Penn State's view of PGC deer management.

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Now there is talk of make Sunday legal deer season too. I use to run into those times when not get but a few hrs out but it still worked. I am against deer on sunday. Only kill the heard more. I would like to see the 1 tag per hunter again and limit days to 2 or 3 again. Why not. We all seemed to do just fine back then...and to take it back a little more, if you even seen a deer in the season, you did something. Yep, way back. but the main thing is buy as many doe tags as you can or want to BUT you don't have to fill each and every one of them...save some seed for cryin out loud.







































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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[Adam Helmer]

skeeter,

I am for Sunday hunting. All the malls are openon Sunday as are the amsement parks and some PA liquor stores. Super Bowl is played on a Sunday. I buy a doe tag every year to save a doe's life. I have shot two does in my 66 years on Earth, and both does were badly injured before I bagged them.

So far this season, I saw a 4-point opening day and a doe in my hayfield and both are still calling this farm home. Today I saw the 4-point and two does bedded on Upper Field. I let them alone become the game hogs on adjacent farms will shoot every deer they see.

Many farms nearby have "No Doe Hunting" signs up. I post and keep all the meat hunters off my farm. We PA hunters need to let the deer herd increase to carrying capacity in PA. That starts with NO DOE HUNTING!

Adam

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Adam Helmer
Moderator Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Mansfield, PA
Posts: 3,331

bigbrother,

I sincerely hope we give the few remaining deer a well-deserved BREAK! PGC was NEVER Scientific and the poor deer got the short end of the stick!

Adam
__________________
Adam Helmer Yesterday, 12:35 PM
Adam Helmer
Moderator Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Mansfield, PA
Posts: 3,331

skeeter,

I am for Sunday hunting. All the malls are openon Sunday

To those that want sunday hunting
....Keep sunday hunting for deer closed...
In order to give the deer a break why then would we allow hunters to shoot them even on sunday?..If need to hunt and shoot on a sunday, hunt coyotes, crows but we do not need another day open to deer season. If a kid wants or needs to hunt that bad, then he can stop being a ball jocky for one day and spend time with dad in the woods. No they wine they cant ride their ball on a saturday and hunt too...so lets give those meat hunters another chance to shoot more doe and then 'donate' it to a food bank or soup kitchen so they can pat their back for feeding the needy. 90% of those see it is deer meat and say 'eeeewww, I not eat that' and it ends up in the garbage. And I have already run into a guy this year open day buck that has done that with 5 deer so far and was looking for more. Yep, lets give him a sunday to get more. We hunt crows, coyotes on sundays and I have yet seen a kid with his dad out there doing the same. Dad and his buddies, the kid is home tired because he had to ride a ball around a room someplace and I bet he would not even want to get up sunday either. Dad would though..gotta feed the soup kitchens.....NOPE..CAN ALREADY HUNT IF WANT TO HUNT BUT WE DO NOT DEED ANOTHER DAY FOR DEER

[Mr. 16 gauge]

I am not sure if this thread is about deer management or Sunday hunting.....if it is about Sunday hunting, then all I have to say is this:
I work in a profession that requires that I take call every other weekend; sometimes more. I know that there are folks out there that are required to work 6 days a week, with Sundays being their only day off. To eliminate hunting opportunities for certain individuals will only help to decrease the number of folks that participate, decrease the amount of revenue that goes back into the fish and game coffers as well as decreasing the amount of political clout we have when it comes to fighting the antis. There is also the 'trickle down' effect that happens when people are legislated out of participation: decreased revenue for local businesses (sporting goods stores, convenience stores, restaraunts, motels, gas stations, ect), as well as sportsman's clubs and organizations such as ducks unlimited, pheasants forever, whitetails unlimited, ect.
Michigan did away with "no sunday hunting" laws quite some time ago, and while I know of no formal studies re: decreasing game populations, I can't say as I have seen a drop in game numbers due to one more day of hunting per week. I have seen a decrease due to no funding (to manage lands properly and efficently), a decrease due to increased predation (from hawks, owls, coyotes, stray cats, coons, foxes, ect), a disinterest from our DNR in poaching (found several deer carcasses w/o heads and or/antlers dumped in a ditch, a half mile from a DNR check station.....nobody really cared to check it out), and from an interest in managing only for one species/type of hunter (firearms deer and bow hunters).
IMHO, to prevent people from hunting on Sundays is not only antiquated and misguided, but a bit selfish as well ("more for me, when I can go" type attitude).

[Adam Helmer]

Mr. 16 gauge,

I agree with your thesis! Only 9 states out of 50 prohibit Sunday Hunting. In PA we can fish on Sunday, buy booze, go to the amusement park, BUT CANNOT hunt! As a Seminarian, I do church services on Sunday at 0845 and would hunt in the afternoon, if the law allowed. We WILL NOT shoot more DOES AFTER the Pennsylvania Game Commission STOPS PRINTING and SELLING too many Doe Tags!

Our problem with KILLING too many PA deer rests with the PGC, not Sunday Hunting!

Adam

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Adam;
I can't speak as to the problems with the PGC & it's deer management. I did hunt with a PA deer hunter down in NC several years ago, and he voiced similar concerns....said that they wanted to turn it into a "turkey hunting state".
I will say that I feel MI has similar issues; we have long gone past the days of no shootin of does and a 18-20% kill rate per hunter. I think that the days of issuing "over the counter" licenses is (or should be) long gone, and that managing a deer herd based on county boundries is a poor way of doing it. I think that the eastern states should take a lesson from the western states, and base the number of buck, doe, and fawn licenses on the ACTUAL number of deer, not some hypothetical model (I didn't realize until a few years ago that the Michigan DNR didn't have an accurate count as to how many deer are harvested, it is just a WAG (wild assed guess). They also need to do away with crop damage permits, and encourage people with actual crop damage to allow RESPONSIBLE hunters on their property to harvest deer. They need to base the number of tags on a geographic region, the amount of public vs. private land in said region, ect.
It's sad....I started hunting deer in 1975 and if you saw a deer, ANY deer, it was a big deal. Antlers were required ONLY to identify sex, as does were off limits. You were allowed one deer/year....you could take it with a bow or gun, but only one deer was allowed.
........then we had too many deer! We would see 50-60 deer in a day, but they were all does and no one was allowed a doe permit. Then the DNR finally caught up after some severe winter die offs.....then it was management for antler size, as now we have a whole new generation of deer hunters that grew up watching videos and match their hunting prowess by the number of points a rack has, not how much effort it took to get there.
....and we have a highly vocal group of bowhunters that feel that THEIR way to hunt is the only way to hunt (sanctamonious A-holes), so god forbid we should do anything different to help the herd, like SHORTEN THE BOW SEASON!!!!
I don't deer hunt in MI much anymore......just not worth the confrontations; had one A-hole tell me last muzzleloading season that I should have let the spike I shot go to "grow bigger". (I had one day to hunt). The whole idea of protecting spikes so they will "grow bigger" has some merit, but I shot a buck in NC a few seasons ago that was more than a 2 1/2 year old deer; he had a grey muzzle, worn teeth, and antlers not much bigger than an inch and a half. That buck probably NEVER had a decent rack, and was passed over (to spread his genetics) in order to "let him grow".
Makes me wonder how many of his offspring will not grow decent racks, either.......

"Cookie cutter" deer management has to go! It needs to be done on a smaller, local level, much the same as the Scottish gamekeepers do it on the estates in Scotland.

[skeeter@ccia.com]

I know this is an older post but reading it again gets the hackles up... Fabs stated he can't believe the Pa gov isn't in charge of our deer and leave it up to a private org..... Laws / seasons etc in Pa have to be passed by Pa gov in order to become law...you know, those in office that could be anti?... However, this new Governor we have along with the one that just left would love to see our Pa game comm and the Pa boat/fish comm join hands...reason?..who would be in charge of the money then?.ahhh. as now, the Pa game com can keep it's hands on its own funding and not share..they are saying the Pa boat/fish com is broke...they can use it to buy new land as they have done in my area.. but if the governor has his way and merge.. the money will go into the Pa general fund..oh..now what?...no money to stock pheasants?..no money to buy new gamelands?..they used it out of the general fund and bought a new $5000.00 chair for the governors office. Point is, we can't all be happy with the way things are but we NEED to keep government hands out of the till.....bad enough they are in our pockets every time ya turn around...such as the thief in office now in pa..sure he got elected by saying he would not raise taxes...but he left out the part he intended to cut funding to schools etc so our local districts 'had' to raise property taxes on us..and that they did..but he gets a pat on the back for not raising taxes....I don't want any of the Pa government touching our game funding.. Less government all around..oh and by the way..Nice Day Today..

[popplecop]

We have just one board called the Natural Resouces Board, they govern the DNR. DNR is in charge of Fish, Game, Trapping, Boating, snowmobiles, ATVs, Forestry, State Parks and enviormental resources etc. Has been that way since 68 When the enviomental stuff was merged with the conservation stuff. Board members are appointed by the govenor and it takes 6 years for him to have all his appointees on the board. Does it work, well for the most part yes.