Congrats Mopars! 
 

The bucks have to be lucky every day. The hunter only has to be lucky once. Congrats guys.

Thanks Slayer..... Yeah , I can remember those long azz drives helping out those who have helped me out. Now though they tell me to sit my butt down cause I'm getting to old 😝. So anyhow I take their advice and sit , I have a few areas that I can drive right to and if I get lucky I can just roll them right into the Trailer... Lol .... Or I just call someone and they are there with a 4 wheeler... Good luck to those still hunting ....

SHHhhh.......

I'm hunting the ewusive White-Tailed Wascals. heh heh heh.;-)

Wite now I can take time to give a wepowt because the section of Pennsylvania's Wilds I'm hunting doesn't have, any of those ewusive White-Tailed Wascals walking awound.

Stupid White-Tailed Wascals, heh heh heh........... :'-(



Well once again, good luck to me cause......... Apparently I'm the only one stupid enough to be, still, trying to find one of them sunz-o- [explicit] to kil errrrrr, harvest!

Wishing me luck....

Your friend and mine.
BTDT. :"{

Congrats mopars, great job!
 
As for the boy and I . . .
 
. . . we tapped out after last evening's hunt in 2b.  Heard a whopping 1 shot, right before dark.  Moved a little bit from where we were last week.  Been quite a while since I've seen deer trails just torn up like that.  Definitely there.  Not moving when we're there.  Saw 6 on the first day.  On 5 hunts since then, haven't seen a deer while we've been in the woods.  
 
On one hand, it's nice to not have to worry about too many people around, trespassing where they're not supposed to as they used to do, or showing up to a spot on a large property where several others have permission to hunt and having to change spots, as I used to have to do often.  On the other hand, with weather like this, sure would be nice to have at least a few guys out moving deer around, at least walking into stands to sit and watch.   
 
Gave him the option to go out for a few hours this morning before his first of two basketball games.  Tough to get him out for an AM hunt other than the first day anyway.  Not surprising he chose to sleep a little bit.  I slept in too.  Getting ready to head to game #2.  
 
Late archery . . . meh, who knows.  Still need to get to Erie for some steelhead a few times before the ice over comes.  Would be nice to chase some mallards.  Found some good looking rabbit habitat this deer season as well.  Regardless, we'll have fun and enjoy some more time outside for sure.  
 
 

I blew it.  No excuses.  Had an opportunity to fill both tags today and I just blew it.  Today will haunt me for the next 50 weeks.  You'da thunk today was my first time deer hunting.

Thought I would share how the whitetail hunting was in this area this year.
 
Do to some health concerns I was forced to hunt only from my ground blind in the back yard about 100 yards from the house. I did not see a single deer during shooting hours from archery season to TODAY  ...
 
There are bucks and does still showing up on the trail camera there but at 1am and 5am.. ??
 
There is still that Black Bear showing up in the area too ?? maybe that has the deer nocturnal.. who knows ... I am aware of only 3 does and 4 bucks harvested here so far this year...
 
I asked a lot of the customers at the hardware for pictures and many said I could post them on my message board... some were eager to show their harvests but others did not want me to post photos... so here's what I was able to post ... enjoy ...
 

 
 

DarDys
Had an interesting conversation with my local deer processor. He told me the PGC was in for a regular check and to collect heads for CWD testing.

He told the processor that they are seriously considering a deer irratication in one of the townships because the number of deer there set up the "potential" for CWD.

When asked if there were CWD positives from that township, the answer was "no," but due to the "estimated" population, there was potential.

The processor stated a PSU study (BTDT -- the deer program is run my UV PhDs) that delineated that if the three dominate strains of deer in PA, only one is susceptible to CWD and the other two are not, so would it not be prudent to just let nature take its evolutionary course and let the CWD prone group die off thereby leaving the other two that it does not affect.

The PGC guy said "no," they preferred to wipe out the entire population and start over with whatever survived.

(Note: According to Purdue University which is the leading CWD research institution, no deer have ever been found to die "OF" CWD. Plenty die with it of old age (CWD is thought to become fatal at possible ages 7-9), killed by hunters, or hit by vehicles. In other words they might die "WITH" CWD, but not because of it. )

Since this particular township is mostly controlled by two families who managed their thousands of acres for their own deer hunting (fair chase, not fenced), the processor asked how the PGC would gain access to any meaningful number of deer. The answer was "bait them off those large properties and kill them elsewhere."

The processor let both landowners know of the conversation and needless to say they were none to happy. Not happy to the point that they have already lawyered up and promise to drain the PGC of all their funds if need be fighting it in court for years. Of these families, one's business has an annual revenue of $6 billion, yes, billion with a "B," and the other is almost as loaded. So they have the financial wherewithal to take the PGC to task over this for a very long time.

When I posted this I got excoriated for posting nonverifiable through links information that was just either hearsay or even made up of whole cloth.

Well, here we are 1.5 years or so later and the PGC press release #24-17 outlines a CWD eradication activity via the exact method I wrote about. The only difference was that it was in Fulton County and not Blair ( probably because of the aforementioned wealth of the people who own the targeted ground in Blair).

Interesting that actually talking to those close to the situation resulted in not only accurate information ( without spin or filter), but yielded said information almost two years ahead of it actually happening.

How did that happen without a link?

Of interesting note, this eradication took place in the Spring. That means that not 30, but somewhere between 30 to over 100 deer were removed because some of this killed would have been bred does with singles, twins, or triplets that would have been huntable this fall.