Germ

Jim $30 membership QDMA on me PM address and i will make it happen. No Joke

bawanajim

I'll buy myself one ,Thanks...............but I'm still killen maple trees before does.....Build it and they will come...........

Germ

Do you hinge cut?

bawanajim

Some of the smaller ones I do,but the bigger one I cut and use - sell for fire wood. Most are poor specimens from past select cuttings before I bought the land.

Rick James

Thank you, and good luck with yours too. I'm hesitant to post specific location informationanymore on my place because I've found out that locals to my property that I believemay betrespassing have been following my posts here on HNI. I will say if you draw a line between Elmira, NY, and Williamsport, PA........I'm between those two.

I'm somewhat familiar with your area, I used to live in Wellsboro and know the further west you go it tends to turn into big woods with a LOT of mature timber.....i.e. no browse. My spot has a higher carrying capacity than your place and is MUCH more agricultural. My property falls in the middle of a 600 acre patch of woods that is in the middle of a 50,000+ acre valley full of corn/alfalfa.

I do believe in areas such as yours the first step is drastic habitat improvement.......heck some 10+ acre clearcuts in those big woods areas would be a great first step and then a few years of little to no harvest would help tremendously. Unfortunately you folks in that part of PA are probably feeling the most pain from the now massive WMU's. Once this happens and after a few years hopefully the herd can recover it's probably going to come back out of balance with many more does than bucks, and then you could implement a similar program to what I did.

I do understand that focusing on the does is not the first step or key ingredient everywhere, but when your seeing densities of 15+ deer per square mile and know that there is a 1/5+ buck/doe ratio (fawns removed from the equation) it's definitely going to help things IMHO. It's helped us, I know that for sure.

bawanajim

The land near Panama is my uncles, he has a 340 acre farm there.And as you state the woods are not the best for deer.

My land is in Crawford county abutting the Cussawago bottoms.WE HAVE GREAT HABITAT,our problem is people and snow fall. We have both the city of Erie & Meadville in our WMA andlike most city people they own 1/2 acre and couldn't care less about deer numbers until they hit one with their car. most are two day per year hunters and the sooner their done the better for them.Our does get pounded. No need for me to add to the slaughter.
I try to do my best with food and predator control.

Good luck,Jim

Germ

Any chance we are going to get detail of this deer mecca land you hunted Atlas?

Was there AR in place?
What is the Pressure like?
Harvest numbers for the area?

BTW something jumps out at me.

700,000(hunters) kill a little less than 100,000 bucks seems a bit low to me. No wonder there is a lot of pressure on the deer. Whats the break down between gun and bow?

Germ

Oh Atlas? You going to answers? Give some details?

atlasman

Sorry G-man...........must have missed it.

I hunted in the river bottoms of Montana. 15,000 acres of archery only on private leased ranches/farms. Hunting pressure was as low as it gets......no AR's.......and I had 1 buck tag and 1 doe tag with additional doe tags able to be purchased. My brother and I killed 2 bucks and10 does I believe on a week long hunt. The buck:doe ratio out there would make a QDM'r puke. I honestly couldn't tell you how many deer I saw........in addition to muley, moose, bear, pronghorn and elk. It truely is an amazing place. There is no shortage of bucks either, 100-115" 8 pt are everywhere and bigger bucks are not hard to find.........160" bucks could be spotted in any field at sunset walking and eating.

Weird how so many good bucks can exist and thrive in an area where the buck:doe ratio and population numbers are so out of whack (according to some).


We just stayed in a rented house and hunted leased private land.........there is no management because not enough people hunt to employ it. A 120" minimum was recommended but not enforced. You could kill whatever you wanted to put your tag on.



I thought were strands of thread hanging off your shirt


I can't help it if 699,999 other guys only managed to kill 96,567.............I did my part

Germ

I looked into going there also. I looked into a ranch real similar to what you did. Drury boys went there a few years back.

Montana is a differnet beast. Hardly any of the locals hunt whitetails. Thx for the info, I look forward to haeding out there someday.