Tradition, indeed, is still a factor in whitetail hunting in Pennsylvania, but many hunters have been slow to react to the changes. Accustomed to shooting yearling bucks, many hunters have yet to adjust to hunting the mature deer that are now found across the state. As any veteran hunter would expect, a mature buck is smarter and better at avoiding hunters, so he's much tougher to hunt.

Though many hunters blame their lack of success on the decreased population and argue that the Game Commission's population estimates are not accurate, ongoing research shows how easily deer avoid hunters. In the second year of a female white-tailed deer study that focuses on survival, researchers from the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Penn State University said that hunters harvested only 17 of the 141 female deer monitored in the study.

In Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) 2G, located in north-central Pennsylvania, the density of radio-collared deer increased with steeper terrain. In WMU 4B, a ridge and valley region located in several south-central counties, graduate student Matthew Keenan said, "The density of radio-collared deer increased with steepness of terrain and with greater distance from the nearest road."

During the opening day of the 2006 firearms season, the average hunter density was 6.5 hunters per square mile in 2G and 5.5 hunters per square mile in 4B.

MORE MATURE BUCKS NOW
According to Steve Trupe, a private wildlife management consultant in the Keystone State, "Mature bucks are making up a larger percentage of the overall deer herd than most imagine. The majority of my clients use trail-monitoring cameras to scout their herd, and numerous photos of true trophy-class bucks are showing up. Nearly all of these photos were taken under the cover of darkness.

"Typical of mature buck behavior, it would appear that the only time these bucks are up and moving about during the hunting seasons would be during the rut, ahead of storm fronts, or when pushed from cover by other hunters," Steve added. "My neighbor gave up deer hunting on the last Friday of the season because he had not seen a legal buck on his property during the days he hunted. He filled his feeder outside of his house on Saturday morning and within a few days no less than four different 8-pointers had been spotted at the feeder by the man and his wife."

Steve reasoned, "It just goes to show you that hunting mature bucks is far different from hunting 1 1/2-year-olds, and that is something that hunters in Pennsylvania are going to have to adjust to if they want to fill their tags."

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
What does the future hold for deer and deer hunting in the Keystone State? It's hard to say. A lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Game Commission filed by the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania over the mismanagement of the deer herd has been thrown out of the court system with prejudice.

An urban management deer plan is starting to be implemented, with longer antlerless-deer seasons introduced in and around the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to help reduce human-deer conflicts. Baiting was legalized in late 2006 in an area in southeastern Pennsylvania to help hunters lure deer into safe hunting areas in this heavily populated section of the state.

Though trophy bucks are appearing regularly in the harvest across Pennsylvania, the Game Commission's goal is not to make it a trophy state. As Press Secretary Jerry Feaser put it, "Our goal in the deer management program is to improve deer health; improve habitat health, which deer and all other wildlife depend on; and to reduce deer-human conflicts."

However, as a result of these actions, Pennsylvania has produced more trophy bucks than ever before, and it certainly appears as though this trend will continue on into the foreseeable future!

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