PA GOBBLER

patrkyhntr- yes you are close to me, thats great..i got to hunta part of huntingdon county last year on private land in warrors mark. i got a doe. but that was a one time thing .. i hunt cambria blair county line well pretty close to it.. and yes sgl 108 there are a lot of areas w/ no roads. well there are some old logging roads and stuff but not able to drive..
your area sounds like mine w/ the buck to doe. so far scouting which isent much this year for me sad to say.. but ive seen 6 total deer. 5 bucks and only one doe. one nice buck.. hey do you have many areas for bird hunting?? i just got an english pointer on thurs. he is acute little thing.. he will be ready next year.

bullmoose38

[quote]ORIGINAL: lost horn

bullmoose38, I know where you hunt and it's not public land.


Wow somebody has me patterned! Well I guess you dont know where I hunt because I do hunt the game lands 1 mile away from our property. I do hunt most of the time on our QDM property but I do also hunt the game lands which is pretty good also. They are some of the same deer that we see on our co-op.

patrkyhntr

The bird hunting is fairly good, but you have to find the decent cover, PA Gobbler. Where I hunt, the grouse hunting is best along the wide bench near the top of the mountain. The gypsy moth damage made for great grouse tangles. Pheasants are a thing of the past, though. I grew up during the heyday of pheasant hunting. At one time around where I live, it was nothing to see 200 of them in a day's hunting. The stocked birds of today are a pale imitation of the wild stuff we used to have. I do take my setters for a day or two of preserve hunting each year, but it isn't the same. They don't care. They love it all the same. A photo of one of my setters from the past follows:

I have raised and trained English setters for over forty years, but am slowly getting out of it. My legs don't like grouse hunting as much as they used to (LOL). A guy you might like to get in touch with would be Andy Wert. He lives in the Mifflintown area, and does a good bit of bird dog work. He posts frequently on the PA site.

BTBowhunter

Thia lawsuit is not likely to help anyone except the lawyers. All USP is going to prove is that all has not gone perfectly (as was predicted)

Perhaps USP has now evolved into:


Undercover Supporters of Peta !!!

germain

I don't expect much to come out of this lawsuit.Having said that Alt has done alot of damage to our sport with his recent anti hunting statements.
I really believe the PGC still supports hunting and tries to give us better oppertunities.But there's political issues right now that make that job tough.
Let's face it,deer hunting is the bread and butter of our sport.Take it away or make the quality of deer hunting that bad and we're going to lose alot of license holders in the long run.The problem of the over harvest of deer isn't just confined to PA either.Many other states are having this same battle.
No I am not a biologist but I do have eyes and my own mind.Just because a bird watcher's org or the Ed Rendell run DCNR says something doesn't mean I'm going to roll over and accept it when my eyes show me otherwise.The forest I've been hunting for years is showing me you can have regen with a quality huntable deer herd.Was is that?Well it's not 10 dpsm with the dcnr saying more needs to be reduced!It's pretty bad when a common hunter like myself and others I talked to in our area can see the forest needs opened up for regen.This hot topic of deer reduction goes deeper then just saving the forest.I'm hoping to find time on labor day weekend to post some pics and prove my point.

patrkyhntr

I hardly know where to begin with this one. I guess your area doesn't have browse lines, which are well-documented in much of the state. The northcentral forest has been so severely overbrowsed by the deer that it will require deer populations of five to ten deer per square mile for quite a number of years before anything higher can be maintained without harming the forest. You don't have to be a member of Audubon Society to see that is fact.

What you want is fantasy. You want enough deer that it makes hunting easy, like it used to be when we had way too many deer. You can't have that and have healthy forests too. Your problem is that you refuse to believe facts presented to you when they contradict your preconceived opinion, that being that the blame commission has destroyed the deer herd because of ecoweenies. You can disregard the evidence that is provided by fenced plots, where the vegitation inside the plot grows well and outside it does not. You can disregard the testimony of competent biologists and forestry experts too. Believe what you seem to want to see with your own biased eyes. Believe also what those who hate the blame commission post, and hate those who tell you what you don't want to hear. You perceive Dr. Alt to be a danger to you because he told you the truth, but you didn't want to hear it.

The greatest danger to hunting in Pa. is not the efforts of DCNR and Audubon to have healthy forests. It is those like you who feel that the forests are there to provide you with an easy deer to shoot. If hunters prove themselves to be unable to control deer populations within ecologically sensible bounds, we will prove ourselves to be irrelevant and unnecessary to the majority of the public who could care less whether you hunt or don't hunt. Today, most of the non-hunting public sees us hunters as the only viable population control measure for wildlife. That could change, and hunting as we know it could be as extinct as the Dodo bird.

If you think hunting is really hard in Pa., you should stay here and never under any circumstances go to Maine. Some of us think the deer hunting is great there, and the deer density is far lower than in most of Pa.

germain

Don't hardly know where to begin with your post turkey hunter but I'll give it a crack.
First of all I hunt in the NC and have seen different fenced in areas.The first three that come to mind have no difference inside then outside.If you're interested PM me and I'll give you directions.One thing these areas have in common are a closed canopy.No lime no fertilizer.
I reread my post and didn't see anything about wanting easy deer hunting.Actually I don't want easy deer hunting,that's not hunting.18 dpsm is far from easy but can lead to a quality hunt.
I also had to re read my post where you assume I refer to them as the blame commission or don't support them.Couldn't find that either.
If you're a hunter and think the DCNR and or bird watchers are interested in preserving hunting you have alot to learn.Never follow a group blindly without question.
For example I'm a die hard republican but don't agree with everything they do and know at times they are wrong.

germain

I have to ask this question,
If the bird watcher's are pushing for their cause,and the DCNR pushing for their cause,{timber sales}and the environmentalists pushing for their cause,{old growth and predators}why is it so wrong for a hunter to question the future of his sport?The birders are interested in one thing yet in your eyes that's OK.But it's not OK for a hunter to question the policies of these orgs?Makes me wonder about some of you guys.

patrkyhntr

Fair enough, germain. We must agree to disagree. You cite three fenced enclosures where you say the growth outside the fence is the same as that inside, and state that the reason no growth occurs outside most of the enclosures is that there is a closed canopy and that the inside is limed. From what I have read elsewhere, this doesn't ring true. The enclosures are in various areas where canopies are closed or open, but the one unifying factor in the VAST MAJORITY of them is that the growth inside is lush and that outside is not. In the enclosures I have personally seen, the lack of growth outside is due to overbrowsing. So in this case, I think your statement is biased.

It isn't wrong for a hunter to question the future of his sport, germain. Isn't that what I am doing? I also question the organizations running the state, particularly the legislature. I choose to believe what is scientifically accurate, not necessarily what I want to believe. This doesn't mean that I accept such things as the impact of deer on the ecosystem without question. It does means that when I read the Audubon report I found things that concerned me about the overall environment. I guess you will just have to dismiss me as an Audubon supporter, or perhaps as being in league with the DCNR. The difference between you and me is that I care more about the health of the entire ecosystem than just for how many deer can be supported by the forest without regard to any other species that might be harmed by their overpopulation. You need to open your mind to the idea that perhaps your conspiracy theory might be all wet. It is, IMO.

You didn't need to reread your post, germain. The use of the term, "blame commission" is mine, not yours. It comes from a series of articles written in the old Pennsylvania Sportsman magazine by a writer by the pseudonym of J. W. Gramp. While these articles were written many years ago, they highlighted a feature of the thinking of many hunters, that the Pa. Game Commission was at fault for nearly everything. If we could just substitute the DCNR and perhaps the Audubon Society for the blame commission, perhaps it would make more sense to you. If you took this personally, I apologize. I didn't intend it to be directed exclusively toward you, but to those who oppose the use of science in deer management. Those folks prefer, as you seem to prefer, deer management to the end of supplying enough deer for them to have an "enjoyable and rewarding" hunt. That is not the purpose of game management. Management of game populations should always be aimed at limiting their numbers to what the environment can support in a sustained manner without damage to the overall ecosystem. Yes, flowers and birds matter to me, germain. That they don't seem to matter to you is evidence of your myopic thinking.

lost horn

Click on these links, this is why I would like to see what is behind this kill the deer, if these are the groups that the PGC got their info. from, God help the deer! IS THIS THE SCIENCE IN DEER MANAGEMENT THE PGC USED?
http://www.nittanynews.com/wildlands.htm
http://www.wildpennsylvania.org/press/031003.htm

This is another view from the other side.
http://www.outdoortalknetwork.com/art271.html