In Pennsylvania the game commission will legalize any method as a money grab to get license sold. Using a xcross in archery feels like cheating.

Have shot deer with recurve, compound, cross, shotgun, black powder inline, cap lock and flint and also rifle. Caught a yearling in a 1 1/2 vic coil. Use what you want when made legal.
They're opening all of our regular bow season to cross bow this year.
Oh well. I'll still probably shoot my first deer with the recurve.
Then maybe take the compound, or to tick off the purest I'll shoot one with the crossbow.

It all good to me. Food in the freezer


Do most purest bow hunt during the shotgun/rifle season?

For me every deer is a trophy with all guns/bows.

I give thanks to the Good Lord that is can still fill the freezer!

To some I suppose it does, but you have to remember that the deer population is booming in most areas.

Deer damage permits are being handed out like candy at Halloween .
If you need a different license for each weapon of harvest, then I can see your point.
I wonder about their polices .

If I felt like I was cheating by using a crossbow, I wouldn't use one then.

Naw, I'm lying. I'm hunting deer to fill the freezer. And I don't care what bow or gun I use to kill a deer with.
They're all the same at the end. A dead deer is a dead deer.

Missouri lumped crossbows in with archery in 2016ish in order to get kids out hunting at an earlier age and to keep older hunters in the woods.

Love them.Its all good.Each hunters choice.

Gonnah miss Uncle JByrds deer shooting extravaganza....like 8 in about 20 seconds

“ booming in most areas” maybe compared to OH. There was a time deer were plentiful before an idiot named Gary Alt headed up the PA deer harvest and management. Now north of I-80 there is booming empty cabins and vacant store fronts. The traditions are gone. Now hunters don’t have as many opportunities or patients and use a mechanical advantage to reach out just to get it done.

There are still plenty of deer in PA. Gone are the days when you could sit on a stump and watch a hundred scrawny, half-starved deer walk by.

Thanks to that "idiot" Dr.Gary Alt we now have healthy deer with actual meat on their bones. I kill yearlings these days that weigh more than adult does did forty years ago.

And the bucks! No more watching a hundred half-starved does walk by to see that one "potter County 11-pointer (spike buck). The antler size and overall health of the bucks in PA is better than it's ever been in my fifty-plus years of hunting deer. All thanks to that "idiot" Dr. Gary Alt.

Didn't Alt go into witness protection program?

Population management is what brings better health to all wildlife.
Remember one thing that effects all hunting, private hunting or no hunting.
The purest bow hunters have leashed up land everywhere, they make big money just by housing and guiding hunters for a week.
Blocks off local hunters, and the pressure on the deer to move for everyone to hunt.

How is Wisconsin DNR's white-tailed deer management program working out?

Don't know, but Ohio has too many deer now!
I've had an 8 deer limit at one time, looking like it's going to be higher soon.

There’s a few guys on here who could come help lower the deer population.

They stack deer like cord wood.

Wish I could post a picture of a two day hunt in the back of a pickup.
8 guys hunting. 16 deer.

I have five doe tags for this season plus the one buck we're allowed with our hunting license. I'm hoping to fill all of them.

… why can’t you post a picture?

Heck yeah! I hope you do. Edit to add… so we stay on topic. I hope you kill all of them with a crossbow.



I am trying to fill at least 5 of my doe tags. Might shoot a buck if the right one steps out. I’ve got 4 buck tags between Delaware and Maryland and unlimited antlerless tags.


How did the new online system work for you getting PA doe tags? I know some folks weren’t looking forward to it.

cannibals and useful idiots

Written by John Wasmuth

The following is real, and it’s here.
Joe Hunter goes to a cocktail party, nothing fancy, just a holiday gathering in Anytown, USA. A conversation begins with Bob Peta, it goes something like this;
“Say Joe, didn’t you go deer hunting this year.”
“Sure did Bob.”
“Man that’s, uh, great, did you get one?”
“Yep, sure did, nice 6 point.”
“Uh, wow, hey that’s great. Say listen Joe, yer a true hunter, a ”Real” hunter are you not?”
“Yes, I sure am.”
“Say, I hear tell of a kinda huntin where people can go and kill animals in fenced in areas. You’ve never done that have you?”
“No, no I haven’t.”
“Well I wouldn’t call that “real” hunting, would you Joe.”
“Well, that’s not the way I hunt.”
“I know Joe, but there are people that hunt in fenced areas, I don’t think that’s “Really” hunting, do you Joe.”
“Well, uh, I guess not.”
“Great, say listen Joe, a bunch of us concerned “Real” hunters are trying to get that done away with, we feel that it is unethical. Will you help us Joe?”
“Well sure, because that’s not the way I hunt, and I am a “Real” hunter.”
“Say thanks Joe; here is what we need you to do. As a “real” hunter, the big boys in senate and congress will listen to you; they know that any “Real” hunter only hunts the way you do, and that’s the only “Real” hunting there is. So what we need you to do is get out there and get petitions signed, people will sign them because you are a “Real” hunter and know that only your way of hunting is the “Real” way.”
So Joe diligently goes after the goal, to ban and outlaw any kind of hunting that Bob suggests is not “Real” hunting. He gathers signatures, petitions courts, makes meetings, he is really cleaning up this “unethical” way of hunting. [Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot], he’s got a lot of support. He’s gathering “Real” hunters from all over, and finally, after much hard work, they get a legal way of hunting banned.

“Joe, you did great and we sure appreciate your hard work, but hey, let me tell you what I heard about. There is another kind of hunting “We” think is not right. Do you think you can help us?”
“Well, I guess so Bob, I don’t hunt like that, so it’s not “Real” hunting. How can I help?”
“Well, here is what we need…….,” and it’s the same story. Odd how Bob seems to keep adding onto the list of what “Real” hunting is, but Joe goes at it hard and heavy, and in the end, he gets that type of legal hunting banned. Bob and his “Friends” are happy. Joe’s a “Real” hunter after all, and these other guy’s, well, they are not, because the way they hunt is different from Joe, and Joe does not like that type of hunting, so what’s the harm in getting rid of it? Joe’s a “Real” hunter you know. Not like those other guys. He even goes to Sportsman’s organizations and recruits from within, it’s easy because there are a lot of “Real” hunters there.

Time passes and more and more legal forms of hunting are banned. Bob and his “friends” are happy with Joe. He’s been a big help. After it’s all just about gone, Bob and his “friends” decide that it is time to get Joe’s way of hunting banned, the final chapter.
“Bob, uh, hey buddy, this is Joe. I know I helped you get rid of all those other forms of legal hunting, but now there is a move to get rid of the way I hunt.”
“Well Joe, I know. My “friends” and I are spearheading that.”
“But Bob, I thought you liked the way I hunt, that it was ok for me to do the type of hunting I do.”
“Well Joe, no, any and all types of hunting are bad, the poor defenseless animals never have a chance, and we dislike, actually hate hunters.”
“But I thought the way I hunted was “Real” hunting to you.”
“[Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot] Joe, it was all “ Real” hunting, but we at PETA and HSUS Hate you, but thanks for all your help, we really appreciate it.”

You see, what Joe became was a “Cannibal”. A “Useful Idiot” to the anti’s and PETA. They don’t give a rat’s backside how you hunt, what you hunt, or when you hunt. They just want all hunting done away with. They use hunters against hunters to gain support for their “Causes”.

If you do not support any and all forms of legal hunting, and decide to pick and chose the ones you like and dislike, and voice any decent about the way someone else legally hunts, you are in fact, a “Cannibal” and a very very “Useful Idiot” for the enemy. There are plants even within the sacred walls of your favorite Sportsman’s organizations. Route them out, expose them, and rid the board of them. Hunting’s future depends upon it.

This is the third year we are able to buy doe licenses online. The first two years were a mess, very long wait times. The number of hunters applying at the same time slowed the system way down and nearly crashed it. And some folks didn't get tags for the management units they wanted. Those units sold out while they were waiting to get online.

This year the PGC changed it a bit. They guaranteed that every PA resident would get a doe license as long as they applied within the first three weeks after they went on sale. That was supposed to alleviate the first-day-of-sale crush and the resulting long wait times.

It did help somewhat. When I logged on at exactly 8:00 AM the day the sale began there were already 64,000 folks ahead of me. But that was better than the 150,000+ folks that were ahead of me the last two years. I logged out and went to work, I logged back on that evening and me and my granddaughter got ours with only a very short wait.

The issue is really with the WMU's that tend to sell out quickly, mostly in the north-central part of the state. I always get mine from up there first. I used to get two up there every year but the last 5-6 years they have sold out before the second round of sales (you're only allowed one tag per round. I live in a special regulation area. We are overrun with deer and have a huge number of doe tags available to us. Some years they don't even sell all of them. So I wait until later rounds to buy those.