Graybeard has it "figured"... there's too many doe deer in the Pennsylvania woods.
I've hunted in the Moshannon State Forest out of my bestest hunting buddy's cabin for a good many years... and most hunters were shooting spikes or forkhorns... and very few 6, 8 and 10 pointers.
Frankly, there were very FEW 6, 8 and 10 pointers around.
Then the Pennsylvania State Game Commission hired Dr. Gary Alt who was highly respected by 'most everyone who knew of his accomplishments in the field of setting up good hunting programs that benefitted the game hunted and the hunters themselves.
Dr. Alt "fathered" the current Pennsylvania State Game Commission's Hunting Rules & Regulations including no taking of a buck that has less than 3 points on at least one side.
Dr. Alt also drastically increased the doe deer permits because it was discovered that, down through the years, the hunters traditionally didn't shoot doe deer. This long-term "training" of the hunters had resulted in very, very few hunters who were willing to shoot doe deer "because it just wasn't done"... a "lesson" they had learned through many years of hearing their Grandfathers and Fathers say and practice it.
This resulted in a HUGE number of doe deer wanding in the woods who ate most of the good browse during the rut (when the bucks didn't eat very much, if any,at all).
Once the rut was over, and the bucks returned to their normal feeding habits, they found that the over-population of doe deer had eaten almost all the browse leaving very little or almost no browse or food for the now-starving bucks.
Of course, this resulted in a large number of otherwise healthy bucks dying of literally starvation each year simply because of the over-population and, thus, the over-browsing by the over-population of doe deer.
Thus, Dr. Olt began a new, intensive program of adding a great many doe deer permits to those annually sold... and offering them to hunters at very reasonable prices.
Each year since the inception of Dr. Alt's Program, there has been an increasing number of doe deer LEGALLY shot by hunters every year. And, naturally, this showed an immediate result in a large number of deer "disappearing" from the woods.
Once the deer populations began to drop, some hunters began to grumble about the "lack of deer"... and this was true. Not only were the doe deer that had been taken on extra doe permits now missing, but the twin fawns they would have had the following year were ALSO "missing", as were the twin fawns from the year before together with THEIR fawns.
The lack of deer was beginning to be noticable.
I, too, had to admit that in the past two years of hunting from dawn 'til dark, I haven't seen a live deer (doe or buck) in the Pennsylvania woods where I use to see a fair number of (mostly) does every day. But I still believed in Dr. Alt's Program even through, because of political pressure, Dr. Alt resigned from this post a year or so ago.
What will happen to the Program now is anybody's guess. There's a LOT of hunters complaining about the "lack of deer"... and I "sense" that the Penn. State Game Commission's resolve to continue Dr. Alt's Program is waining.
But if Dr. Alt's Program isn't continued until it eventually achieves success, the deer population in Pennsylvania is really going to "crash" eventually when the deer over-browse ALL of the available land... and then deer hunting in the State of Pennsylvania will only be a "memory".
The "truth" is unfortunate, but... never-the-less, it's the "TRUTH"... like it or not.
Strength & Honor...
Ron T.
