Jan 12, 2003 By Rod Schoener 5 min read

That was Southern Fayette County Wildlife Conservation Officer Steve Leiendecker’s first comment when asked to assess his first deer season in the county. “As far as I’m concerned, that is the biggest issue,” he said. “As long as the hunters are hunting safely that is the most important thing.

“When they first put the buck and antlerless deer seasons together, all I heard was that ‘you’ll have people shot all over Pennsylvania.’ “

Things didn’t turn out that way and it just may have been one of the safest deer seasons on record.

“I always say people don’t give Pennsylvania sportsmen enough credit,” Leiendecker said. This year they said, ‘You know what. If they have to count points, they are going to shoot and count later. There are going to be dead deer lying everywhere.’

“They didn’t do that, and for the most part, I thought the hunters did very well. There were nine mistake kills reported in my district, and I only know of two or three deer that were killed and left to lay.”

Leiendecker noted that enforcement officers were open-minded about the mistake kill situation.

“We tried to work with hunters and tried to only take restitution fees and not fine money.”

As to the kind of deer hunting pressure he witnessed, Leiendecker said, “With the exception of the regular firearms season, hunting pressure seem light in all the other deer seasons.

“The regular firearms season was pretty busy. It seemed everybody had deer. I saw a lot of people harvesting deer this year, more so than usual.”

Leiendecker said that he saw many deer that anybody would be proud to have mounted. One taxidermist I spoke with said he was busier than he has ever been.

“There were definitely more branch-antlered bucks out there this year. With the combined seasons, there were some 18-month-old deer that lived to be a year older. It seemed to me that a lot of nicer deer were being shot than in prior years, however, somebody I spoke with someone who indicated there were a lot of button bucks shot.”

When asked about hunting pressure during the season-ended flintlock deer season, Leiendecker said, “There were different places where we had pressure.

“There always seem to be guys out on Beaver Creek Road. Flintlock hunters are not as obvious as other deer hunters are. They seem to enjoy the solitude more. Most are purists who enjoy what they do, try to avoid people and become less visible in the process. There were quite a few people out. There was not a day when I couldn’t find a hunter.”

Pressure wasn’t as heavy during the early antlerless deer muzzleloader season, but Leiendecker feels that with anything new it takes a few years to take off. “The pressure will pick up as more and more guys talk about it with their friends, especially those who purchased in-line rifles.

“It certainly helps when they allow the use of more and new firearms. It generates more interest.”

Leiendecker got here in time to witness the largest bear harvest in Fayette County history.

“Bear season was sort of a surprise,” he said. “Last year was a record harvest. Normally, in the year following a record harvest, the harvest is down. This year the harvest went from 43 to almost 60.”

In spite of the record harvest, Leiendecker said he is still getting reports of people seeing bears and had many reports from deer hunters who saw bears.

He noted that, in addition to the harvest, there were 10 road kills in the county. Add in the bears killed for crop damage and the illegal kills, and he estimates that there were probably 75 bears killed in the county last year.

He said that one bear which was harvested in the Quebec Wilderness Area was trapped as a nuisance bear at Chalk Hill two years ago and put on 200 pounds since its release in Quebec.

“We do have a healthy environment for bears,” he said. They are doing very well.”

To that he added that one bear that was harvested on the Fayette County side of the river near Confluence field dressed at nearly 500 pounds.

“Overall the hunting seasons went well,” Leiendecker said. Violations were down. It seemed as though hunters were being kind of careful.

“We had problems with road hunting and shooting in safety zones, but overall, violations were down.”

Leiendecker said that poaching violations were definitely down.

“I’d say the number is definitely down,” he said. “I don’t know what to attribute it to.” Then he half laughingly said, “Maybe I don’t know where to go to catch them.”

I asked. Could it be that there are so many ways to legally take deer now?

To that he said, “Yes, it wasn’t very hard to put a little meat in the freezer this year.”

In parting he said, “I was pleasantly surprised with people willing to report violations. Many times witnesses won’t come forward, but we seemed to get a lot of cooperation this year.”

With that Leiendecker broke it off to set up the schedule for the final day of the extended grouse and deer hunting seasons.

Rod Schoener is the Herald-Standard outdoors writer.