PGC deer count tally or their guessing game ?

Any word on the record harvest year we had?

 
GAME COMMISSION RELEASES DEER HARVEST REPORT
 
p>HARRISBURG, PA - Pennsylvania’s buck harvest increased 10 percent, and the overall deer harvest also was up 10 percent, in the state’s 2017-18 hunting seasons, which closed in January, the Pennsylvania Game Commission reported today.
 
Hunters harvested an estimated 367,159 deer in the 2017-18 seasons, which easily topped the overall deer harvest of 333,254 in the 2016-17 seasons. Across the 23 Wildlife Management Units (WMU) used by the Game Commission to manage whitetails, the deer harvest decreased in only three units.
The 2017-18 buck harvest totaled 163,750, representing a 10 percent increase over the 2016-17 buck harvest of 149,460. It is the second largest harvest of bucks since antler restrictions were put in place in 2002. The largest harvest – 165,416 – occurred in the first year of antler restrictions.

So in doing the math we can expect a buck of some sort behind every tree..... every 15 years?  Or, there will a population explosion of children big enough to pull the trigger on the gun pointed at sub-legal bucks every 15 years?  Or the Game commission is back to including all legal/sub-legal road kill for the year?  Or more hunters submitted their report cards.    Or something.....   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Awww c'mon, surely yinz must know, I merely jest.  I know the bucks are out there and Mopars sends them email or text alerts, forewarning the 'one' in my area.

Until there is close to a 100% reporting rate (positive or negative kill response), it is just an educated guess (and the current guess methodology isn’t very statistically sound).

In the EHD areas, the antlered kill was down 13% and 22% while in the rest of the state, it increased in most units. Since the antlered kill is used as a predictor by game agencies of deer populations, looks like some lean years coming from the areas of the state that got hit by EHD.