PA DEER HUNTERS???????????

[Hoser1268]

I understand what you are saying but eventually, more and more people will stop buying licenses.  Why buy a hunting license if your not seeing any game.  Then what will the GC do?

[danseitz]

Hoser, I agree with you.  I think license sales are in decline now.  And how are you going to get kids interested if there are no deer out there to see?  In fact I have been exploring Ohio the last 3 years trying to find some public land to hunt that has deer.

My buddy has a nice camp in the Black Moshannon Park area and I thought we were set for life.  There were deer and we really had fun.  But now the deer are gone and the pgc keeps issuing the same number of tags every year.  What's the likelihood of a comeback?  Not likely.

[Jim Keller]

I'm bitter and I admit it. Something I loved and lived for has been taken from me and I resent it. Our woods are sick. Ferns everywhere no regeneration to speak of. Acidic soil. I was in Va. on vacation a couple of years ago in the blue ridge mt.. Beautiful woods. Lush growth and good regen. and lots of deer. They don't get the acid rain from the west that we do.
  Back to our state. I hunt public land and private land open to hunting. It's dismal anymore. But the guys I know around Harrisburg who have private farms are still doing well, but go north on gamelands and forget it. My brother in law hunts Cameron Co., he sees more coyote tracks in the snow than deer tracks. I don't think the deer can come back up north even if they close doe hunting between the coyotes and the bears. How many guys remember when we were told that coyotes didn't take fawns? I'm considering doing what a lot of guys are doing and go out of state. Very very sad.

[TradBowyer]

just my 0.02$..i started hunting game lands about 12 yrs ago. When I first starting hunting archery there, it was nothing to go walk back to my stand (about 1.5hr) walk and see 15-20 deer on the way back. I went turkey hunting there this past spring walked probably 4 hr total and was lucky to see 3 deer. I've hunted there off and on the last few years and have hardly seen a deer. I know people like to classify  people who complain as "lazy" cause they don't want to walk to get a deer. Well, like I said, i've walked back 1.5 hr at times to hunt and still can't find the deer. My buddy has 2 young boys that he's trying to get into the sport. THe lack of deer is a big problem with the younger generation. "hunting for the experience"...does not work for younger kids. You can't expect a kid to sit in the woods all day, not see a deer and then be excited about going back out. Its not going to happen.

and about what is the game commission going to do if people stop buying license? they will sell more doe tags to make up the lack of funds. Gov't will get their money one way or the other. they don't look ahead...they only look at the current.

George, you are fortunate to have a good area. Just like you tell people to come on down and you will show them deer, there are a lot more of us who can have  you come down and we will show you no deer.

[Doc Nock]

"Some people just don't get it"
"...I think license sales are down"
"..I'm bitter and I admit it..."

Wow.  I've tried to stay out of this but I'll make one foray in and then take my keyboard and give it up.

Yup. I agree. Lots of deer have been killed off.
 
Yup. 8-10 yrs ago, I'd see a doe w/ fawn. Then with Twins...now w/ triplets. Nature abhors a vacuum and if there is plentiful feed, does have multiple births.

Yup. I hunt public land a lot. I pattern deer and then come the fall, I have "dog walkers" out at dusk with unleashed dogs raising havoc and disrupting deer movement.

I find big erosion ditches caused by horse hunters whackin out trails up steep embankments and 1000# shoed horses digging up the soil to form erosion ditches later.

Game lands are accessable from every side with all the roads around.

The areas adjacent to game lands are private posted land.

I go in early and stay till dark. Next day, I find fresh sign so the deer are there, but nocturnal. Still didn't see any, just "sign".

Some areas have gotten so harrassed by hunters, bikers, hikers and trail riders on horses, the deer seem to have vacated totally. Why not? If you got harrased constantly, would you not go where it's peaceful and unmolested behind the poster signs so prevelant in the patchwork of private vs. public where access is limited only a few hundred yards away???

Look. I'm not saying all is rosey. Gracious no! I'm upset with not the whole UBP, but it's leadership for years. I resigned due to their antics and inbred nepotistic attitudes of Isolationism, but they do work hard and I respect their efforts. I think they need fresh blood at the top..fast...but they're all hard workers but I don't agree with their tactics the past 7 years.

I am saying that if you hunt the bejabbers outa does for several months, they're going to act like prey species and HIDE!

The first 2 weeks of archery, I had does patterened and it was fun to watch them, even if they were just not quite right for a shot.

After the In-line MZ doe season where HUNTERS drove bedding areas, the archery season was no longer a hunt for unmolested deer. In high pressure areas, they vanished. Nocturnal from the sign. In other areas, they hugged the thickest cover possible and were like a long-tailed cat in a room full of us ole folks in rockers!

We can be divisive and call each other names... or claim this or that till hell freezes over, but it isn't a simple Cause-Effect me thinks. I think it is complicated.

Land use has changed. More people are crammed into smaller units of Game Lands than before, closer to home due to gas prices maybe? And lots more does/deer are being killed...but then they started to ACT LIKE SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO KILL THEM and took evasive action.

Many areas I've hunted show few signs of deer...yet other guys I know hunt the same general area nad get lots of shots... it would appear that deer have patterened us better'n we pattern them.

Sure I have ideas on what needs to change. VA has some neat ideas on "bonus" tags (doe) that have to be used on private land only. But that doesn't make me a wildlife expert.

I know our PGC Biologists have for years not been (NOT) been allowed to do their jobs using science. It's pollitical.  And you want the legistlature, DAn, to run things or DNR?

Check out how well they've managed White Clay Creek for hunting down in Chester Co.  Dupont gave DNR rights to manage land for deer only with primitive weapons. Ask the landlowners that surround the area on 3 sides how well deer are managed?

I dunno. I just hate to see us all fluffed up with anger and bile and pokin at each other. There is a problem, but I try to do some research on these issues and find there are many, many variables and no ONE source is the over-all cause!

Ok... I'll shut up and go visit other threads.

Play nice.      It is frustrating to see things "different" but man, there has been so MANY changes everywhere I hunt... I just get the willies when I read so much about how it's all THIS or THAT fault.

Peter Drucker wrote in the 70's the only thing we can count on anymore will be that things will change...constantly!

Be well...

[George D. Stout]

Hey Doc,  I have missed your presence at the GPSH the last couple years.  You need to visit this year.  Besides that, you and I are out of touch and "don't get it!"    So be it, I suppose.
I do know the stinking squirrels are mocking us and we need to get the nutters out.  8^).

[danseitz]

Doc,
I talked to you a bunch of years ago at a trad shoot in western Lancaster Co. north of Rt 30. Can't think of the name of the club.  At that time you were recruiting people for UBP membership and I responded to your invitation by telling you what I thought of the UBP.  I began by telling you that I once was a member and had attended two state conventions.  I was serious about bowhunting.  Perhaps you remember talking to me.  My opinion of the UBP as a shill for the PGC has not changed.

What a lot of you PGC/UBP supporters have to get clear in your head is that those of us who are telling you that the deer are gone from the public lands we used to hunt are not bumpkins who just fell off a turnip truck.  We hunted for years and killed deer annually with bows and guns.  The deer are gone now.  Not nocturnal or rousted out of the area by dogwalkers and tweety lovers.

What happened is exactly what the PGC intended.  Eradification of the deer.  A bunch of us [not me] went gaga when Alt held up the big rack at his rallies and we ended up supporting the demise of the herd.  The PGC program worked as intended.  You guys have to start facing reality.  What the PGC set out to do was accomplished.  The program was a success.  The deer are gone.

[Doc Nock]

Dan,

That meeting was at the Fox Harbor Club just outside Mountville, PA. I do remember.

You were adament about there being no deer in Black MOshannon then as I recall. I recalled sharing that I'd visited there frequently and you could cut a 6' branch and not reach the "browse line" anywhere under the tree line!

What I do accept is that those of us who love the woods, outdoors in general, are adament in what we believe. We are passionate about our sport and our opinions.

I would never suggest that you're a bumpkin. Didn't then, not suggesting so now.

I also have spent a lot of my own life and free time studying wildlife and biology.

I used to see groups of does circle around me over and over and over in rifle season. Those does knew I was there on stand...but we were no threat. So I saw "lots" of deer.

Once we started hammering them...they got wise quick. Whitetails are the most adaptable of most American species, witnessed by their remarkable recovery from my dad's youth!

We can draw lines in the sand and spit on each other's shoes all we want. Opinons don't make facts: mine or yours.

Yes, more deer have been killed...lots more.

And I watch  more deer than I ever kill and I've NEVER in my life seen more twins and triplets than since we started "eradicating" deer.

It is more than a wee bit argumentative to take the substance of my entire post and denegrate it to a mere suggestion that I postulated that dogwalkers and tweety lovers drove them off.

I said and I maintain there are many factors that have conspired to reduce deer #'s and of course, deer sightings.

I will never suggest there are not LESS deer. There are. But there are other factors that influence you, my and all these other experts in the field who no longer see deer where they used to be...

I posted another thread where I spent 3 years hunting public land around Lancaster County and I never saw a hair! I was off work so I had to hunt local. I also had the luxury of going several days in a row and finding sign overnight but never saw a deer all day from any stand, any where.

And yet, miraculously, other Lancaster County hunters did just fine and took a doe and a buck each and every year.

I suspect they were better hunter. More adaptable would be my definition of "better." They responded to changing conditions, spent more time exploring new areas where the pressure was less and found hidey holes and did fine.

They would hold a very different view of "no deer" than I would after my 3 years of dry spell.

Bottom line is that there are many folks I respect and who hunt hard who no longer see deer w here they did for many years.

I respect them, their talent and their experience and quality as hunters.  They also all hunt where they always hunted.

You and I will/can agree that there are LESS deer than there were. Period. Where you and I digress, I believe, respectfully, is that I contend that those who are left, have adapted very well and altered their behaviors, travel and learned to avoid where the danger is greatest, hence, most of us...see LESS or NO deer!

ME TOO.  Difference is that I believe they've adapted and I've not and want to do what I used to do the way I used to do it...

That is my choice. But that is an opinion. Opinions are like body parts, as the saying goes, and they're not FACTS...no matter how loud we shout or jesture...they're just what we each believe based on our own experiences.

Oh...and this area of Lancaster where I never saw deer...driving to work since mid summer, I've noticed not ONE dead deer along the road.

Since they cut the huge 200 acre corn fields that NEVER USED TO exist here like they are now, well, now I've sighted 15 dead deer in the past 2 weeks!

In closing...and I'll be good to my word and turn this back to the rest of you. I know this an intensely emotional issue for you and others.

Let's be clear:
*I'm NOT supporting the PGC.
*I have resigned my position in UBP and do not agree with their leadership or their public approach to representing my interests. Period.

But I do not and will not accept any other hunters evaluation of the entire state of the state's deer herd based on the type of conversations you and I have had nor that are represented here in this post. I contend there are other factors...yes! Less DEER! But I do not see evidence that they've been eradicated just because hunters aren't seeing them "like they used to or where they used to."

Less: yes. SMarter, leaner, more elusive? Yup! And that means a lot more hard work for us to find them w hat is... Sure as blazes isn't what I want at age 60 cause I don't hump the hills like I once did to go find them...

There are just too many people I know who consistently go out and find, kill and see a lot of deer to ever be able to embrace that just because I don't..or my cronies don't...that the deer are all gone.

Allow me to gracefully bow out and allow the debate to continue.  I'm smart enough to know when it comes to emotional issues, it's time to agree to disagree.

Thanks for listening. May you find something afield to bring that quickening to your heart so that you might not loose all that hunting means to us all.

Peace out.

[danseitz]

Yes, we'll have to disagree. I know the situation in the public land I USED to hunt. And I have talked to enough hunters--reread the posts on this thread--to know that the issue is not capabilities of hunters, nocturnal habits of deer or declining habitat over the years. The issue is the PGC's deer eradification program. Admittedly, the program's impact has varied throughout the state, but where it hit hard it was devistating. The crushing impact we are speaking about has left much public lands somewhat akin to the dark side of the moon. Barren, deserted [add your favorite desolation synonym] --nothing worth spending time on.

If your experiences are different where you hunt, be thankful.

[George D. Stout]

Dan, on Babcock Ridge, not twenty miles from my home, the large part of that tract is devoid of browse; nothing within the reach of an adult whitetail.  There are oaks there, but they must serve deer, bear, turkey, squirrel, and whatever else happens by.  I'm talking miles of forest.  It is the same in areas of Potter County...Denton Hill area, and the same just west of Clearfield in the huge Moshannon State Forest.  I would like to know how those areas can sustain big herds of deer.

Yes, we are fortunate here in Bedford County.  It is the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains; lots of farms and creek valleys next to and in between the mountains.  There are fewer deer here, but the bucks we see are bigger than ever, and the does have had lots of twins this past spring.  Wherever there is food, there are deer.  There aren't thirty in every field like there were in 1975, but that was one of the problems.  

As far as a "deer eradication program" I am not privy to such a doctrine...perhaps you can tell us where one can find the specifics.  Here around our area, the commission is working to enhance habitat through planting and cutting, so maybe they didn't get the memo.

[ron w]

If I didn't know better this post could be from New York, I'm sorry to hear about the stuff going on in Pa., but its good to know that I'm not the only one not seeing deer when the state says that theres lots. I feel better now...lol

[Jeff Mccarthy]

Dan, It certainly has been devastating in the area where I live and hunt, Cambria County near Glendale Lake. The deer on State Forest and SGL's are all but wiped out. Many people, families, both young and old used to enjoy viewing the deer throughout the year in Prince Gallitzin State Park, well now they are all gone thanks to excess DMAP permits and the long and liberal firearms seasons. Not only the hunters are doing without but many familes now miss the opportunity to enjoy the local deer.

[Earl Jeff]

Just got in from bear hunting didn't see any bear that's not a suprise. Didn't see any deer either and that's starting not to suprise me anymore either.

[Tioga]

Pretty rough around here to. 3 days of driving for bears produced 4 deer sightings for 17 people. This was on SGL in 3A and state forest land in 2G.

  There's a pretty good chance that I won't even bother getting up to go hunting Monday morning. I've had about enough. The spirit has been stolen. It ain't no fun no more.    :(

I'm not blaming the PGC. I'm not blaming the UBP. I'm not blaming the DCNR. I'm blaming myself for swallowing the BS of all of the above.  

[monkeyball]

It's crazy Earl. I took my annual "Bear walk" on
 Monday. I basically holster up my Redhawk and get a good walk in. From where I park on the bottom it is a solid hour to get to the top.It is a great workout. No bear,no deer,but lots of
coyote poop.

 Now today I thought I would go out and freshen up
some "POSTED" signs.It was warm and rainy and the ticks were out full force.Every now and then I would stop and flick them off my pants.Well,the one time I stopped it, was more than this BIG buck could take and he exploded out of his bed about 15yds from me. That was cool.

 Saw at least three very active scrapes,and jumped a couple doe. It was a really nice afternoon.It was good to see some deer.

[wollelybugger]

Two days archery season for bear, no bear, turkeys, deer or hunters. Hickory creek wilderness area. A friend just got back from Bear season with his brother, lots of bear hunters, no bears and neither one saw a deer. Tough times ahead. Nice to know our deer are magic and can completely disappear off the face of the earth and reappear when needed. As my grandma used to say, The proff is in the pudding.

[Earl Jeff]

Pickins are slim around here too.

[RedShaft]

Them Ticks are HORRIBLE!!!!!

[Tioga]

It appears that Pa hunters aren't the only ones that fell for the bullcrap. At least the Wisconsin DNR admits to going to far.....

 

A raid of 600,000 members suited in blaze orange stormed the woods last weekend with high hopes and big buck dreams. The vast majority of our rifle bearing blasters retreated back to camp after a surprise blow from our very own affiliate, the WI DNR.

 

Wisconsins opening weekend firearm season deer count was down roughly 33,000 from last years disaster. Hunters from across the state are furious. They demand answers, now.

           

A recent report from our dearly beloved DNR stated that opening mornings dense fog contributed to a lack of deer kills. My experience as a true outdoorsman and hunter tells me different. The clouds of fog that choked the forest lifted by eleven, which still gave hunters a wide-eyed chance to spot the seemingly near extinct critter us hunters call whitetail deer.  

           

The DNRs excuses didn't stop there. They also gave a bleak attempt to blame unusual warm weather patterns for a lack of deer sightings. Deer typically bed down and find shade during the warm spells. The DNR couldn't have been more on target. Weather affects animal movement drastically. Deer react instantly to weather conditions, which ultimately helps them to survive. The DNR forgot to mention that more than 600,000 hunters invaded the so-called, deer infested forests.

 

I've known two things about hunting deer that the outdoor enthusiast community can agree with me on. Deer move by weather and human pressure. With over 600,000 bodies and 1,200,000 legs roaming the field, wouldn't you'd think that those bedded deer would get up and move? Apparently the DNR does not.

 

The DNR has done many great things for the outdoor world, but failed miserably on their most recent escapade to cull our deer herd. The DNR reported that there was an overabundance of whitetail in Wisconsin. They proceeded to condense the population of deer by implementing programs that focused on culling doe; in fact, a lot of doe. Nearly half of the state has been in Earn-a-Buck, for the last several years. The Earn-a-Buck program challenges hunters to harvest a doe before pulling the trigger on a buck. The herd reduction program didn't stop there. Many of the areas that were not included in Earn-a-Buck sported a T-Zone, which is an all out doe hunting blitz. Hunters from afar participate in this insane hunting practice to kill antlerless deer during archery season with the aid of a high-powered rifle.

 

Both programs have effectively reduced the once thriving deer herd in Wisconsin, but some say it's gone too far. We cannot forget that the bottom of the entire state is still locked in a CWD Zone. The zone gives hunters an opportunity to harvest an endless amount of deer. For every one doe that you shoot, a buck tag is handed to you. It has been another extremely controversial program setup by the DNR.

 

It isn't often that hunters criticize the DNR, considering they are the protectors and stewards of our environment. The feelings soon turn raw once hunters feel cheated. The DNR has now admitted to overestimating the deer population. Now it's time for the DNR to go back to the statistics, estimations, and records and begin a new phase of duty, which is helping the whitetail population of Wisconsin increase.

 

Many high-spirited first-time hunters will put down their weapon and pick up a video game controller next year. Let's face it, who would want to sit an entire weekend seeing absolutely nothing? Those bigwigs at a roundtable somewhere in Madison are slowly stripping our hunting privileges. We must band together to save what's already been lost. Hunting is our right. We must defend our love and deepest passions by speaking out. Our only defense is in numbers. Work together to achieve the common purpose to prevail.

[danseitz]

Thanks, Tioga.  I especially enjoyed, "It isn't often that hunters criticize the DNR, considering they are the protectors and stewards of our environment. The feelings soon turn raw once hunters feel cheated. The DNR has now admitted to overestimating the deer population."

"Cheated" is exactly how I feel. The PGC has stolen our heritage.

I doubt seriously that the PGC will ever admit that they overestimated the deer population. They will continue to blame fog, warm weather that kept lazy hunters from finding the bedded deer, cold weather that kept lazy hunters in their trucks with the heater running, or any number of climatic or hunter capability issues that militated against a successful season.