Pennsylvania Deer Camp

[Yoder]

I did some still hunting this morning until about 11 in the crunchy snow. Just moving real slow, blowing a grunt call as I moved. I was hunting ridge tops. I saw 4 doe. One came up a drainage and popped out at 20 yards. I had my scope on 6x, all I could see was brown in the scope. I rushed the shot and missed! I could have almost no scoped her. She spun around and dropped down the drainage. Never got a second shot. I had another one in my scope but no shot. Last one I took a shot at one running at about 60 yards but missed again. That one wasn't surprising. Didn't kill anything but a great day.

 

[Seips]

Was lucky enough to be invited to the PA opener and camp this year, Best 100 bucks I’ve spent, had a great time, saw lots of deer, looking forward to next year.

 

[Mr. October]

Don’t take it for granted

I don't.

 

[Mr. October]

Tobyhanna - I got a good doe first hour Saturday morning. Only buck I saw was a 1 horned spike sunday morning.

We aren't too far from there. Camp is Lake Harmony/Albrightsville.

 

[Mr. October]

I was in camp from the Friday after Thanksgiving until this past Sunday and hunted every day. I filled my buck tag in archery and was hoping for one antler less deer to top off the freezer. I had multiple opportunities that didn't work out early on and wound up having to make the 2 mile hike on Saturday to fill my tag. Ultimately, we had a good camp with 6 deer taken. 1 buck and 5 antler less deer. Several people didn't have buck tags.

 

[summs]

I was in camp from the Friday after Thanksgiving until this past Sunday and hunted every day. I filled my buck tag in archery and was hoping for one antler less deer to top off the freezer. I had multiple opportunities that didn't work out early on and wound up having to make the 2 mile hike on Saturday to fill my tag. Ultimately, we had a good camp with 6 deer taken. 1 buck and 5 antler less deer. Several people didn't have buck tags.

That's so crazy to me that PA has 1 buck tag for the year and not 1 archery and 1 rifle at a minimum.
We hunt the SGL's around Toby, it's loaded with bear and coyote sign, lacking for deer I find, also it's just to flat for my liking, I prefer ridges. I only do the opening weekend.

Im across the Delaware river in NJ, we have 6 buck tags and unlimited does for most of the state. Just have to shell out the $$$.

 

[CMP70306]

That's so crazy to me that PA has 1 buck tag for the year and not 1 archery and 1 rifle at a minimum.
We hunt the SGL's around Toby, it's loaded with bear and coyote sign, lacking for deer I find, also it's just to flat for my liking, I prefer ridges. I only do the opening weekend.

Im across the Delaware river in NJ, we have 6 buck tags and unlimited does for most of the state. Just have to shell out the $$$.

We also have 840,000 hunters that only kill 160,000 bucks, those numbers don’t lend towards supporting a second buck tag. Not to mention the rifle guys would flip if the archery guys were given essentially two buck tags when they already have 7 weeks in the early season, the entire rut and as of this year every Sunday in the early season to hunt.

 

[summs]

We also have 840,000 hunters that only kill 160,000 bucks, those numbers don’t lend towards supporting a second buck tag. Not to mention the rifle guys would flip if the archery guys were given essentially two buck tags when they already have 7 weeks in the early season, the entire rut and as of this year every Sunday in the early season to hunt.

Valid opinion, although I don't feel the same about potential rifle hunters complaints (as someone who only rifle hunts PA)

Rifle hunters kill 60% of the total harvest (476,000 total harvest)
Archery kill 35% for the total harvest, yet they kill the same amount of bucks at 85,000 a piece.

IMO the rifle guys opinion would be weakened on the matter when you kill nearly 2x the amount of deer. Angry at archery hunters for being what, more successful at harvesting bucks.

The 90/10 rule comes into effect, where 10% of the population kills 90% of the game.

 

[Mr. October]

That's so crazy to me that PA has 1 buck tag for the year and not 1 archery and 1 rifle at a minimum.
We hunt the SGL's around Toby, it's loaded with bear and coyote sign, lacking for deer I find, also it's just to flat for my liking, I prefer ridges. I only do the opening weekend.

Im across the Delaware river in NJ, we have 6 buck tags and unlimited does for most of the state. Just have to shell out the $$$.

I grew up in Salem County. We had good hunting back then and, at one point, had unlimited antler less tags. That is no longer the case with EHD. We were one of the first areas in the state to have EHD. That was some 20-25 years ago. The long term effect shows. We now have one of the shortest seasons in the state with the lowest bag limits. There are 2 zones farther south where they have closed the permit seasons altogether.

I still spend a bunch of money to get my tags down there, but the county let a local sluice gate fail. Our property got inundated with brackish water and it killed 90% of the trees. What was good hunting property is now largely phragmites and mile-a-minute.

Regarding tag allocations, just remember that NJ will NEVER have enough hunters at this point to meet deer management goals. Pennsylvania has 10X or more the number of hunters NJ has. Granted it is a bigger state but still . . so few hunters and so many deer for NJ = high tag allocations.

 

[CMP70306]

Valid opinion, although I don't feel the same about potential rifle hunters complaints (as someone who only rifle hunts PA)

Rifle hunters kill 60% of the total harvest (476,000 total harvest)
Archery kill 35% for the total harvest, yet they kill the same amount of bucks at 85,000 a piece.

IMO the rifle guys opinion would be weakened on the matter when you kill nearly 2x the amount of deer. Angry at archery hunters for being what, more successful at harvesting bucks.

The 90/10 rule comes into effect, where 10% of the population kills 90% of the game.

That would be a good argument in a vacuum, in reality the archery harvest is lower explicitly because of the season structure causing hunters to pass does in favor of targeting bucks. That’s why the archery harvest has a buck to doe ratio of 1:1 while in rifle it’s 2 does killed for every buck. Muzzleloader is even more lopsided at 7% bucks to 93% does due to the early season being doe only and the only muzzleloader buck opportunity being the flintlock season after Christmas.

The reason we aren’t allowed to shoot bucks during our early muzzleloader season is because the PGC stated that the herd couldn’t handle the additional pressure of bucks being removed with flintlocks before the rut. That effectively ended any talk of an early firearms buck opportunity yet now 25 years later the archery buck harvest is 3 times higher than it was and they continue to expand the season every chance they get.

Take for example this year, archery hunters got 9 of the 10 extra Sundays added to their season while rifle got one and the late flintlock season got zero. Now imagine they give archery hunters with all of the existing benefits of season length, timing, and low pressure to shoot bucks before everyone else the option for an exclusive buck tag for their season and a second to use during rifle. As a rifle/muzzleloader hunter I would be pretty damn annoyed at the favoritism. Now if they let muzzleloader hunters kill bucks during the early October season and made both buck tags any season then I would be more inclined to support it.

And this is coming from someone who primarily targets does and doesn’t take buck hunting very seriously due to the fact the I’ve killed some big ones over the years and the majority of the bucks locally never get old enough for me to consider shooting.

 

[Mr. October]

That would be a good argument in a vacuum, in reality the archery harvest is lower explicitly because of the season structure causing hunters to pass does in favor of targeting bucks. That’s why the archery harvest has a buck to doe ratio of 1:1 while in rifle it’s 2 does killed for every buck. Muzzleloader is even more lopsided at 7% bucks to 93% does due to the early season being doe only and the only muzzleloader buck opportunity being the flintlock season after Christmas.

The reason we aren’t allowed to shoot bucks during our early muzzleloader season is because the PGC stated that the herd couldn’t handle the additional pressure of bucks being removed with flintlocks before the rut. That effectively ended any talk of an early firearms buck opportunity yet now 25 years later the archery buck harvest is 3 times higher than it was and they continue to expand the season every chance they get.

Take for example this year, archery hunters got 9 of the 10 extra Sundays added to their season while rifle got one and the late flintlock season got zero. Now imagine they give archery hunters with all of the existing benefits of season length, timing, and low pressure to shoot bucks before everyone else the option for an exclusive buck tag for their season and a second to use during rifle. As a rifle/muzzleloader hunter I would be pretty damn annoyed at the favoritism. Now if they let muzzleloader hunters kill bucks during the early October season and made both buck tags any season then I would be more inclined to support it.

And this is coming from someone who primarily targets does and doesn’t take buck hunting very seriously due to the fact the I’ve killed some big ones over the years and the majority of the bucks locally never get old enough for me to consider shooting.

The archery buck harvest sky rocketed with the introduction of crossbows. That became a double-factor because a lot of the people that used to take bucks during rifle have now already filled their tags during archery.

In my personal opinion, they can dispense with the early muzzleloader/rifle doe season any time they want. That was a concession to Gary Alt who proposed the theory of shooting more does early before the rut. Gary is a smart guy but there was never really any science to support that theory. It was also a gift to the in-line muzzle loader manufacturers. Now that we have crossbows in archery and have full weekends in the regular rifle season, I personally don't see a big need for the early antler less firearms season.