The suggestion for shotguns only has me a bit perplexed. In the north central region, there is considerable mountain area that has very few dwellings. Perhaps the game commision needs to re-examine areas that may have increased populations, but the whole state certainly does not. Granted, shotguns would limit the distances at which deer could be taken, but I'm willing to bet that very few deer are killed much beyond shotgun range. That isn't reason enough to justify a shotgun only season. Besides, I just read where the game commission is evaluating whether the areas that are shotgun only, are really any safer than before the regs were enacted. I don't like the idea of banning a entire class of guns simply from a position that we may be safer. Isn't that the argument of the gun control crowd? Guns are dangerous and we'd be safer if they were out of the hands of civilians. To many people, deer hunting and what it means to a person, includes the firearm that he or she carries. To me, deer season would lose some of its nostalgia if I couldn't carry a Winchester Model 70.

Until the PGC revises the OWDD goals so they include all of the habitat utilized by the deer, instead just forested habitat, the previous proposals will not solve the problem caused by reducing the herd by over 50%.

If you take a map of the state and plot the OWDD goals for each WMU. you will see that all the counties that have an OWDD goal below 11 DPSM are located south of I-80.All of the WMU's north of I 80 have goals of 12 + DPSM or more and 2F has the highest goal of 17 DPSM.
Now , if you consider the fact that the growing season is at least one month shorter north of I -80, the winters are more severe , loner snow cover , the soils are less fertile and there is much less farmland, it is obvious that the highest OWDD goals should occur in the WMU's south of I -80 ,instead of north of I-80.

Until the PGC coreects this problem they will continue to mismanage our herd .

left-out you make a valid point one that I thought of too as far as gun control etc. might be better to word it shotguns only south of I- 80, might be better to drop it altogether. There are sections of 3A that I'm aware of that should be shotgun only and others where a 338 Ultra mag is safe to shoot.
my intention about shotguns wasn't directed at safety issues as much as it was directed at modeling Pa's AR (growing big bucks) after states such as Iowa,etc.
* one key point about todays shotguns vs. your grandpa's shotgun is that today's is much more accurate at longer ranges than the old smoothbore with pumkin balls

Hey I do agree with on a couple of things

1. Smaller wmu's!!

2. Raising Fees to no residents!! (tax them jerseyites)!!

3. On line reporting.

Never did I say any particular suggestion was dumb or short sighted, others pointed that out for me. I also made NO reference to me being the one to decide. But honestly don't you think some well thought out and debated proposals would get you a lot farther than just a bunch of things you jotted down just at any little whim?
Now as for my suggestions
1 Revamp OWDD like deaddeer said
2 If you do not report in your kills (or lack there of) you get fined.
3 Smaller wmu's
4 archery season in SRA runs oct 1 thru jan 31....never going out at least for does.
5 Remove the jr hunter free pass on AR
6 better education/enforcement/penalties or something regarding illegal buck kills
7 Force the DCNR to log more areas and provide better habitat. Rather than artificially trying to keep timber prices high by logging less
8 Ease the slaughter on public lands
9 Create better hunter/landowner relation programs
10 Private land surplus tags

On the PAhunting website there was an article citing a study that showed there were no less accidents with shotguns. Actually shotguns % wise accounted for more.

well like I said I'll proof them then type them up over the weekend and fax the finished draft to the number she gave me

Raise the resident license fees. $6, come on. Need to triple or quadrupile the price and then maybe, just maybe all these people that talk out of both sides of their mouth won't go and buy 6, 8, or 10 doe tags and fill them and then complain they see no deer but I'll shoot the first thing that walks by. And for some reason, that first thing has to have a set of nuts to make you feel like a complete great white hunter? Why not let the button bucks walk, man?

Why has hunting turned into something for some that they have to kill something every time out. Can't anyone exert some self control.

didn't you mean raise the anterless fee from $6? If it was up to me I'd say raise it in lower deer populated WMUs to $25.00 and give them away free in over deer populated WMUs
my choice to kill a button buck is....well my choice. My reasoning is in the WMU I hunt in the doe population is down, 1 buck can breed a bunch of does so I CHOOSE to kill bb an let mature does drop twin or tripletes the following spring.
Besides I like the meat best when those BB still have milk on their lips!