ulysses

deadeer that was on 1 sq mile not 100 acres

CHICKORY: I wouldn't want to play poker with you! You my friend are able to read between the lines too well!! My nephew comes here to my place to hunt he to this day is 110% pro Alt. He just cannot or will not admit he was duped.
I too was taken in momentairily by the " whirlwind talks" I was to 3 of them. After a year I preached just give it a chance after 2 yrs I began to have doubts after 4 and the pieces of his deception began to amass I became bitter now after 5 yrs I'll do anything I can possibly do to save deer hunting in the area of the state I hunt which is 3A WMU.
The occasional hunter may think ," sure another bitter old timer whom wants to see 100 deer a day and maybe 1 or 2 little scrubby bucks" or " just another sour grapes weekend warrior that didn't kill a deer this season because of poor skills". Well I'm neither. I killed a nice rack buck every year I've hunted and that began back in 1933 on this same farm. Alt wasn't even born then!
The apathy of Pa's deer hunters is shocking to me. How could they possibly allow items that have been proven to stlip by without going to Harris burg in mass and demanding truthfull answers? i.e., Alt not disclosing whom the private donators to the deer reaserch were until years AFTER his plan was implemented. Also why do they not throw this line back in Alt's face" hunters will need to face the fact they are going to have tough hunting and there less mature 2.5 yr old and older bucks,even though numbers in general are declined"

The truth be known the forestery and farming concerns were ready to take legal action to force the state to lower deer numbers rather than manipulate them for what hunters wanted. Until that point Pa didn't even have a deer management biologist, everything was either BEAR or ELK management .
I've said it before what some WMUs need to happen is to have the majority of private landowners post their property against all hunting. When enough weekend warriors get fed up with this and realize it is the direct reaction to Alt/PGC succuming to the farmers an foresters rather than hunters wishes, they will take action against the programs.
Nothing wrong with controlling overpopulations of deer where they need to be controlled but not statewide

deaddeer

Then ,evidently you missed the point I was making. If a farm with 240 acres of woods and 300 acres of cropland that can support a herd of 100 dairy cattle for a year, how many deer could that same farm support if the crops were grown for the deer? Remember , the cattle get no benefit from the 240 acres of woods ,but the deer do. IMHO , that farm could support at least 200 DPSM with no problem.

chickory

Marcus Schneck and other outdoor writers wrote about the lawsuit threats, and so did Gary. I wish that the the lawsuits had been filed, so that all pa hunters could see exactly who they are up against in competing for resources in Pa.

Big timber, Farmers, and conservation groups have always influenced deer numbers for decades, but it took Vern Ross and Gary Alt to turn the tide and hand over the power hunters once had to groups outside hunting. Relegating hunters to the back of the bus...

White-tail-deer

Interesting stuff!! How do we possibly battle the timber companies?

ulysses

taking $ away from them won't work, though I am witholding any tag purchases for the next few years myself. Why? because special interest groups, i.e. timber farmer's assoc. will be all too willing to donate $ to the PGC and once they do they'll have even a bigger say in deer management.
In WMUs with a depressed deer herd:
1. BUY & BURN your doe tag! Encourage your pals to do the same. If you're a member of a camp make it known that each guy that kills a doe is looked at as a member of the group doing their best to ruin hunting. ( in WMUs with true over populations of deer killing does is fine)
2. Confront private land owners in your WMU an ask them to post their land against ANTERLESS DEER hunting , offer to post it for them with the promise you will not kill anterless deer on their property.
3.Hound your state representatives to confront the PGC on it's policy of deer management
4. go to a PGC public imput meeting and raise hell
5. write letters
I remember back to the late 80s when bonus tags had really crunch numbers of deer in parts of the state. It was the gripes of hunters that brought a stop to it, once numbers were so low you could hunt a week and see just 2-4 deer ( BTW that's when Alt made the comment he is hated till this day for...."poorly skilled hunters are having trouble finding deer"
BUY & BURN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!