Deer Season 07

[mike1894]

Just returned from 3 wonderful days at PA. deer camp.
Okay the first day was a little wet, no big deal been there before.
Out of the three full days in the beautiful PA. woods I got to
see “a” PA. white tailed deer. Man I am one happy camper.
Thank you so much PA. game commission and hats off to you
Mr. Gary Alt. I am so looking forward to next yr. Maybe I will
get lucky enough to see more than one.

[Steve in PA]

Yeah, the pickin's are mighty slim out there.

[Zef_66]

The pickins are slim because they have open season on does for almost 2 months. 6 weeks in archery and 2 weeks in gun season. If they cut that back a little bit, we would start to see more deer in the wood. Primarily cut back the 2 weeks in rifle season.

[pghplr]

I've come to the conclusion there are more deer walking the city streets of Pittsburgh than there are in the woods I travel to hunt.

[markheck1]

I've come to the conclusion there are more deer walking the city streets of Pittsburgh than there are in the woods I travel to hunt.

Simple.....can't shoot them there......I live in my city limits....I see deer in my yard ALL the time....go to the woods and it's a different story....

Ya know, I did agree with the deer strategy......Less deer = more food = bigger deer
but Man it really seems like a lot less deer.

[toadyoforangeville]

same here seen 1 doe and heard about 50ish shots .they just wernt moving. maybe tomarrow I'll catch "buck fever" and get an extra day to hunt! four instead of three 'hope to get at least 1 . freezer looks empty and to much cardboard in it


thank you Mr. Alt for a very wonderful deer herd here in PA

[Coop650]

The problem is they tried to do too much too soon. Herd reduction and AR's have worked in other states. But when they combined them together it is has been bad news. You can't give 800,000 doe tags out and allow a 2 week doe rifle season and expect the herd to be able to recover from that. I don't consider the archery season as destructive because there are far less archery hunters than rifle. In 2006 there was a total license sales of 945,892 (NR included) and only 268,755 (NR included) archery stamps sold.

But with people in urban areas complaining about too many deer and the plan to reduce the whole states numbers, it has been devastating. After reading these boards and talking to friends who have been out hunting I can't say I am as disappointed about missing this year due to the back surgery.

[Lycanthrope]

Simple.....can't shoot them there......I live in my city limits....I see deer in my yard ALL the time....go to the woods and it's a different story....

Ya know, I did agree with the deer strategy......Less deer = more food = bigger deer
but Man it really seems like a lot less deer.

Back in the early '80s I'd see 50-100 deer feeding in a field. Out of those, several were 15-18" spread bucks. Now I'm seeing a couple 15-18" bucks a year.......and nothing else. Bigger deer? I don't think so.

There were very few years deer were starving.......and that mainly had to do with hard winters.

[Buckmark.35]

Wow you guys are bitter.. haha.

I hunted out of a camp in WMU 2G, and while I didn't see any deer... A couple of guys at our camp did.

My dad missed a buck around 7:30 AM on Monday. Apparently it was so big he thought it might be an Elk, but when it picked up it's head it was a whitetail. He took a shot at it's head (all he could see) and missed.

Another guy bumped an 8 point about about 8:30 AM. Not huge, but legal nonetheless.

Tuesday we put on a couple of drives. My cousin missed one and my brother shot one. (both does). I already know where I'm goin on Saturday and I'll more than likely get a deer.

The deer are out there. You're just not looking in the right places.

[PisnNapalm]

I drive a school bus for nearly 5 hours each day. My route takes me from Phoenixville to Paoli and back 3 times a day. I see deer nearly everyday. Twice this year I almost turned deer into venison.

I saw a very large doe this morning as it ran across the road.