Pawildman

Well, rifle season for deer here in PA. is over for another year. Flintlock muzzleloader is in, and runs thru the 14th of the month, but the "Big Hurrah" is over. The antler restrictions put in place around 3 yrs. ago seem to be paying off from what I've seen, with larger racks being taken than in the past. That has and is working well. What doesn't seem to be working well, at least for the deer hunters, has been the massive slaughter of antlerless deer that has been permitted in recent years.
The Northcentral part of the state has historically been "deer country" here. No longer. Deer are in jeopardy there. It seems that timber has become the protected crop in this part of the country, and the deer are the enemies. Massive tracts of timbered forest are being fenced to keep the deer out until regeneration takes over. Someone needs to explain to me just where the few remaining deer are going to feed? I feel some short-sightedness has been used.
Other parts of the state seem to have adequate deer levels, and these are primarily agricultural/suburban areas with small woodslots and posted properties and safety zones. Hard to hunt in rifle season. Guess I'll just have to adjust. Thanks for letting me vent-----hope things are better with the rest of you out there------

Chuck7

Well,
Here in Florida lunker bass will soon be spawning. I will be flipping the brush piles loking for a 10 lber. Then in March we have gobbler season. May and June is prime bluegill and July and August it's shooting those carbon arrows in the 4x4 target. Neer a dull moment.
Chuck7

littlebudge

I know what u are going through paw. For the last 10 years we have been hunting buzzard swamp in forest county. Andi can honestly say it is really getting bad up north in the three day's we hunt and i mean really hunting hard i seen 3 tail's 2 guy's in our group of 8 never seen a thing. now naturally we are hunting allegheny forest wich is million's of acre'sof forest. but the deer are either not where they usually are or to deep to hunt i'm trying to avoid the overharvesting thing because i'm tired of that arguement. it goes both way's they sold us the license and we slaughtered them and to think that one day this wouldn't happen was wishfull thinking. but all we can do as hunter's is put your time in and believe.

NorthernHunter

PAWildman,
Greetings from next door over here in NJ. I feel the same as you do and experienced the same. A few years back we used to slaughter the deer here during buck season. I mean 2-3 large does for every 8 pointer or better. A group I hunt with used to drop some 40 deer during our 6 day buck season and that was easy. In 2004 we began to see a slight drop in 'productivity' and this last season in December of 2005, I heard more and more bitching about hunters not seeing deer. I think we tallied maybe 20 deer and only 1-2 decent bucks. Far cry from years ago!

I figure in my neck of the woods it comes down to the fact we've slashed the herd quite a bit and now have leveled the herd off where we're simply 'maintaining' the herd. That is, we dropped the numbers from overcrowding and now what we're seeing is a more balanced ratio of deer to acres. Just my guess, but I think it has merit. I used to see tons of deer during bow season no matter where I hunted in this one section of the county. Now I actually have to scout more to get in the right place at the right time. Basically, not seeing the tons of deer during bow and shotgun season that I saw from 2000 to 2003. Even during buck and doe season with shotgun it's difficult to get deer. We're just not seeing them as often and the numbers aren't there.

Luckily, our permit shotgun season runs until the middle of February and I plan on going out this Saturday afternoon for a few hours and see if there are any deer 'left'. It's usually depressing this time of year because you realize the deer have been pushed very hard and the fact the cover and woods are bare!

Scott/IL

A few weeks of bowseason left, but after that it's shed hunting. Then come spring since I don't turkey hunt, its mushroom hunting for me.(MMMMMM you got to love fried up mushrooms). From then onits chasing catfish until the end of August and then back to gearing up for deer season.