What study ?????

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the PGC’s administration

I thought this thread was about field tips until you made it your personal anti-PGC bull thread just like 90% of your articles are anti PGC and anti-hunters...

Examination of Current and Future Costs and Revenues from Forest Products, Oil, Gas and Mineral Extraction on Pennsylvania Game Commission Lands (PGC)
Submitted by the Pennsylvania State University
Submitted to the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee
Co –Investigators:
Dr. Michael Jacobson, Associate Professor, School of Forest Resources
Dr. Bruce Lord, Senior Research Assistant, School of Forest Resources
Dr. Marc McDill, Associate Professor, School of Forest Resources
Dr Andrew Kleit, Professor, Energy and Environmental Economics
Dr. Terry Engelder, Professor, Geosciences
Audrey Broucek, Research Associate

THATS WHAT STUDY !

ORIGINAL: Dr. Trout

What study ?????

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the PGC’s administration

I thought this thread was about field tips until you made it your personal anti-PGC bull thread just like 90% of your articles are anti PGC and anti-hunters...

ORIGINAL: Outdoor Adventures

Better read again. 90% huh ? Anti's, your really scratching now. LMAO

Dude give up...

quit posting...

do some work on your middle school made websites..

I must admit I rarely (never if I can help it) read your stuff anymore, at first I did but then it all turned negative, placing one group of hunters against another, anti anything new to the hunting sport. etc, etc..

It alls seems the same... one angry person's opinions about what's wrong with everything in the world of hunting ... you know the glass is half empty and the sky is falling type guy....

now adays if I find a paper or magazine I subscribe to has any of your stuff in it I write and cancel the subscription


Please supply a link to a positve hunting or PGC article you have written in the past... say.. 3 years.....

Nothing wrong with the study.  The PGC currently is underfunded and they don't even have the staff to do the research to determine what, if any, mineral rights they have on many of their tracts of land that have been bought and donated over the decades.  Simple fact. 
 
It can be a windfall for the PGC but the gas development could harm hunters and more importantly, wildlife, if not done responsibly.  But, without the resources to provide oversight for the drilling operations, the PGC, PFBC and the DEP will be scrambling trying to catch up.  Might not been such an issue if the PGC could have gotten a reasonable license increase within the last couple of years. 
 
I am not a proponent of balls to the walls drilling but a reasonable approach with a few here and there would not harm a thing.  As long as the wells are done responsibly with minimal impact and reclaimed properly, the edge habitat created can be a really good thing for some gamelands that don't have much of that. 
 
Heck, maybe you can even work out a deal with the drillers that when they put in wells, they also do some major habitat work nearby (border cuts, food plots, etc.) since they'll have all the equipment right there anyways.  Always a way to get lemonade from lemons if you work hard enough at it.
 
As far as where the money goes, the annual report spells it out and everyone should know, the PGC is WAY underfunded currently.
 
OA, go spew your hate to the 5 people on the USP boards.
 
 

OA, go spew your hate to the 5 people on the USP boards.

Now that's FUNNY .. I have never been on their site so have no idea about any USP Board, I was TOLD you have to join the USP to see the board.. anyone know if that's true ???

I wouldn't call it HATE. Just putting out facts

Maybe not HATE.. but definitely anti everything... and more opinions than facts...

did I miss him posting a link to one of his recent positive articles yet ????

On most game lands the Game Commission doesn’t own the mineral rights because the land would have cost way more than the Game Commission could have paid for it with the mineral rights included. In some cases we don’t even own the timber rights for the first ten to twenty years after the purchase because we could not have bought the land with the cost of the timber included.
 
The amount of money the Game Commission can pay for land is set, by law, at $400 per acre. You simply can’t buy the mineral and timber of any value at that price so the Game Commission typically just buys the surface so that hunters can have land to hunt on. The Game Commission does the best job possible with managing the surface of that to provide quality wildlife management and hunting opportunities even though that surface might be ripped up at some point in time as the timber or minerals are removed by their owner.
 
In some cases the Game Commission does own the minerals under the game lands and in some cases they do sell some of those minerals if it can be done in a manner that can result in better or even suitable wildlife habitat for the future. Part of the motivation for gas leasing, under the limited amount of game lands where the Commission has the mineral rights, is without a doubt a result of the fact there has been no license fee increase to keep the agency adequately funded to fulfill its wildlife management obligations. If hunters had pushed the Legislature into passing a license increase before it reached this point of financial necessity then some of those game lands might not have gas wells being drilled on them today.
 
But, even with the gas extraction the lands will be returned to the best possible wildlife habitat that can be managed with the remaining limited personnel and funds.     

R.S. Bodenhorn

ORIGINAL: Dr. Trout

Here's a GREAT example of a postive, informative and useful article by what I call an outdoor writer not a "shock jock"..

notice she does not "go off" on the PGC changes, just talks about them and uses the article to educate hunters on the changes...

BTW.. my local WCO asked me to talk about these same changes at our sportsman's meeting Wednesday.. lots of confusion about the changes this year... BEWARE ...

changes in seasons confusing hunters
October 24, 2010 - By Shirley Grenoble,

"Are these season dates true or is it a misprint in the digest?"

Those were the words the phone caller asked me.

I assured him it was not a misprint. He told me that he had decided just to review the digest at the last moment and was really shocked to see that the season dates had changed. Except for the chance look, he would probably have been out hunting fall turkeys at the wrong times. He was angry at the change in dates, as are many hunters who have talked to me about it.

So if you are one who thought you were going to go turkey hunting this Saturday, you better look again. For WMU 4D as well as many other WMUs, the hunting dates were changed. Our season starts Nov. 13 through Nov. 19, takes a few days off then resumes again Nov. 25-27. So we can hunt fall turkeys on Thanksgiving Day. And on the day we usually travel to deer camp.

Historically, hunters don't like changes. The Pennsylvania Chapter of National Wild Turkey Federation, which has supported the Game Commission on some issues over the years, such as the abolishing of the Turkey game farms to focus on trap and transfer methods to reestablish turkeys in this state, is not supporting the Game Commission on these changes.

The Game Commission tells us that seasons are adjusted according to its data on the increase or decrease in the turkey populations in any WMU. The NWTF says that the seasons are adjusted more to entice more hunters to go hunting, since the hunter base seems to be shrinking, than for any concern over populations.

Whatever the truth is, this is the situation: the seasons are different this year, and we better get it straight, or some of us will be finding ourselves in hot water. The Game Commission has produced a cutout that is printed in the license digest this year, listing (in very small print) all the season dates for every species.

I'm cutting it out and tucking it in my license holder so I can check it if need be. Or double-check,since sometimes I begin to doubt if I have it right.

A few years ago, I went fall turkey hunting on a Monday morning. I went to a favorite spot, set up to call after having put out the required fluorescent orange to mark my location, and spent a couple hours watching and calling periodically. Had a turkey appeared I would have shot it.

After a couple of hours, it entered my mind that I hadn't checked the season dates in a while, and I began strongly to wonder if perhaps the seasons had closed the previous Saturday. The more I thought about it, the more I doubted myself. I did not have the bulky license digest in my vest or even in my truck. I became very uncomfortable, so much so that I hiked back to my truck and went home to check it out. The fact that I wasn't passing any other vehicles in the area only confirmed my suspicions that I was out there hunting illegally.

Guess what - indeed I was. Certainly you would expect that I would have it right, but I didn't. Just assuming that the season is the same as it was last year is a big mistake. I confessed my wrongdoing here to a conservation officer, and he gave me a warning but not a fine because I hadn't actually shot at anything.

Last Sunday, I also spoke with someone who was intending to hunt in this past weekend's special deer season for senior and junior license holders and active-duty military personnel, and he told me he had seen a nice buck already in the woods so he was going to go back and hunt for him. I dashed his hopes when I told him he could only hunt for antlerless deer.

I fear that, despite all the warnings given about the rule changes for antlerless deer hunting during the regular deer season this year, lots of folks will still assume it's the same as last year.?It's not. No antlerless deer may be harvested in many WMUs until Saturday of the first week of deer season. Check it all out in the digest.

 
I don't hunt turkeys, but know quite a few people that do.  What was the rationale behind changing the START of the turkey season away from the traditional "closest Saturday to November 1st" to two weeks later?  I have heard a number of opinions, but want to know if anyone has the offical poop.

Talked to my local WCO this week-end, and he said okay for me to unload with a field tip...

Ive seem some deputies in action before. They will search for any thing to fine you on. Not all but some.

ORIGINAL: ShutUpNFish

This is such a petty thing IMO...What are the odds that a WCO will run into you while archery hunting, let alone check your tips? I wouldn't even pay any mind to the dumb law and continue carrying one to discharge at the end of each hunt and take my chances. Just my .02

I don't understand . How can a mud road be better or suitable habitation for the future of wildlife? Seems to me that better habitation is a $40,000 + vehicle for the WCO.

ORIGINAL: RSB

On most game lands the Game Commission doesn’t own the mineral rights because the land would have cost way more than the Game Commission could have paid for it with the mineral rights included. In some cases we don’t even own the timber rights for the first ten to twenty years after the purchase because we could not have bought the land with the cost of the timber included.
 
The amount of money the Game Commission can pay for land is set, by law, at $400 per acre. You simply can’t buy the mineral and timber of any value at that price so the Game Commission typically just buys the surface so that hunters can have land to hunt on. The Game Commission does the best job possible with managing the surface of that to provide quality wildlife management and hunting opportunities even though that surface might be ripped up at some point in time as the timber or minerals are removed by their owner.
 
In some cases the Game Commission does own the minerals under the game lands and in some cases they do sell some of those minerals if it can be done in a manner that can result in better or even suitable wildlife habitat for the future. Part of the motivation for gas leasing, under the limited amount of game lands where the Commission has the mineral rights, is without a doubt a result of the fact there has been no license fee increase to keep the agency adequately funded to fulfill its wildlife management obligations. If hunters had pushed the Legislature into passing a license increase before it reached this point of financial necessity then some of those game lands might not have gas wells being drilled on them today.
 
But, even with the gas extraction the lands will be returned to the best possible wildlife habitat that can be managed with the remaining limited personnel and funds.     

R.S. Bodenhorn