PA ML deer season Oct. 14-21, 2006

[Adam Helmer]

The PA muzzle loader anterless deer season is October 14-21 this year. Now days, "ANY" ML and any sights are permitted. I prefer sidelocks for my October hunting: a .50 T/C Hawken caplock on rainy days and a .54 Hawken flinter for clear days. We must wear hunter orange in October, but not in the after-Christmas Traditional ML season where flintlocks are also required.

I have a 100-yard range and a bench behind the house that is getting lots of use these days. I have a target frame at 50 yards to check the mid-range trajectory for guns zeroed at 100 yards. Nearby is my 'hawk stump for throwing practice. Next to that are 6 tight haybales in two stacks of 3 bales each that serves as my archery range. I began shooting a recurve bow in 1971 and have 3 that are my archery (stealth) component.

I was reading a book recently about early America and was surprised to read that many frontier kids shot bows, and became quite good, before they got their first muzzleloader.

For all you Longhunters, get in some range time and bag your deer this year.

Adam

[Tioga Flinter]

Looking forward to the early season. My check cleared so I must be getting a 2G tag. I also hunt with the flint when its nice and the percussion on those other days.
Good Huting!

[Adam Helmer]

Tioga Flinter,

I understand 2G sold out the first or second day they started taking antlerless applications-I guess you lucked out.

You should have come up to Ives Run on Saturday, August 19, 2006, and met me, MaIIIa and the rest of the BP gang working the Youth Field Day.

Where do you hunt in Tioga County? I am not seeing very many deer here on the farm.

Adam

[Adam Helmer]

I just finished a nice afternoon range session with the .54 Hawken flinter preparing for the PA October deer season. I shot roundball ahead of 75 grains of 3F Goex, Maxis ahead of 75 grains of 3F Goex and .45 caliber JHP bullets and sabots ahead of 90 grains of 2F Goex and all printed on point of aim within an inch of each other at 100 yards with the same sight setting.

I had one "flash-in-pan" for 40 rounds fired all afternoon. I like flinters and am happy with the .54.

Adam

[Adam Helmer]

I got my PA Antlerless deer tag for WMU 3A yesterday.

I have a bit of a problem with the PA system because the archers have 6 weeks beginning about October 1 and can take a buck or, with proper license, a doe. We muzzleloaders must buy a muzzleloader license AND an antlerless license for a mere 7 days in October.

I have asked the Pennsylvania Game Commission to take two weeks away from the archers in the fall so muzzleloaders could have a week of either deer, with proper license, as the archers now have. PGC apparently does not care to have fairness in the October deer season for muzzleloaders.

Adam

[Gil Martin]

Came today and I hope to get to use it. I may bring the Widow Fry (my main squeeze) to your farm. Over the past few years I gave up some vacation time due to work projects. Never again. See you next month. All the best...
Gil

[Adam Helmer]

Gil,

By all means bring the Widow Fry and we will all sit in Fort Ti and observe the big hayfield. In truth, I have seen very few deer thanks to the PGC kill-them-all process. We do have 4 resident does that I have named and cannot shoot. I know my antlerless tag for 3A will go unfilled and I saved a doe's life. But, I do like to carry my flinter afield in case I see a coyote or mountain lion.

Adam

[Tioga Flinter]

Although an avid muzzleloader hunter, I couldn’t disagree with you more. The archery season has been traditionally the early season in PA and for good reason. To successfully harvest a deer a bow hunter must close the range with the animal. The average deer taken in the state with a bow is a short 20 yards. Once the bullets start flying an archers success rate drops considerably. Based on the 2003 harvest report, Tioga County shows there were 430 antlered and 520 antlerless deer taken with a bow. This low number has little impact on the deer herd.
You mentioned a mere 7 days in October for muzzleloaders, not true. As you well know, you can use the muzzleloader in the regular rifle deer season.
The early muzzleloader season was implemented for a deer management tool only, not to give anyone a special license. If the PGC allowed an extra week as well as harvesting either sex it would severely impact the deer herd. If it was held to primative only it might work, but with the modern inlines, well, it would decimate the deer herd.

[petey]

Amen Tioga!

I hunt by all means, including flintlock in the early and late seasons, unless it's raining and I'll break out the inline for the early season. But I can say that things have gone downhill during archery season since the creating of that early muzzleloader season. Not only do the archers have to compete with muzzleloader hunters, we have to compete with youths and seniors toting rifles...then to top it all off wear 250 square inches of orange. Now I've shot deer as far as 120 yards with my flintlock, but up close and personal is what I prefer and archery season is my favorite time of year. The way they have the laws, with fall turkey and allowing to use rifles in some units requiring 250 sq inches of orange, 100 during small game, 250 during the 1 week in question, I have only about 1 week of archery that I'm not required to look like an orange pumpkin up in my tree. Makes it kind of hard to get up close and personal anymore. Personally I think the PAGC has their head up their butts. The deer are very spooky after the early muzzleoader season. Thank god the prerut starts kicking in and the buck really start to move or it would be pretty hard for the original archer to bag his buck after this season. Your best chances as a bow hunter now, is to do you homework up front and bag that ol boy the first week, or wait until the last week. The rest of the season is screwed up b/c of all the other seasons they dumped on us, including the early muzzleloader. The late muzzleloader season was enough for me, plus you never had to worry about rain. I personally wish they would remove the early muzzleloader and put archery season the way it was. Apparently us bow hunters weren't kiling off enough deer, so lets create a season that'll allow some hunters to use rifles, others to use inlines and kill off the heard. The woods are pretty quiet for a couple weeks after this season and the deer are very spooky (at least in my neck of the woods).

Lets go back to a 3 day doe season, 2 week buck, leave archery the way it was 10 years ago, and muzzleloader the way it was 10 years ago. Quit trying to save me from the world by requiring me to wear orange when I'm bowhunting and needing to get withing 20 yards of a deer. Quit the mass slaughter of deer by allowing these early gun seasons. 3 days for does, unless you hunt a special muzz or bow season. That'll get my vote anyday.

[Adam Helmer]

Tioga Flinter,

You have every right to disagree with me. Let us remember that the archers used to have FOUR weeks for deer hunting in PA beginning about October 1. A few years ago the PGC increased that archery season to 6 weeks.

Two years ago the PGC allowed inlines in the week-long October muzzleloader season for whatever reasons. Yes, I can hunt with a flintlock in the regular rifle deer season as can archers, so that is a wash. I think inlines belong in the regular rifle deer season.

If you want to discuss success rates, the PA archers have a 27% success rate as compared to 23% for PA muzzleloaders. It is a no-brainer to reduce the 6 weeks for archers in the Fall by 2 weeks to give traditional muzzleloaders a week of either deer. That would balance the pressure on the deer resource as is possible with modern game management.

I have one other concern: The PA archers harvest many deer, but how many do they wound? I have heard archers say at the local gun club, "I hit two last week and am still hunting." Many deer shot in the two-week rifle deer season hearabouts have arrows in them; I suspect they are the ones who survived an arrow wound and the rest are coyote bait.

Adam

[Adam Helmer]

Petey,

I fully agree with your last paragraph of your recent post here: Let us go back 10 years. Back then archers had 4 weeks in October for deer in PA, we had a two week rifle buck season and a 3 day doe season. For whatever reason the PGC decided to go on a deer-killing spree and we now have damn few deer per my daily inspections "on the land" here on my 60-acre farm and adjacent farms.

I think we need to assess the deer-wounded-factor decreed by archery deer hunters. The PGC ignores the ARCHER wounded-deer factor, but many archer-wounded deer are taken in the rifle deer season. Last year my hunting buddy nearly severed a finger because a broadhead was in the gullet of his rifle-shot deer he was field dressing. The 270,000+ PA archery deer hunters in PA take many deer and wound many more that the rifle deer hunters find with festering wounds or broadheads that cut their fingers when they field dress their rifle deer.

Archers do take many deer and wound how many more? I do belive we need to shorten the PA archery season a few weeks and let the muzzleloaders have an equal chance for either deer, with less leathal results.

Adam

[Tioga Flinter]

Adam,


I don’t know where you are obtaining your success rates, the latest PGC harvest reports for 2003 show 464,890 deer harvested. Of that number 65,100 were taken with bows, for the entire deer hunting seasons. That is not 27 percent but just over 14 percent. The success rate for flintlocks alone account for 35,000 deer, or roughly 7.5 percent. Add to the mix in-lines in the early season and the percentage for “muzzleloaders” increases dramatically, unfortunately, the PGC doesn’t track this information.

A sad note to hunting is that hunters do wound deer, both archers and rifle hunters. I profess that archers practice their art to a far greater degree than rifle hunters. You can kill at 200 yards with a rifle but not much greater than 40 yards with a bow, most deer are taken at 20 yards or less with a bow, so it takes a lot more practice to be successful. You can pick up a rifle at the local sports shop and be hunting the same day with some degree of confidence, not true with a bow.

True you will find deer in the rifle season with arrows in them, that is unfortunate. However, I have found many deer after the rifle season with extremities missing, in fact we have a deer here locally that feeds in our orchard we call tripod. An arrow didn’t do that.

Like I said in my earlier post, if it was flintlock only or at least traditional only I would be for the early season, either sex deer, but you know that is not going to happen. The in-line crowd is already firmly planted in the early season and they are not going to give that up.

[Adam Helmer]

Tioga Flinter,

You need to sit in one of my classes and learn that percentages are "Is over Of." You may be correct about archers taking 14% of the TOTAL deer taken in PA, but "You missed the bus!"

You say in 2003 that archers took 65,100 deer. If there were 230,000 archers, let us calculate the ARCHER success rate by dividing the number of archers into the the number of archery killed deer. Are you with me still?

65,100 dead deer divided by 230,000 archers is: 28.304% archer success rate. Check it on your calculator and see how success rate is properly determined.

Archers have a higher success rate than muzzleloaders. Divide the number of hunters, archers or muzzleloaders, into the number of deer they kill. Forget the total kill since that is not the determining factor in finding the success rate for archery or ML deer killed. Yes, you can determine the % of total deer killed by archers or muzzleloaders, but that is not the individual groups' success rate.

Be well.

Adam

[rattus58]

Originally posted by Tioga Flinter
Although an avid muzzleloader hunter, I couldn’t disagree with you more. The archery season has been traditionally the early season in PA and for good reason. To successfully harvest a deer a bow hunter must close the range with the animal. The average deer taken in the state with a bow is a short 20 yards. Once the bullets start flying an archers success rate drops considerably. Based on the 2003 harvest report, Tioga County shows there were 430 antlered and 520 antlerless deer taken with a bow. This low number has little impact on the deer herd.
You mentioned a mere 7 days in October for muzzleloaders, not true. As you well know, you can use the muzzleloader in the regular rifle deer season.
The early muzzleloader season was implemented for a deer management tool only, not to give anyone a special license. If the PGC allowed an extra week as well as harvesting either sex it would severely impact the deer herd. If it was held to primative only it might work, but with the modern inlines, well, it would decimate the deer herd.

This is not to start a fight about anything, but you seem to be thinking that a modern muzzleloader has something over a traditional. This really has nothing to do with the success of the hunt, for it is the hunter that determines his own fortunes.

You mentioned that a Bow hunter has to get closer to his game in order to be successful, and this is very true... and the same holds true of muzzleloading hunting, the closer you get the more successful you become.

I have been hunting long enough and have seen die hard hunters hunt areas where game has been "decimated" by hunter numbers and eradications.... only to successfully come home week after week with their game that no one else saw. My hunting success ratio is for muzzleloaders 50%, with bow, maybe closer to 20% when I hunt frequently, less than 5% when I don't.

I am convinced that with good skill you can hunt in a panama suit and come home with your game successfully.

As to extending days and bag limits. This is not a science necessarily to game numbers as to hunter opportunity. Hunter opportunity gives him more of a chance to successfully bag his game. However, the equation is not one of certainty and hunter skills are still the primary determinate factor.

This has been borne out here in Hawaii on both Lanai Island for deer and on the Big Island at various controlled hunting areas, the Pohakuloa Game Management Area and Puu waa waa Cooperative Game Management Area are studies that I am familiar with.

In every case, hunter days were extended due to lack of military training at Pohakuloa, and a need to reduce game numbers in the other areas. All of these areas require checking in of harvested game and so they had records from which to compare. On Lanai, they extended the hunting to two days on the weekend for their lottery hunt instead of the usual 1 day several years ago. The goal was to reduce the deer numbers, which they successfully did, but it did not double the harvest, the harvest was increased only 40% at the start of the season and increased only slightly more than 20% at the end. These numbers don't reflect hunter days afield, unfortunately, only deer taken. What I mean by this, is that if you checked in you only had to check out by Sunday night whether you hunted sunday or not. Also towards the end of the season, sometimes numbers drop off because hunters think it is being hunted out and its expensive to get to Lanai.

But the point is this, even on the last day of hunting season, good hunters are more successful than are poor hunters on the first day of the season.

I have to get to bed, but hunting success does not depend on your weapon so much as YOUR SKILL WITH IT.

Aloha...

[Adam Helmer]

rattus58,

I like your next to last sentence, "even on the last day of hunting season, good hunters are more successful than are poor hunters on the first day of the season."

I have three arms put by for our short 7-day season that begins on October 14. First is a .54 Hawken flinter, a .50 caplock Hawken and a .50 smoothbore Hawken flinter. I have been working with the smoothbore (similiar to a typical Fowler) and have had good results with roundball out to 75 yards. During mid-day I plan on hunting squirrel and grouse with the .50 smoothbore and deer in the dawn and dusk scenario. October is my favorite month and I will hunt everyday I can.

Adam