PA ML deer season Oct. 14-21, 2006

[rattus58]

Originally posted by Tioga Flinter
Although an avid muzzleloader hunter, I couldn’t disagree with you more. The archery season has been traditionally the early season in PA and for good reason. To successfully harvest a deer a bow hunter must close the range with the animal. The average deer taken in the state with a bow is a short 20 yards. Once the bullets start flying an archers success rate drops considerably. Based on the 2003 harvest report, Tioga County shows there were 430 antlered and 520 antlerless deer taken with a bow. This low number has little impact on the deer herd.
You mentioned a mere 7 days in October for muzzleloaders, not true. As you well know, you can use the muzzleloader in the regular rifle deer season.
The early muzzleloader season was implemented for a deer management tool only, not to give anyone a special license. If the PGC allowed an extra week as well as harvesting either sex it would severely impact the deer herd. If it was held to primative only it might work, but with the modern inlines, well, it would decimate the deer herd.

This is not to start a fight about anything, but you seem to be thinking that a modern muzzleloader has something over a traditional. This really has nothing to do with the success of the hunt, for it is the hunter that determines his own fortunes.

You mentioned that a Bow hunter has to get closer to his game in order to be successful, and this is very true... and the same holds true of muzzleloading hunting, the closer you get the more successful you become.

I have been hunting long enough and have seen die hard hunters hunt areas where game has been "decimated" by hunter numbers and eradications.... only to successfully come home week after week with their game that no one else saw. My hunting success ratio is for muzzleloaders 50%, with bow, maybe closer to 20% when I hunt frequently, less than 5% when I don't.

I am convinced that with good skill you can hunt in a panama suit and come home with your game successfully.

As to extending days and bag limits. This is not a science necessarily to game numbers as to hunter opportunity. Hunter opportunity gives him more of a chance to successfully bag his game. However, the equation is not one of certainty and hunter skills are still the primary determinate factor.

This has been borne out here in Hawaii on both Lanai Island for deer and on the Big Island at various controlled hunting areas, the Pohakuloa Game Management Area and Puu waa waa Cooperative Game Management Area are studies that I am familiar with.

In every case, hunter days were extended due to lack of military training at Pohakuloa, and a need to reduce game numbers in the other areas. All of these areas require checking in of harvested game and so they had records from which to compare. On Lanai, they extended the hunting to two days on the weekend for their lottery hunt instead of the usual 1 day several years ago. The goal was to reduce the deer numbers, which they successfully did, but it did not double the harvest, the harvest was increased only 40% at the start of the season and increased only slightly more than 20% at the end. These numbers don't reflect hunter days afield, unfortunately, only deer taken. What I mean by this, is that if you checked in you only had to check out by Sunday night whether you hunted sunday or not. Also towards the end of the season, sometimes numbers drop off because hunters think it is being hunted out and its expensive to get to Lanai.

But the point is this, even on the last day of hunting season, good hunters are more successful than are poor hunters on the first day of the season.

I have to get to bed, but hunting success does not depend on your weapon so much as YOUR SKILL WITH IT.

Aloha...