Pennsylvania deer hunters
#6613737
09/10/19 07:20 PM
09/10/19 07:20 PM
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Joined: May 2011
Posts: 2,493 Garden,Michigan
Buck (Zandra)
OP
trapper
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OP
trapper
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 2,493
Garden,Michigan
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Whats your take on the status of deer in your state?I'll explain where I'm coming from.I belong to a site on Michigan Deer Hunters.The subject of APR's came up and as always got pretty heated.One guy who's relentless in pushing for antler restrictions says he's from Pennsylvania and just recently moved to Michigan.He's always bringing up how great the deer hunting became in Pa after they instituted antler restrictions and now he's pushing to move Michigan in the same direction.Whats the status of the herd and hunting in general in Pennsylvania?
Buck(formely known as Zandra)
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: Buck (Zandra)]
#6613762
09/10/19 07:51 PM
09/10/19 07:51 PM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,930 SEPA
Lugnut
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,930
SEPA
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I've been hunting deer in PA for fifty years. You were always allowed to kill one buck with a general hunting license, still are. Way back in the sixties and seventies through the eighties and nineties you almost had to know somebody at the courthouse to get a much-coveted doe tag.
As a result, the male to female ratio was way out of whack and there was a major overpopulation of deer statewide. You could sit just about anywhere and watch a hundred deer a day run by. If you got lucky one was a spike or small fork horn and your season was over. The deer were scrawny and malnourished. They had long since eaten nearly everything edible and were half-starved. Back then we had more than a million hunters in PA and we killed 90% of the bucks before they reached two years old.
In 2002 Gary Alt introduced herd reduction and antler restrictions. I don't really care about antler restrictions, I hunt deer for the meat, can't eat antlers. But the herd reduction had a profound effect on PA's herd. In the last seventeen years the herd has been reduced by around 25% statewide and closer to 50% in some areas. I usually kill three deer a year. Over the last ten years or so I routinely kill mature doe that dress at 110-130 pounds. Twenty years ago most doe I killed dressed between sixty and eighty pounds.
Used to be nothing but maple and hay-scented fern in the northwoods, two of deer's least favorite foods. Now things are starting to balance out again.
I will say one thing about antler restrictions; over the last 10-15 years I've seen bigger racks than I've ever seen. We do a lot of spotting at night and there's definitely a great improvement in the headgear. Probably less bucks overall but much nicer specimens.
Eh...wot?
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: Buck (Zandra)]
#6613791
09/10/19 08:35 PM
09/10/19 08:35 PM
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Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,779 Northern lower Michigan
Feedinggrounds
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,779
Northern lower Michigan
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Michigan banned baiting in the lower peninsula this year, our hunting land was geared towards permanent box blinds, food plots and some bait. Our soil is very sandy dry upland pine and oak and food plots struggle. My two grandsons, a friend and myself intend to pass up deer hunting completely this year. Our land has great small game along with fall steelhead and trout on the river we have frontage on. Doing a squirrel camp and fish camp on Nov 15 the deer opener. In Michigan deer hunters are infighting badly due to antler restrictions. We now have Chronic wasting disease the DNR says, many think it is a hoax being used to force the bait ban and antler restrictions. Much misinformation is being pushed by all with a agenda. The DNR has loss most credibility with hunters, fisherman and other sportsman due to mismanagement, participation is dropping fast along with deer tag dollars. Many feel now our whitetail deer are unfit to eat without a slow state sponsored testing program.
you're only allowed so many sunrises... I aim to see every one of them!
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: Buck (Zandra)]
#6613817
09/10/19 08:54 PM
09/10/19 08:54 PM
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 4,162 uniontown pa
gutthooked
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 4,162
uniontown pa
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Pa sucks for deer hunting around here, you can hunt most of the season and not see a dozen deer. There was always big racks around , the antler restrictions done nothing for bigger bucks. I'm sure most will disagree with me but that's the truth.
Don't limit your challenges Challenge your limits
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: gutthooked]
#6613844
09/10/19 09:14 PM
09/10/19 09:14 PM
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Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 180 Pennsylvania
patrapper1989
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 180
Pennsylvania
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Pa sucks for deer hunting around here, you can hunt most of the season and not see a dozen deer. There was always big racks around , the antler restrictions done nothing for bigger bucks. I'm sure most will disagree with me but that's the truth. I agree, I hunt out your way and the deer numbers are definitely down yet. I only shoot buck and do fairly well hunting game lands but it's definitely not like it used to be out there. Antler restrictions don't do anything. All the posted land helps deer get away more than anything, once the public land gets pressure they take cover in the posted. Now we have wide four points breeding does and spikes because they never get legal to harvest, meanwhile the bigger bucks that get harvested early in archery aren't breeding anything ,completely backwards strategy in my opinion.
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: Buck (Zandra)]
#6613958
09/10/19 11:09 PM
09/10/19 11:09 PM
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 868 Punxsutawney, Pa.
MinkGuy
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 868
Punxsutawney, Pa.
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Many deer in our area and this year promises to provide some dandies!. My dad shot a big buck about 40 years ago and I remember how many people came to see it and celebrate his success. I have the antlers mounted in my camp alongside many of my daughter's big bucks. As I looked at them the other night I realized that his trophy was much smaller than the recent ones taken by my kids that are now known to be common to the area
DonP Minktrapping.com
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: gutthooked]
#6614072
09/11/19 06:59 AM
09/11/19 06:59 AM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,930 SEPA
Lugnut
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,930
SEPA
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Pa sucks for deer hunting around here, you can hunt most of the season and not see a dozen deer. There was always big racks around , the antler restrictions done nothing for bigger bucks. I'm sure most will disagree with me but that's the truth. I can see your point given your location. There have always been big-racked bucks out your way so AR's don't really help. But, in most of the rest of the state where those great east Ohio/southwestern PA genetics don't exist, there has been a big improvement in the quality of headgear.
Eh...wot?
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Re: Pennsylvania deer hunters
[Re: Buck (Zandra)]
#6614120
09/11/19 08:10 AM
09/11/19 08:10 AM
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Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 6,683 PA
gryhkl
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 6,683
PA
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Ars in PA came about as a trade off for the herd reduction that was greatly needed but hunters greatly opposed. At Gary Alt's first few talks he gave on the new(at the time)deer management policy he said the goal was to reduce deer numbers and that was only accomplished by killing does. Hunters were outraged so, to gain their support, he changed his tune on ARs.
There are, without a doubt, many more large racked bucks being killed since ARs have been in place.There is also much more posted land and hunters numbers have declined-as they have in nearly everywhere.
I do not favor ARs. If a hunter doesn't want to kill a small buck, don't loose the arrow or pull the trigger. I have always passed on smaller bucks, not so much because I want large antlers, but because I don't want to use my buck tag too early in the season on small one.
The biggest reason I think ARS are a terrible idea is the spreading of CWD. The PGC has established areas of the state where CWD is considered a risk and has set rules on what parts of a deer may be taken from these areas into non-CWD areas. This is done in effort to reduce the transfer from one area to another. If studies show that young bucks are much more likely to travel from the area of their birth to areas further than other deer commonly move from theirs, why are they not legal game? It only makes sense to reduce their numbers too.
Most parts of the state have plenty of deer and, with so many ways to kill them and seasons to do it, most semi-serious deer hunters can kill at least one every year.
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