Want To Kill A Buck

GEORGIA-- 2006-2007 (last complete year I found)

total hunters= 241,971
buck kill = 125,324
% successful = 52%

I agree s10. As far as that goes, we can go all over the place...

Compare the success rates to Tn. Last i seen in 05/06 dcnr said that 43% of hunters there took AT LEAST ONE deer....

South Carolina harvested 124,522 bucks in 2007.... Pa was 109k i believe? And that was with FAR FAR fewer hunter in Sc.

Compare Alabana....
Compare Mississippi....
Compare Ohio....
Comare WV...

Success rates are basically the most important issue to the hunter gnerally speaking, and they are better just about EVERYWHERE that ive checked that is able to be compared and compared logically.. I havent looked into the very extreme worst low dd states like Maine etc.. Just assuming they have lower success rate. Im sure that'll make everyone feel better. lol.

Good point Deerfly.

And the pa game commission goes according to the pipe-dream that ag lands and abandoned reverting ag lands, edge habitat and others are not deer habitat! lol. Nope. Nothin' but mature timber, pole timber or early successional. According to pgc, pastures.... Grown up fields... Briar thickets.... crop fields... Food plots... NONE of it is considered deer habitat even though deer use it whether they like it or not, and its some of the best habitat types you can possibly have....but nope, they lump them in with walmarts, parking lots and city streets as "non-habitat" lmao.

Our fine commission has some strange views.8D]

The bottom line remains that our herd is being managed for the benefit of the timber industry and DCNR rather than on the MSY carrying capacity of the habitat. Guys like DPSM and DT still may have good hunting, but the majority of PA hunters have seen a significant decrease in the quality of the hunting in their normal hunting grounds. And, the solution to their poor hunting is not moving to a new area because that would not increase the sustainable buck harvest since we are still harvesting 80% of our AR legal buck. Furthermore, the quality of hunting is not based solely on the harvest rate. For many hunters the quality of hunting is based on the number of deer they see, not how many deer they harvest and all the PGC data shows the herd has been reduced by at least 45% statewide and by a much higher percentage in areas like 2G.

I would agree that would be true in states that don't place a limit on the number of deer hunters. But, in states where they limit the number of hunters in each management unit you can have high hunter success rates with relatively low deer densities.

Also, remember that buck hunting success rates in PA are about the same as they were 20 years ago,even though hunters are seeing a lot fewer deer.

You forgot to mention that most of them were doe that you feed and photograph in your back yard 11 months of the year and even have names for them they are so tame and conditioned to coming to the same place day after day. In all due respect I hardly think your hunting style or success has anything to do with deer numbers in 2F. In fact you yourself have said both on this site and your own that hunting and deer numbers basically suck on the ANF which makes up a great deal of 2f. No matter what you say, If you haven't seen a legal buck in 153 deer (144 doe)during the end of the rut, you are living proof that AR/HR is not working as claimed.

Deerfly says: But, in states where they limit the number of hunters in each management unit you can have high hunter success rates with relatively low deer densities.

You got me there. Good point.

What part of what I post do you NOT read or understand....

my style hunting proves only that I hunt a good area for my targeted prey....

My average hunt last 4 Hours !!!!!

If I hunted longer or walked another 1/4 mile who knows what I would see in that area.

Most of the guys that have camps here (usually 12-14 total, only 3 of us over 60)see more deer... harvest more bucks.. and hunt all day.... none have harvest as many deer as me on the first day.. one guy (a Pittsburgh Policeman) gets a buck almost every year and he sits about a 1/4 mile away but across the creek. He's second to me in harvest numbers.. Takes him a half hour to get to that spot (all DOWN HILL) coming from the opposite direction and he has hunted there as long as he has been hunting here...

Another camp (4 guys from Ohio) usually average one buck a year for the camp.. from either here (2 guys)or a spot I told one of at Clear Creek (1 guy)and the other hunts someplace on SGL#54 by the site of the old game school.... and the two here hunt different areas and move alot during their time in the woods and the four hunt Monday to Thursday of the first week. The other camp (policemen)hunt just Monday and half a day Tuesday.



I'll get photos of the bucks taken here this season JUST FOR YOU !!!

and remember I have always said this is not a good area for bucks... except at night in the farm fields.. they head to posted property... especially the week-end before.. almost all the camps here spend Saturday and Sunday shooting rifles... sounds like a 2 days war zone...older bucks are not stupid...

I think the PGC speaks "in general" for an entire WMU... common sense tells me not every area is the same, only you could think that... just like my little 2-3 square mile area does not reflex some of the areas at clear creek for example, or on SGL#44 (I have NEVER hunted there ... just walk around there a lot and know several that hunt there year after year successfully).. or an area of SGL#54 that's 5 miles away and that is where I have harvested the most bucks over all the years I have hunted here since 1960 ... I just can't get there anymore......the buck/doe ratio right around my place has ALWAYS been terrible even in the good old day you would see four times more does than bucks... I'd estimate the ratio at 6 or 7 to 1... not even all of the 4 mature does I feed last year got bred, only two have fawns...

It started getting better when HR started... the Ohio guys would help by taking a few does.. now they can not even get a tag... of the 13 guys here last year only 3 of us had 2F tags... and 2 of us took does.... the other is an older guy that does not go into the woods very far... most of the guys from down around Pittsburgh had tags for Allegheny County and were going to fill them down there...

say what you want.. you do not know this area... anyone from around here will tell you two things...

1... plenty of deer to hunt
2... hard to fine bucks while hunting on the game lands around the farm fields here..

You are living proof AR/HR failed in producing MORE AND BETTER bucks

I am living proof AR/HR failed in producing more or better bucks and reducing the antlerless by 50% in the 2-3 square miles behind my house... YEP have never said differently...

Guys from Ohio having a camp here is amazing in itself. Must have friends or family here.

Ive visited a few ohio message boards through recent years, and usually they are laughing about Pa and making wise cracks about hunting here or the management practices when someone would bring it up.

the buck/doe ratio right around my place has ALWAYS been terrible even in the good old day you would see four times more does than bucks... I'd estimate the ratio at 6 or 7 to 1... not even all of the 4 mature does I feed last year got bred, only two have fawns...

Any time someone makes a claim like that about the B/D ratio ,it is reason enough for me to reject just about everything they say about deer management or the PGC. Anyone who thinks the adult breeding B/D ratio in PA is greater than 1:3 hasn't taken the time to educate themselves about deer ecology or deer management nor have they questioned why their observation differ so greatly from the established fact that our B/D ration has been around 1:2 since at least 1980.

1... plenty of deer to hunt
2... hard to fine bucks while hunting on the game lands around the farm fields here..

Do you consider an average of 12 OWD PSM a lot of deer. Do you consider a buck harvest rate of 2.2 buck PSM in 2F to be good hunting?
The main reason the local residents have some decent hunting in 2F is because over 200K deer hunters have quit over the last 9 years. IMHO that is a mighty poor way to get better hunting.

Here is a prime example of why I give little credence to anything to anyone that claims we needed ARs to improve the B/D ratio. The following are the over wintering population estimates for 2001, the year before ARs were implement. The data was provided by Bret Wallingford of the PGC.

In January 2001, using the ESTIMATED preseason population (which used harvest data) and subtracting the harvest left the following deer to overwinter:

Adult bucks: 55,482
Male fawns: 282,571 (total males = 338,053)
Adult females: 412,803
Female fawns: 259,700 (total females = 672,503)

That data would produce a preseason B/D ratio of better than 1:2.2

Now here is what RSB , AKA WCO****Bodenhorn of Elk Co. had to say about the B/D ratio.

There really is what I believe to be major problem with the line of thinking that the buck/doe ratio should have been, or even could have been, corrected by simply harvesting more does.

Before antler restrictions hunter were annually harvesting about 80% of the adult buck population. Therefore, to correct the buck/doe ratio by simply harvesting does it would have required hunters to also harvest pretty close to 80% of the adult doe population every year.

In 2000 we harvested 302K antlerless deer and around 169K were adult doe so a harvest of 25% of the adult doe population kept the B/D ratio below 1:2.2. So RSB's claim that we needed to harvested 80% of the adult doe was pure nonsense, but many AR supporters will believe him because he is a WCO.

That is an explanation that I can accept and respect. A lot of hunters confuse the antlered to antlerless ratio with the adult B/D ratio. While the 1:3 ratio is still much higher than the actual ratio it is easily explained by the wariness of bucks and the difficulty of identifying individual does and their fawns. However , there is no defense for RSB's claims about the B/D ratio or the adult doe harvest rates needed to improve the B/D ratio.

GOT TO GO FOR TONITE...


17 years and 8 months of continous TV presentation....

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beat SHAMUS and JOHN CENNA......

cage match THE BEST...


LATER..........

ORIGINAL: S-10

You forgot to mention that most of them were doe that you feed and photograph in your back yard 11 months of the year and even have names for them they are so tame and conditioned to coming to the same place day after day. In all due respect I hardly think your hunting style or success has anything to do with deer numbers in 2F. In fact you yourself have said both on this site and your own that hunting and deer numbers basically suck on the ANF which makes up a great deal of 2f. No matter what you say, If you haven't seen a legal buck in 153 deer (144 doe)during the end of the rut, you are living proof that AR/HR is not working as claimed.

 
I agree that much of the ANF (which makes up the bulk of unit 2F) has both poor deer numbers and poor deer hunting. There certainly are some exceptions that comment though when you find the few recently timbered areas with regenerating habitat.
 
But, I also understand why it is so poor today compared to the past and it really isn’t from hunters harvesting too many does either.
 
Hunters remember good deer hunting on the ANF back in the 80s and 90s because back in the 80s through to the early 90s the ANF was doing a lot of clear cutting. Those large areas of regenerating clear cuts provided enough winter food to support about 60-80 deer per square mile. The volume of those cuts meant a lot of deer could be supported on the ANF.
 
In the early 90s though a poorly informed environmental group, called the Allegheny Defense Project” when on a misguided mission and successfully got a Court imposes moratorium on the ANF doing any cutting. That resulted in about fifteen years of virtually no cutting on the ANF. So those many square miles of clear-cuts that were once supporting 60-80 deer per square mile grew into pole timber that supports about 2-7 deer per square mile. With no areas being cut to replace those areas that once supported 60-80 deer per square mile the deer population simply couldn’t be sustained at those once higher populations.
 
Though the ANF is once again doing some cutting it is still very little compared to what it once was cutting. Without the cutting it is likely there will never be as many deer in unit 2F as what there had been in the 80s and 90s but things are improving in some areas with the under story starting to improve. That is resulting in some areas seeing some modest deer population increase. Still other massive areas of the ANF are being taken over by buckthorn which is an invasive species that will possible prevent deer population recovery forever into the future.
 
I don’t hunt the ANF for deer very much either because there is much better deer hunting on the game lands or large timber company properties in the area.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn         

The ANF never supported 60-80 Dpsqm....
 
Here are a couple quotes on the B&D ratio..
 
From Dpms,
 
New issue of North American Whitetail Magazine has a feature on the Pa deer managemant plan and it's progress.  Chris Rosenberry states that the current buck to doe ratio in Pa. is 1/2.


 
From an HPA thread,
 
About a month or so ago I was debating the buck to doe ratio in the state and had said I would ask the deer biologist. I had emailed and herd nothing until today. I recieved an email from Jeannine Tardiff Fleegle stating that the AVERAGE buck to adult doe ratio in the state is 1 buck to 1.8 does. As we know localized areas may vary greatly. That is the official word from the PGC.
 
 
Cameras around here show about a 1-3 mabee 1-4 buck to doe...
But mabee the cameras lie too......;