Where have all the deer gone?
Except for late archery and muzzleloader, deer hunting seasons are over for another year. In a sense, I’m glad of that.
Once again I spent inordinate amounts of time in the woods and covered quite a bit of ground in my favorite haunts with no success.
Am I complaining? Yes to some extent, but I guess it could be worse, as my health could have been such that I couldn’t even get afield.
But deer season was frustrating at best.
From what I’m hearing, I’m not the only one that was unhappy.
Just about everyone I ran into in and out of the woods asked, “What happened to all the deer.”
In the beginning, I was all for Dr. Gary Alt’s plan to tighten the buck-doe ratio by eliminating a large portion of the doe population in an attempt to make hunting better.
Two years ago, I killed two deer for the first time in my life.
Those same spots on the Game Lands in Greene County looked like wasteland the past two years.
This year, I saw three deer in three days of hunting in Greene County. Last year, I saw four in as many days with one being nice looking six-pointer, which I couldn’t shoot.
This year, I saw two bucks on opening day. Either one would have made me happy, but one had a high rack with two big Ys, but I couldn’t put another point on him at 35 yards with the woods as dark as they were. A little sunlight would have made them light up and perhaps reveal that all-important third tine, but it wasn’t to be.
The second allowed me a quick glimpse of antler before putting his head on the ground and sneaking off through the mountain laurel.
One day in Greene County, the only deer I saw was a doe, and I guess I was supposed to leave her for seed, as I blew a chance for an easy shot.
I was moving a few yards at a time and stopping for a few minutes to wait and look, as I prefer this style of hunting to sitting for my feet and hands have always become numb very quickly no matter what I’m wearing.
After moving about 20 yards, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I pushed my safety halfway off and waited. Then over a knuckle about 35 yards off a flock of turkeys popped up and filtered past.
I put the safety all the way back and put my Ruger over my shoulder, thinking, “Shucks, just a flock of turkeys.”
I looked back to check in the other direction and then back to where the turkeys had crossed, and there was a fairly large doe standing at the same spot where the turkeys had crossed, looking right at me. Before I could even react, she was gone.
Well! That’s hunting.
I can’t blame missing her on anyone but myself. Had I stayed focused on that spot, I might have had venison and eggs for breakfast, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
I’m not the only one who was frustrated. I spoke with many hunters who did not see a deer and others who did not see a buck.
I believe deer numbers are way down, especially on State game and forest lands.
For every happy hunter I encountered, I spoke with two dozen who were very unhappy, especially those who had to do their hunting on public lands.
I even spoke with a couple of landowners, who usually harvest a deer on their own property at some point during the archery or regular deer seasons, who say they did not get a deer and also saw few if any.
Don’t get me wrong. There were successful hunters, and by some of the photos on this page – highly successful hunters.
Yes, there were some very large bucks taken, but I don’t believe there weren’t any more or any larger ones killed than there were before the days of antler restrictions.
By now I expected to hear of many more trophy buck kills (10-pointers or more) than ever before.
I even spoke with a couple of people who process deer. They said the number of deer processed was much lower than last year, which was also a down year.
The majority of the deer processed by Fayette County businesses were antlerless deer, with only a handful of bucks showing up – and only a couple large ones.
Were a lot of questionable bucks shot and ground checked for enough antlers? I don’t know if it was a lot, but I’ve heard of a few from reliable sources.
I spent three days hunting in the mountains of Fayette County with the two aforementioned bucks being the only deer I saw.
I ran into hunters from Fayette County hunting in Greene County because they felt there weren’t enough deer in their of favorite mountain spots.
Most feel the current deer management program as the main cause for the overall drop in the deer population, but those who spend time trapping as well as hunting will say that they feel coyotes and bears are doing their part in controlling the fawn population.
In many places, deer do destroy their own habitat with over browsing, but I saw many areas with abundant acorns and no sign of deer. I even found one apple tree in Greene County – which I believe the deer used to stand under and catch the apples as they dropped – that was virtually untouched.
Half of the apples had fallen and half were still on the tree – none had a bite out of them.
I saw many scrub racks this year that reminded me of the days when we used to hunt Potter County, where 99 percent of the bucks were either spikes or three-pointers and some six- and eight-pointers were so compact they fit between the deer’s ears.
I once got a glimpse of a real trophy buck and was accused of lying until we got down off the mountain that night, and the buck was the talk of the town.
Of the few bucks I saw this year, many had inferior antlers.
It is depressing to think that they may have sired fawns that will be born next spring.
Last year I saw as many as 10 small bucks in the early muzzleloader season on two different game lands. Where did they go?
If they were shot, ground checked and just left to rot, why not make cull out the freaks by making them legal regardless of points such as three-pointers and half-racks.
With the increased pressure on public hunting lands, it didn’t take long for sportsmen’s clubs and pay-to-play commercial interests to grab up and post even more mountain property.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it is wrong.
It is just a sad testimonial to the future of deer hunting in Pennsylvania.
Rod Schoener is the Herald-Standard outdoors editor.