ManySpurs

Apology graciously accepted. If I take out a doe, I may be taking out a buck which I could be hunting 2 years down the road. If I shoot the spike or the forky, I'm taking out a single deer that has already fulfilled his duties to the herd. Kinda like spring gobblers....we kill them because they have already done their breeding and they are considered excess baggage on the flock.

ManySpurs

It all boils down to seperating private land tags from state land tags. Problem solved.

ManySpurs

I work hard at it to, and I'm one of the biggest beechers and critics around. If I showed you the track logs from my GPS of some of the places I've been since August while scouting, bowhunting, turkey hunting, bear hunting, and firearms deer hunting it'd make your head spin. I've been in good habitat, bad habitat, mediocre habitat, areas that produced well in the past, areas that haven't produced in the past. You name it, I've been closeby. I spent 3 days in a DMAP area in several locations recommended by a DCNR employee in October covering many miles with snow on the ground only to cut the tracks of 3 deer. In our little village, we have 2 big cornfields nestled between SGLs on each side with not a deer track near them. I have 4 deer cams running all year around and my pictures show me one or two deer using a trail every 4-5 days. We have a bear population explosion which has been addressed by WCOs and residents alike, and our BOCs and bear biologist completely ignore the problem and continue to establish a 3 day season which falls at a time when many female bears are already denned up.

I got alot to beech about. And it ain't just me. Hunters up here were close to non-existent this year. Those guys spend money and I'm sure the merchants noticed the lack of business. The camp next door to me had 3 guys in this year where they usually have 15. They were all here for turkey and bear season, but decided not to come up for deer because of what they seen during turkey and bear seasons. It's just a matter of time before those guys that didn't come up decide to throw in the towel and stop buying licenses. In my household, we've decided that unless the PGC choses to address the current deer situation at this years January meeting, that we will no longer buy and use a Pa hunting license. That's 2 adult licenses, 2 junior licenses, 4 bear tags, 4 archery tags, 4 M/Ler tags, at least 8 doe tags, and a furtakers license. Now, how many more people are there out there that feel the same as I do and feel the same as the guys at the camp next door do? I bet there's plenty. And if in fact there are only 20% that are unhappy, if those 20% stop purchasing tags, then the PGC is in for a dramatic drop in revenue. When that happens, open the door for state funding. And according everyone that I talk to, that's going to be a very bad thing for hunters in Pa. The fact that this commonwealth is hemmoraging hunters at twice the rate of the rest of the country is very alarming. I think it's high time that guys like you stand back and take a better look at the big picture and start standing up for some of us guys that do hunt our a$$es off, do know what we are looking for as far as habitat goes, and don't expect a deer behind every tree. There's plenty of us out there that have our crap together and have experienced this idiotic overharvest and mismanagement first hand. All we are asking for is a slight slice of the pie.

Cornelius08

"It all boils down to seperating private land tags from state land tags. Problem solved."

Perhaps in your area. But there are alot of wmus that dont have 90% of the wmu made up of state land. The main hunting areas in some wmus are "private" but non-posted open to anyone lands. Thats the case here. They basically are our version of public lands with the same overhunting and low dd's. Public vs. private land tags are definately not a bad idea, but not a cure all statewide.Thats why i believe smaller wmus & allocation adjustments are the #1 answer. If public & private tags were to go along with that, i certainly wouldnt complain.

ManySpurs

That's the ultimate answer right there. But if what I am told about the supposed cost to the PGC of making WMUs smaller(which I don't believe BTW), seperating private from state would be a great low cost way to start.

Cornelius08

Pgc wouldnt have to worry about money if they would make the necessary adjustments. The cup would runneth over.

ManySpurs

I sure wouldn't mind throwing them a few extra dollars if I seen some of the "tweaking" that we were promised. But the lack of a CAC in the hardest hit WMU is the commonwealth tells me they are stalling for time and in no way shape or form looks like any kind of "tweaking" to me.

bluebird2

Calling thousands of your fellow hunters neanderthal buffoons because of their harvesting preferences is about as insulting and disrespectful as you can get.
I did not tell you or anyone else there was no need for them to scout. What I said was I had no need to scout because I have hunted this are for over 50 years, I know their trails and their patterns and because the deer have so much food it is fruitless to try to pattern them based on feeding preferences.

No you are not just telling us what you are seeing. You are also telling us that the deer management plan is a success and that we are wrong for complaining about what the PGC has done to the herd and the quality of hunting in our areas. You are judging the statewide plan based on your limited observations in a small portion of the state instead of looking at the statewide data that show the plan is a failure.

ManySpurs

Hey BB......dunno if you took notice over on that greenie forum, but there's a guy named PaHick that's really giving TraskOutdoors a good run for the money using none other than PGC data! It's classic!

Cornelius08

The audit is slated to be completed by Feb. I have a very strong feeling that we'll all be "throwing them a few dollars" more when its done, like it or not. We are about to get backhanded in a big way.