The hunting tradition is alive and well in PA. Mickey is right. Where I hunt, people are a little too generous and we have quite a few trespassers; hopefully that will be on the decline now that a member of the family is living there.
Out of State Hunt Suggestions
- Thread starter angelzd28
- Start date
Bighoun52
Active Member
There are no deer in Jefferson county, pa!! None at all!! Not a single one!! Haha
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Trespassing is a problem at times for sure. How hard is it to ask? Also just because I get a no doesn't mean it's a no forever. Even if it is, it is their land and they pay the taxes, so why get upset is how I look at it. With regards to getting permission, I give them my name, phone number, license number, car tag number and a waiver of liability that I sign and date for them. I go in their slow season if they farm. I also offer to help any way I can, including paying for and posting their property if they are so inclined. I also suggest that I can be their extra eyes and ears on the property and be the bad cop if they don't want someone hunting there by being their hunting property manager to give the yes or no to the people (neighbors) who they don't want hunting there.
I also share my hunting and fishing harvest with them if they want. I usually deliver a Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving feast to them. That can be 30 to 50 bucks well spent! Those who say no I stay in contact with any ways as they usually know I am on the neighbors property and assure them I won't violate their wishes! I have a specific property in mind and have 10 years of staying in contact with. In this case it is the wife who doesn't want hunting there. But she now greets me by name when I pull in the driveway to say hello. I have brought her elderberries and leeks in the past and haven't asked in 3 years to hunt there. Now what do you think are my possibilities of getting permission there now? It doesn't matter as we have become good acquaintances regardless! They know I hunt next door and he has told me just come to him if a deer I shot ever crossed over and he would help me recover it with his tractor! He also told me if a deer was in the back corner near his property line to not worry about taking it as he is fine with it. I believe if I asked her this summer she would grant me permission!
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
You are probably right and my camp on 949 just east of Clear Creek was a waste of money! LOL
Bighoun52
Active Member
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Decades ago it was called the Gibsonia Hunting and Fishing Club if I remember correctly. It burned several years ago on the first day of rifle. I bought in at the re-build as the old guard weren't interested in a re-build. I have 2 partners. We are straight south of the Hallton Hilton in Green Briar which is up from the "Munderf Mall."
Bighoun52
Active Member
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Bighoun52
Active Member
Guess my buddy and the people around him are not very good hunters lol, all I see is "115 and under. Not sure the county he hunts but I think it's more central PA.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Oh, I see those bucks too! The thing is Pa. has changed so much in the past 40 years. Back in the 70's we had over a million hunters but very few archery hunters. Deer (buck) season was the first Monday after Thanksgiving and the majority of the bucks shot each year were shot by noon that day. We could see dozens of deer running around and no antlers anywhere! So the first 3" spike got it. I remember winning a camp buck pool in the late 70's with a 4 point and there were 25 hunters in the pool, which ran the 2 weeks of buck season. I ended up with the biggest 4 point. If anyone in the area shot an 8 point folks from dozens of camps would stop by to see it. After the first day the next biggest days were the first and second Saturday's as most worked the rest of the week. So basically you had a giant state wide deer drive on Monday morning then everyone packed it in till the Saturday's. Those who stayed at camp that week had a traumatized heard of nocturnal deer that were on high alert. The next big deer day was the Monday following the 2nd Saturday of buck which was the doe opener. Most of the opening day army returned to shoot their doe with another half-hearted state wide deer drive. Pa. was taking out their bucks at 1.5 years old!
Later in the 80's and 90's, they simply combined the buck and doe seasons to shoot even more doe to reduce the herd. So now you see brown you shoot brown was the mantra. This lead to the bucks now being shot as antlerless deer when just buttons! Plus those who shot their doe first usually lost interest after Monday morning... So the vast majority of deer hunters knew only one way to hunt. Find a stand with a view and wait for one to run by you or join the other half watching tails as they took their guns for a walk.
In the past 15 years the hunter numbers are closer to half a million strong. Most of them are older and ingrained in the 70's and 80's method of hunting.
We have a much larger population of archery hunters, plus early muzzle loader hunters etc. so the opener, now on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and Sunday right before the traditional Monday opener. So there is much less pressure, from an older population of hunters with a smaller army and in many areas antler restrictions that say 3 up on a side or 4 points on a side. Well, if you hunt the 70's way, God help you! In many places the deer don't even know it's deer season! Plus a good portion of the older hunters are hunting memories more than deer. Then there is the "Hunt em like the You Tube Experts" crowd that don't realize those You Tube Cowboys are hunting Zoo animals behind fences or on private game preserves west of the Mississippi. They don't realize that the deer in Pa. are now older and more educated to hunter patterns. To have the opportunity to shoot this year's piebald, I passed up 5 of those smaller 8 points in archery during the last week of October and the 11th of November when i shot him! I am attaching 2 pictures to this post. One is the antler with blood staining on it and the other is of an 8 point which I passed up the 6th of November that the buck I shot killed in a fight between the 6th and 11th. I think it was on the morning of the 9th as I heard something that sounded like a "WHOMP" that morning in the area of where I found the dead 8 when I went back in to retrieve something I dropped while dragging out my piebald 11. He was laying in his bed where I often saw him coming from.
As I've said in other posts. I never hunt the same spot twice. I spend most of my time observing form a distance then move in on a pattern I identify. I only move in when the wind favors me only slightly more than the deer. I hunt safe but close winds. I hunt like a trapper. Where is the den tree, where is the run and where is he eating or checking for does. If you don't know where he beds and travels and where the does bed and travel then you are guessing and hoping. I hunt edges and pinch points exclusively because that is where the smart ones travel. I don't use scent, lures, decoys, or even game cameras which only give me on angle. I have them all and you are welcome to buy them from me as I don't use them. My stand is a small folding stool most days. At 63 this season I don't belong in trees any more but will do so if I have to. I have a Timbertall brute lite that is like new! LOL I have a buck decoy and 2 doe decoys and only the buck decoy has been out of the box . I have a quart of buck pee and a quart of doe pee that have been in the freezer for years along with buck hock glands I used to harvest from the bucks at the local processor. All can work, I just don't want the animals on any sort of alert! I no longer use grunt tubes, doe bleat cans or rattling antlers either! They too are for sale. I can burp up a buck with my mouth or doe bleat if needed. No scent lock, no spraying down either. I do bathe in scent free and wash with scent free and no UV soaps. Lastly, all my camo and orange are washed in sport wash and hit with UV killer and i don't get busted any more, not even in orange! Hope this helps!
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Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Love that par 3 where you have to walk to the front of the tee box to look down the 170 yards to the green then pick a spot on the front of the box to hit toward because nobody can see the green from where you tee it! Smack the ball run to the edge of the mountain and look down to see where your ball lands...One of these days I will hit that green!
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Bighoun52
Active Member
Taking my boy to rattlesnake in a couple hours. Pa is def on the rise. I agree lower hunter numbers and a little more selective hunters has helped a lot. Also the game commision seems to finally be getting some new blood in the forestry division and they are cutting and burning areas now. I’m very close to the Allegheny national forest and there are some beasts that come out of there every year. Not a ton of deer but man some of the bucks are awesome
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Looks like you, me and buckkillr need a 4th and a tee time. We could start the Pa edition of the TOO open!
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Being born and raised in Western Pa. (Westmoreland County).... I remember when shooting spikes was an accomplishment... IMO, today's deer herd has improved tremendously due to Gary Alts imposing antler restrictions... Some guys really hated him when he did that, but look at the quality of deer coming out of Pa. today...
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
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Never got into golf.... Never could get into hitting a little white ball 300 yds. go chase it, only to find it, hit it again, to repeat chasing it and looking for it...
And I come from Western Pa. near Latrobe where Arnold Palmer was born. Actually met him once at Rolling Rock Country Club.... Rolling Rock beer is named after that Club....
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Oh.... One other thing, I am a Steelers, Penguin fan.... Just don't mention that on here...
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
I'm a Pirates Browns fan...That alone is enough to make the Pope kick out a stained glass window!
My favorite Stiller was Pileofmoolah! 43
My favorite Stiller was Pileofmoolah! 43