his area, but he does not control the 40 other hunters who decide they should. It is the "system" the Game Commission created with large WMU's (with little to no control over where tags are filled) and thier desire to see deer numbers radically reduced (not mildly reduced) that has caused the inequity we are seeing right now in deer numbers.

It is not the hunters of pa who manage the deer herd. The PGC sets the seasons and bag limits and sets the direction of deer management, so although you want to blame it on hunters as a group, that is not a rational argument. Its like blaming car drivers for high gas prices, because after all they are the ones buying it........? (Or substitute any nonmandatory service or product like Milk or prices at Disney World).

It would be different if we hunters were not following the plan, but we are just doing what they asked. Can't fault us for that.


Buckshot - maybe you should just be like Fox News. You report, we'll decide.

Our current plan is not producing any larger bucks. It IS producing a smaller herd, which Dr. Alt wants to protect the forest. Trees in Pa are more valuable than deer for the time being. Correct that Dr. Alt does know that the herd can be reduced with concurrent seasons and over a million doe tags, and he has designed a plan where the reductions will continue even though some small portion of the population reject the need in some counties to reduce the population down to 5 dpsm.

Not all of Pa is devastated habitat, yet with big bloated wmus' the statewide reduction is treated nearly the same everywhere. They say WMU's and DMAP are to 'focus' hunters, but that is a farce.

Herd reductions are taking a slow toll. Less bucks overall with a smaller herd, and no one has shown much evidence the less bucks are any bigger.

I hope the smaller herd is worth it to appease the conservationists cause it ain't better hunting. No matter how you try and spin it.