sproulman

what i cant understand, germain, is douge trying to tell ole sproul that coyotes were always here in clinton and sou.potter county where i spent my time..

well, he is flatly WRONG..there could have been a coyote, i dont say there was not,BUT, in last 10 years,coyotes are EVERYWHERE HERE in clinton/potter..douge does not understand the network of info i have for over 50 YEARS..

why cant he BELIEVE what is truth..

as for mountain to steep to kill deer off, douge, no disrespect but our mountains are REAL HIGH here too and we GOT deer off those mountains over years..no steep mountain holds deer anymore..

i hunted CAMERON, up until 1995,so 1960/1995 ,ole sproul hunted montour/CAMERON..i think i can give TRUTH on what was..

it comes down to this, doe /fawn killing has done number on deer,PGC /DCNR says its the HABITAT did it..only a fool would believe thats what happened..

HABITAT is not great, i agree but dont believe that deer are DIEING BECAUSE OF HABITAT..

its DOE PERMITS,LENGTH OF SEASONS,DMAP,EARLY MUZZ IN OCT..

lost horn

Looks like the ol bobcats take out a few deer to.
Check this out. http://www.cuddebackdigital.com/pages/pows/week_70.html

BTBowhunter

That is one of the coolest trail cam pics I've ever seen!

sproulman

boy, that is something..with deer down in great numbers in wmu2g,predators ,i believe are taking a lot of deer that are left..yotes are biggest i see and hear..

i saw 2 fawns killed while i was fishing..2 yotes, male/female killed both, i was helpless as i was fishing..now, i carry my pistol with me..

please dont walk in woods without pistol afterhunting season is over..i have been seeing yotes getting bolder every year when i go hiking in feb/march..

livbucks

A DCNR or GC employee (I forget which) saw firsthand a big bobcat pulling down a forkhorn in the PA Grand Canyon in the water of Pine Creek.He originally reported it as a cougar but the kill was examined after the fact and deemed to be caused by a bobcat. It seems that Bobs grab deer by the throat and Cougars grab them by the back of the neck. This is getting sad for deer hunters. We are all blaming each other and the GC for killing off all the deer and the yotes and bobs are doing it day in day out. Start shooting guys! I have talked to guys that think yotes are pretty and equate shooting them to shooting your pet dog. We had better change their perceptions of these nemeses rather quick. Looks like a good Bob is a dead bob as well!

germain

Sproul,I can't call anybody a liar if they saw yotes a long time ago but I've been hunting Potter/Clearfield for 30 plus years and back in the 70's and even 80's coyotes weren't even discussed.I never saw or heard one until the middle to late 90's.That's just from my own personal experiences.
I think it was the winter of 93 in the deep snow where we found two gobbler carcusses what looked to be kills by a bobcat.

DougE

Well,this is the 16th year of the mosquito creek coyote hunt.They started having the hunt because a farmer was having problems with the predation of his sheep around Frenchville.That isn't too far from westernClinton county andI doubt they had a hunt the first year the coyotes appeared.They've been around for a long time and they aren't getting any bigger.Look at the results from their hunt.The biggest coyote is usually somewhere in the 40+lb range.

DougE

Sproul,only a fool would believe the habitat has nothing to do with deer numbers in the northern tier.Once a doe loses abot 20% of her body weight,the chance she'll lose her fawns is very great.Deer need several pounds of browse a day to survive a hard winter,let alone gain or just maintain their weight.What does a large herd eat during a bad winter like we had in 2004?Again,why are deer numbers still low in the Sproul even though hunters are harvesting less than 7% of the does?

livbucks

If you look DougE, the winner last year was over 51 pounds. They have grown in weight over the years there. The earlier hunts had averages in the high 20 lb range. Now they average in the 40 lb range and up to 50 pounds. Not exactly scientific, but weights have increased.

livbucks

Bobcats, coyotes, bears.
The predation on fawns is getting greater over time. While I support lower deer numbers for the betterment of the herd overall, the low numbers in some areas are not attributable to habitat. There are no starving deer out there DougE. Has anyone you know of, or you, harvested a malnourished deer in any sort of recent history? NO. The deer are very healthy all across the state.