doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com No Grousmas in PA this year?

Throw a recoil pad on that old boy Lloyd and get yourself a Federal duck stamp. Just this morning a lot of shooting going on over at Pymatuning Lake. I saw a bunch also but nothing would come down for a closer look. Pretty exciting stuff.

Dang Treb, I used to hunt ducks on Pymatuning. Small world, eh?

It sure is!!!!!

I don't see what all of complaining is about. PA has more than enough deer. The racks are bigger than ever. Anyone who is willing to put a little effort into it gets a Buck plus an extra an doe or two almost every year.
Gary Ault would be welcome at our camp any day.
terc

Giving Dr. Gary Alt credit for the recent improvements in Pa. deer management is like giving Obama credit for jobs created because Trump reversed many of his anti-business policies.

No doubt bigger racks are more plentiful. You'll have that when you institute antler restrictions. The genetics for big racks were always there. But we still protect genetically inferior spikes which is insanity under QDM guidelines. The deer numbers have rebounded somewhat from the precipitous drops which occurred under Gary Alt's mismanagement, and ridiculous numbers of doe tags that were being issued. Thankfully, that trend had been somewhat reversed ever since he was driven out of the state under threats of death from irate hunters. Other things that helped those who are dedicated to putting in the work to get their deer are the sheer numbers of hunters who quit in disgust, and the vast amount of private land that became posted because landowners wanted to save some deer from extermination and extinction. I can vividly recall many days of covering several miles a day in fresh snow without crossing a single deer track at the same time Gary Alt and Co. were trying to tell us the population of deer was still over their target goal of 16.1 deer per forested square mile. This scenario was repeated in many different areas of several different counties in the Northwest and North Central regions.

It was a lot like they did with the pheasants in Pa.. Getting rid of Gary Alt was a step in the right direction, and it's a shame we can't muster the same sort of seething anger and discontent to reverse the mismanagement of small game populations.

That and 2 weeks of doe coinciding with buck. Nearly a million hunters out there blasting does.

That did just great for the population.

It got bad enough that I went back to using a scoped centerfire .45-70 after 30 years of using a flintlock exclusively in all seasons and all weather conditions. I got a kick out of handicapping myself with the more primitive ignition system and open sights. I always figured that a missed opportunity just meant that I could continue hunting for more days.

Then it reached a point where I realized that if I missed the opportunity of killing my buck due to a misfire or flash in the pan, that might be the only chance I would get. During those very lean years, I was buying two doe tags, but refusing to shoot a doe under any circumstances. I knew of a lot of guys who lamented that their young kids lost all interest in hunting because they didn't enjoy freezing all day in a deer stand without seeing any animals.

I recall spending a week at a friend's camp in McKean County during Gary Alt's reign of terror. I hunted hard for 5 1/2 days and saw a grand total of 3 doe, hunting different locations each day. I saw more bear droppings than deer turds. Buck rubs and scrapes were totally non-existent. Even on the first day, with a combined buck and doe season, I heard very few shots, and hadn't heard a single shot until 9:20 AM. This was in an area that sounded like the World War III on the first morning a decade earlier. The lack of gut piles told the story, and the low kill numbers were confirmed by butchers who processed deer. Quite a few meat processors gave up the deer cutting business entirely. One butcher I hunted with told me his boss invested in a lot of new saws, meat grinders, sausage stuffers, etc., expecting a big jump in business after their major competitor quit deer processing. The expected increase in business turned out to be a nearly 50% drop over the previous year. But the Game Commission still proclaimed record numbers of deer harvested. The Sports Editor of a local newspaper told me that the Game Commission sent them those kill reports before the season even opened.

Fake News is nothing new.

I was on Lake Arthur. Sadly, not many ducks here flying there, though I did manage to miss a mallard.

Pennsylvania is a sad sad thing. We moved from Carnegie to Va when I was 10. Dad got a deer (1) in Pa almost every year. We went about 4 years with no deer after the move thinking hunting was bad in VA and there were less deer.
What we figured out was hunting in VA was REAL. It was natural. Scrapes, rubs, food, THE RUT deer needed to be scouted, and "hunted." We didn't typically see running deer. It was not about getting on a big rock and waiting for everyone to push them around.
I am a traditionalist. As soon as I could do it on my own ( in college) . I forked out the time and money to return to PA for deer ( and bear ) camp. 9-10 years in a row. Grandpap's cabin in Warren Co and an uncle's in Clinton. I wouldn't trade the time with Grandpap, memories or traditions, but the hunting was weak. I believe at that time PA had 4x the number of hunters VA did. I do not blame the game commission in the least. I think PA has a very unique situation of hunting tradition that covers a greater range of social class and thus many more people. It is simple numbers. More people shoot more deer and more people equal less habitat.
I am currently getting 6 tags (3 buck ) with my base license. I saw 6 bucks the morning I took the deer posted earlier (by 8:30 am). I don't consider that normal and was a great day, but I would rather see a few deer naturally than the same 10 does pushed frantically all over the mountain all day and feel like I saw 40 deer that day. ( nothing but a fox squirrel has been by this am )
I stay very in touch with my Uncles in Allegheny and Chester Counties and I repeatedly give thanks for the move to VA. I still subscribe to pa game news, but I'll let out a little secret -the stories I had published years ago occurred a little south of the border.
As far as grouse, we seem to be at a low point here in VA but I don't hunt them enough to be too educated. Coyotes seemed extremely plentiful about 4 years ago, I haven't seen either this year or last.

Maryland firearm season will open up Saturday. By noon, there will be a dozen plus bucks harvested off my farms of which half or more will be very nice examples. Some hunters just have to shoot the first decent buck they come across, no matter how much they know that that buck is average or worse and another better one will be along shortly. On four farms the harvest should be over a hundred deer in firearm season, about a third will be bucks. Well the farmer who tends it hopes for that number and I concur.

Having too many deer just stresses the entire herd until they are collie size and just about eats the poor farmer out of house and home. What worries me if there is a disease that enter the herd population density is so high herd might have an extreme die off. We had several small die offs in the last two years but they burned out and only caused total die offs in a mile or so area. Still weird and sad to find hundreds dead deer in the woods. excess numbers move in and filled the void but still.

I did close two of my farms to all squirrel hunting this year. We have two different groups of Delmarva Fox Squirrels on them and they are a protected species. Did not want some poor kid shooting a squirrel, getting a ticket for killing a "protected" squirrel species and the DNR are just a-hole enough to do it. Don't know if the squirrels migrated over there, thirty plus miles across land and two rivers, or more likely the MD DNR moved them there without asking or telling me about it. They did the same thing with wild turkeys several years ago which helped, or completely caused, my quail recovery efforts to fail. Bastards think just because you own the land that you have zero say in what is going to happen on it. By the way, the DNR don't get a Christmas card from me.

My second concern is that the Sate DNR will "discover" the population and then claim that timber harvest will never be allowed on my land since it might disturb a protected squirrel species. In fact if they succeed in making it I bet that will be exactly what happens. We have a history. Bastard still claim quail and turkeys are best friends. Maybe I should have bought half a dozen single shot .410s and given them to local kids.