Deer Hunting in Huntington County

[Dexter]

The mismanagement of the PA Game Commission has decimated the deer herd in Central PA. I bow hunted over 10,000 acres of State Forests n Gamelands n saw very few signs of deer....plenty of black bear however. Very few tracks, droppings, no rubs n only 1 scrape. They need to raise the antler restriction, cut back on the # of doe tags, n do away with concurrent buck/doe rifle season. It's so bad that all the hunting clubs n conservationists in that area got together n bought all the doe tags they could n burned them in protest.

[Dredly]

The mismanagement of the PA Game Commission has decimated the deer herd in Central PA. I bow hunted over 10,000 acres of State Forests n Gamelands n saw very few signs of deer....plenty of black bear however. Very few tracks, droppings, no rubs n only 1 scrape. They need to raise the antler restriction, cut back on the # of doe tags, n do away with concurrent buck/doe rifle season. It's so bad that all the hunting clubs n conservationists in that area got together n bought all the doe tags they could n burned them in protest.

#1. Raising the antler restrictions won't make any difference at all. It hasn't made a difference yet and it won't, it just increases the number of deer left dead on the ground and encourages poor bucks to be safe from hunter harm

#2. The black bear are responsible for a big chunk of missing herd... they eat the fawns. Get the hunting clubs to go out during bear season and slaughter them and the deer herd will increase

#3. There were MORE doe killed when it wasn't concurrent season then now when it is. This is due to the "I want to kill a buck because they are huge due to AR" mentality. Before that it was "Brown and Down"... dunno which is worse.

#4. There are actually people who rely on venison to feed their families throughout the year... burning doe tags and keeping other people from having them is pretty harsh and doesn't send a message to the PGC at all... all it tells them is you are buying permits and they are getting more money in their bank accounts. Additionally it will result in MORE permits being issued next year because the success rate will be so low that they will issue more to counter act this.

[DougX]

I think they need to not shoot any bucks for a couple years and keep the doe tags the same.If you don't kill the does, you take food from the bucks.When I was younger I would see 15 deer in a herd, but no bucks.I would see 40 does a day ,no buck.I see less deer now maybe 8 a day,but 1 or 2 are bucks.While usually not legal still have antlers.

[Dexter]

You're both missing the point. There are NO deer left up there. I have been a bow hunter ALL my life. I have hunted across the US and Alaska. There are NO deer to cause car accidents in Huntington Co.

[JimM]

You're both missing the point. There are NO deer left up there. I have been a bow hunter ALL my life. I have hunted across the US and Alaska. There are NO deer to cause car accidents in Huntington Co.

Well then I guess I'll just stay home. Thanks for the heads up.

[t1m0thy]

You're both missing the point. There are NO deer left up there. I have been a bow hunter ALL my life. I have hunted across the US and Alaska. There are NO deer to cause car accidents in Huntington Co.

I have to say I have noticed that driving around the area. About 5-6 years ago I used to see a lot more along the roads driving on 22. I can't remember the last time I saw one passing through.

[God's Country]

The reality IMO is the deer herd has suffered from gross mismanagement for 50 years. The current management continues the trend.

While I actually agree with some of what PGC has done they seem to be wandering in the dark again. Too few deer seems as ludicrous as too many.
I've yet to hear exactly what their end game is. Just where they want to take the future of deer hunting eludes me. And I mean that honestly, not as some rhetorical derogatory comment.

[t1m0thy]

They should move some of the herds from southeast PA to other areas. Has anyone seen the herds in Valley forge? It is ridiculous how many deer there are there.

[imp81318]

The reality IMO is the deer herd has suffered from gross mismanagement for 50 years. The current management continues the trend.

While I actually agree with some of what PGC has done they seem to be wandering in the dark again. Too few deer seems as ludicrous as too many.
I've yet to hear exactly what their end game is. Just where they want to take the future of deer hunting eludes me. And I mean that honestly, not as some rhetorical derogatory comment.

I've posted it on here before, but for those interested I'd recommend reading "Deer Wars". It is an expensive book, no doubt, but it chronicles the mismanagement of the deer herd throughout history in PA, and gets into what Alt tried to do with his time in office, and details the struggles the PGC has to deal with as far as opposing intrests and everything. It is quite the interesting read, and it really opened up my eyes to a lot of the problems we see today (I'm only 27 but I've noticed a dropoff in the number of deer I've been seeing where we hunt too - in Mifflin Co, near Huntingdon line).

Here is the short answer to what the PGC's goal is: take a look at the many deer exclusion fences erected in the area. There are 3 immediately around our camp so if you don't know where any are I can provide directions. Look at the growth and woods inside the fences and compare it to the surrounding woods. Bears climb the fences without problem, birds can fly in and out freely, and squirrels can jump over them on tree branches and run through the holes. The only real significant portion of wildlife that is kept out of those areas is deer. Granted, they were clear-cut, but just look at the growth inside the fences and compare it to the surrounding growth - and that difference is just in the last 5-10 years. The deer are over-populated, not that there are necessarily a huge number of them in the woods, but there are too many for the forests to sustain.

For decades (and probably centuries, really) we've had forests over-populated with deer. Throughout history, forests have been cut down and re-grown. We've had young forests attempting to support the same deer herd that fully mature forests once held. The deer became overpopulated and absolutely decimated the forests. There wasn't enough food to support the deer herd. Squirrels were run out of the forests in search of food, along with many other forms of small wildlife because the deer were consuming it all. In fact, deer die off every year due to malnutrition because there just isn't enough food source in those forests to sustain the herd that exists.

The PGC's current attack is to wipe down the deer herd to below levels that the forests can sustain so that the forest is able to regenerate and eventually sustain a larger herd. But that will take time, and a whole lot of effort from the PGC because hunters (their #1 source of income) don't want to be told that we need to kill off more deer when they already aren't seeing as many as they once did.

I am just hopeful that the PGC is able to enact some kind of plan so that they are able to get the forests healthy and the herd to a more appropriate and sustainable level so that my kids will have a better environment for hunting to enter into than what I currently have.

The book mentioned, deer wars, details the studies the PGC has conducted and continues to conduct, the analysis of contents of the stomachs of deer found dead in the winter time - sticks, twigs, nothing of nutritional value. I know that I've never been a doe hunter and since reading that book, I have bought a doe license every year and harvested my first deer last year, a doe.

[brokerrob1]

Our camp is in the southeast corner of Huntington Cty, down near Blairs Mills and we regularly see deer (we have owned since 2006), including a nice 10 pt two wks ago. On one day, there were four of us hunting out of our camp and each of us saw at least 5 deer (incl. two bucks) each day. We were probably spread out over about 1000 acres (some private, but most public). We hunt pretty hard during archery (last 2 wks of Oct. and first 2 wks of Nov) and hunt lightly during rifle. Once the woods fill during rifle, our area gets hunted HARD and we do not see many deer. We will see an occasional herd of doe, but very few bucks... maybe too many places to hide? We have also noticed increasing bear sign the last couple of years.

... Come on down