Silvertip, Please teach me how to be a real hunter!!The hunting here in York co. has gotten drasticly worse for me over the last 3 years, But I guess with a joke of a target goal of only 5 deer per square mile its going to continue to decline. I would like to see our AR. raised to atleast 4-pts on a side because currently it isnt protecting very many bucks ( AR. only saved 14% more bucks in 2002 here in York co). When I found out AR. got implemented I was very excited that is until I found out that our AR. was only going to be a 3-pt to a side. In 2002 I passed up seven 1.5 year old bucks and of the seven only 2 of them were not legal and I found 1 of the non legal bucks covered up with brush last March while shed hunting. In 2003 I only saw and passed up three 1.5 year old bucks and each one of them were legal. In 2001 I passed up 18 different 1.5 year old bucks, My doe sightings were also 50% lower in 2003 than they were in 2001. SILVERTIP If the hunting is still good or even improving for some of you thats great, but herd reduction and hunters relocating to new area's isnt far behind. Pike

Alt's ars are going to catch up to yo guys in a few years when big dollar hunter start coming
to PA for antler hunts.
It is my opinion and mine only that PA don't give a rats A about you only the money it can generate by trophy hunting from out of staters!
You pro ALT people wait a few years and you will see outfitters come in and start buying up
all the land they can and there is alot of it for sale with farms going under at a fast rate.
Then where will you be I can tell you. PA will look like WY. CO. and some other states.
AND YOU WILL HAVE NO PLACE TO HUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Think I'm nuts maybe so time will tell.
As for you guys & gals that want big racks hunt harder they are already out there they
are just smarter because of age.

PS: The mith that older deer have bigger racks is just that a mith.
Food sorces & minerial content play more than age.
Have you ever seen a 2 year old with a 6 or 8 point rack I have.
How do I know what age I watched them grow up.

This post is a personal op!!!!!!!

Fastfire said,The fact that PA. Has 1 million hunters is the exact reason as of why you are wrong about outfitters buying or leasing all the land, see in IL etc. they have very few hunters, so the outfitters had very little competition and were able to buyor lease any property they wanted, but now they are losing property all the time to out of state hunters that are willing to pay just as much $ to buy or lease property as the outfitters and the fact that most land owners would rather only have a hand full of guys that they hand picked themselves than a guide that would bring dozens of hunters they never met before on to their land to hunt. Because we have so many hunters, the outfitters will stay in states were there is less competition and more older bucks. See even with the 4-pt AR in the western counties, states like OH. and even MD. still have a higher % of their 1.5 year old bucks making it to 2.5 years of age even though they do not have AR. and most of the bucks we save because of AR. will get smoked at the age of 2.5 years of age. But I do agree that alot of hunters are going to lose their hunting area's because it got bought or leased, but it wont be because of outfitters, it will because of Alt's herd reduction, You see once the hunters get tired of hunting area's with very little deer, the ones that can afford it will buy or lease land so Dr. Alt no longer has a say in their hunting
Fastfire said Fastfire wrong again!!! Age is the number 1 factor!!! Dont get me wrong, Nutrition & Mineral content in the soil is very important!! But only to help the bucks reach their genetic potential, Let me explain, In the wetstern part of PA. the average bucks antlers get larger than the rest of the state because the mineral content in the soil is better than the rest of the state, the reason for this because of the Wisconsin Glacier during the last ice age, But with that said, the average 3.5 year old buck in the rest of PA. will still be as large or even larger than the average 2.5 year old buck in the western counties even though the mineral content is inferior. Also I dont doubt that you see 2.5 year old bucks that have 6 or 8 points, Heck the average 2.5 year old buck in PA. will have 7-pts. Pike

i hunted all bow season and shot a doe mid-way through and a nice 9 point in the rut. All season i only saw 11 deer but the day i shot my buck i saw 11 on that day. As for rifle season, i had a barely legal buck come by and 8 does by 8am. All together i saw 16 deer opening day and did not shot anyone of them. The bigger deer are harder to hunt and all season i saw 2 bucks, a really small 4 point and my huge 9. I know a lot of people who shot their biggest deer ever this year. Most were in bow season(4 or so), 2 in rifle. I saw plenty of bigger deer coming back on the turnpike and 80 this year. They are def doing the job. I am satisfied and it only looks to get better.

Did you notice the PGC didn't announce how many 2.5+ buck were harvested in 2003? They did in 2002 when we harvested 52.6K 2.5 + buck. If I thought we could get that number, I'd bet $20 that we harvested less 2.5+ buck in 2003 than we did in 2002.

Legacy, Congrads!! what county did you hunt in this past season? Pike

I can understand where quite a few people that can only hunt the first couple days of rifle season are upset that they can't see any deer, I for one have always filled my tags, buck and doe, since 1996 when I started to take hunting seriously (stay out past 8 a.m.) this year was different as I could only hunt a few hours on saturdays during rifle season, and during bow season I seemed to have had contracted a serious case of forget to check for sapling between arrow and deer before release. the group that I hunt with does not do drives, we all simply go to an area we know and stillhunt, we have noticed that there are bigger and more numerous bucks out there, they are just waaayyyyy smarter than they used to be, also the deer herd in general we have noticed have been adapting to changes in the way people are hunting them, for instance I hunted in Mifflin county, in the Licking Creek area and usually I see dozens of deer running the ridge tops because most guys aren't willing to walk up to the top of the ridge, this year was different as many camps drove their guys up on a recently opened road and so where once there was just me and myself, there were literally guys every 50 yards. obviously the deer moved and I noticed that down in the bottoms, where it used to crawl with hunters was instead crawling with deer, and few if any hunters, And I did see many "Shooter" bucks, unfortunatly it was just to far for my bow, again much smarter bucks at play there, I think that reducing the deer herd in numbers is a good idea, I can live without filling my tag, especially if it means we see a healthier forest that can support some other species which are dwindling as well ie (grouse). I think given some time and changes in how we hunt and increased use of private land for hunting to get rid of "deer hideaways" that guys will notice a marked difference in whether or not they see deer

Do you realize the goal is to cut the herd from the 1.1M OW deer we had in 2003 to 557K. If we succeed in reaching that goal our buck harvest will drop to under 100K and we will be harvesting around 2 buck PSM. How many big buck do you think you will see then?

Like I said in my message, I can live with not filling all my tags, however, just for arguments sake suppose we reach the goal of 557,000 deer population, a part of reaching that goal, is to make the buck to doe ratio as close to 1:1 as possible, if that happens, yes we may only harvest 100,000 Buck, but that still leaves nigh on 175,000 (give or take a few) to get bigger next year, since that is just about the same number left over nowadays, what with the extra browse and habitat to go around since there are fewer total deer, those 150,000 survivor bucks are going to have plenty of oppurtunity and feed to grow much bigger than they do now. anyway just harvesting a buck ain't that big a deal for me, if I ever really want to kill a deer, I can just go to suburban parts of york county where I live, approach just about any gentleman farmer who is sick to death of deer trashing his flowerbeds, and asl permission to bowhunt on his property to remove "excess" deer and so alleviate his problem and my urge to kill (if I would ever need to just kill a deer for the sake of it, heaven forbid) I imagine that scenario could happen anywhere in Pa where there is suburbia breaking up deer habitat, and "traditional" (read Rifle) deer hunting oppurtunitys.

P.S. a demonstration of your accuracy with a bow, such as plinking a starling out of a tree at 10 yards, (which should be do-able, at ten yards any reasonable bow should shoot a starling; 2 inch-sized target)., usually persuades the landowner that you can in fact humanely and quite permanetly remove part of his deer problem.

What is going to prevent hunters from harvesting those extra 175K ? Are we going to have a 5 pt. one side restriction. Furthermore, it is obvious that you are not up to date on what is happening since we only carried over 80k buck in 2002. The only way we will have a 1:1 B/D ratio is if they eliminate buck season for a year and then it won't be sustainable unless we have a 5 pt. one side restriction,which will in reality eliminate buck hunting in PA