I'll be hunting 5C where buck and doe run concurrent the first week. I hope to have some meat for the freezer by the end of the weekend.

Don't forget, we can hunt this Sunday too.

It's still strange to me not having opening day on Monday.

I'll be counting shots. I do it every year and jot down the number of shots I hear the first thirty minutes and the first hour.

Good luck to all!

The Monday opening is no longer a tradition.

No, it's not. The PGC killed it and may have inadvertently put the final nail in the coffin of the PA Hunting Camp tradition.

So we start new ones. We're finally getting a real weekend gun deer opener. Partially excited for tomorrow even though i cant shoot. Taking my wife out since we both have the time. Looking forward to a positive experience for her. Pretty sure there wont be a ton of movement but with the orange lottery you never know when your number might get called.

It seems strange starting on a Saturday. You're correct about the camps, it will never be what it was.

Yeah good luck lugnut. I count shots too. Will be in 3a this year for the first time in a decade. Im sure wont hear near as many as im ued to in 1b on the opener.

What was the reason for the change? To try to get more hunters thus selling more licenses or kill more deer? Or some other reason?

Everybody is entitled to their opinions. The majority of PA hunters I talk to or hear from feel like you Claypool.

I don't. One of my favorite times of the year was the weekend before Rifle Deer Season. Folks started rolling into camp late Friday or early Saturday morning. Most of them were good friends who I only got to see a handful of times throughout the year.

I absolutely loved having that leisurely weekend to hunt some small game on Saturday, sight in rifles at the local gun club, check stands, plan strategies and, most of all, hang out with old friends.

The camaraderie of Deer Camp was at least as important to me as the hunting was.

The PGC eliminated all that with the regulation change. It ain't ever gonna be the same.

Nobody even hunts rifle deer out of my camp since the change.

Good luck all. I am tagged out and will be trapping.

The stated reason was to recruit more hunters by increasing hunting opportunities.

I don't think it had much of a positive effect. A lot of deer camps were sitting empty before this change, I think many more are now.

I called my electrician a couple weeks ago....he answers his cell phone in a whisper....hi Nessy...Iam hunting right now...and for the next 2 weeks...I said good luck....been there done that..lol

I’m at camp now, near Snow Shoe. Got a couple DMAP doe tags for the Sproul SF. Tough hunting out in the mountain laurel, but I love the big woods.

Good luck Bigbrownie!

I'll be out in the morning hopefully the rain stays away here

What season for deer just opened??

danvee, It's our rifle opener.

We'll never get back to the glory days of the 60's 70's and early 80's. I remember going to camp with my dad in the 70's and the roads being lined with cars the 2 days before the Monday opener. By the time I started hunting in '82 the roads were no longer full. The camps still were. By the early 90's most of the camps in our area were pretty vacant for the first day. They're starting to be full again, but not in the numbers like before.

The camp I hunt out of now has 8 of us most years. This year there are 15 hunting out of it. The main reason being the first Sunday being allowed to hunt.

I remember those days of yore. Camps full, deer everywhere in the big woods, an army of orange clad hunters all through the forest. The first two hours of deer season sounded like a war zone with all the shooting. Last time I hunted deer in PA was about 2000. Everything was gone then. I hardly heard a shot all day and seen about 10% of the hunters I once did and mostly along the roads.

Good luck to everyone. I will be taking out my son tomorrow, 8 years old. I understand the hunting camp thing, have2 camps we can go to but theres no deer there during hunting season! Camp is now a summer vacation place. Will be hunting in small private patches with a crossbow. Happy to not have to take off work to hunt monday or tues. I remember mom calling me in sick from school so i could hunt monday and tuesday with dad. That was buck only back then for 3 days I think.

I want every Sunday open
Good luck guys

You folks in the first time concurrent be careful. This is different as in you jump up brown you may have fire towards you. Gramps it's said more deer this season than the last 8 and it seems true here. Good luck everyone and be safe.

Have to get them moving if stump sitters are to see them.