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.
