High buck harvest resulted in most deer taken in 15 years
In a year when a long slump in hunting license sales abruptly stopped, hunters took the highest overall deer harvest in 15 years. But those facts may be only marginally related.
The state Game Commission reported 389,431 deer were taken during the 201920 hunting seasons, including 10% more bucks than in the previous year. The last time hunters exceeded this season’s deer total was in 2004-05 when 409,320 whitetails were taken.
The slate of 2019-20 deer seasons extended from Sept. 21 through Jan. 25. From July through December 2019, hunting license sales increased 0.4% to 849,575. The total harvest topped the previous license-year kill of 374,690 by about 4%. The license year runs July through June.
Travis Lau, Game Commission spokesman, suggested that while the Saturday deer opener was probably related to the bump in license sales, it would be a stretch to link it to the harvest report.
“Increased hunter numbers could have something to do with it,” he said, “[but] I’d think increased opportunity, such as a longer firearms season and a Saturday opener that allowed more hunters to hunt on opening day would play a bigger factor in the higher harvest than the total number of hunters.”
Kip Adams, the Tioga County-based director of conservation for Quality Deer Management Association, said several factors probably contributed to the big harvest.
“I’m not sure what impact the Saturday opener had,” he said. “Given the large snowfall in much of the northern part of the state on Sunday evening and Monday morning (the traditional opener), I think it greatly lowered the number of deer shot on Monday. Which means we likely had a typical one big opening day impact.”
QDMA, a nationwide nonprofit deer conservation organization, listed Pennsylvania among the top deer-hunting states in its 2020 Whitetail Report.
“During the 2018-19 deer season, [hunters in] Pennsylvania shot more deer per square mile than every other state,” said Mr. Adams. “Given the 2019-20 harvest, we may top the nation again.”
In the 2019-20 seasons, the statewide antlered deer harvest jumped 10% to 163,240, compared with 147,750 in 2018-19 and 163,750 bucks in 2017-18.
“The overall harvest is as large as it is because of the antlered harvest,” said Mr. Lau. “In 2018-19, the antlered harvest was down 10%. So 2019-20 could just be a rebound.”
Christopher Rosenberry, Game Commission deer and elk section supervisor, said that this season’s hunters experienced antlered deer success levels comparable to historic highs in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
”In recent years, about 17 -18% of all hunters harvested an antlered deer, and we look for this trend to continue,” he said.
More than 65 percent of bucks harvested were at least 2½ years old, which means they were surviving to breed and their antlers were generally bigger.
“Pennsylvania deer hunters consistently continue to take 2½-year and older bucks over younger antlered bucks by a two-to-one margin,” said Bryan Burhans, Game Commission executive director. “If you hunted deer before antler restrictions, you know how significant this is.… The whitetail bucks roaming Penn’s Woods today are a product of an intensely managed deer herd. But their existence also hinged on the willingness of deer hunters to sacrifice shooting spikes and small fork-horns for bucks with substantially more headgear.”
The doe harvest held steady at 226,191 (226,940 in 2018-19). Mr. Rosenberry said hunters helped the agency’s chronic wasting disease mitigation efforts by killing a large number of does in Disease Management Areas.
“That hunters took over 10,000 antlerless deer with Deer Management Assistance Permits illustrates the cooperation we need from deer hunters to help whitetails where CWD threats are at their greatest,” he said.
Mr. Adams said the big 2019-20 harvest may not portend a greater deer kill in the 2020-21 season, when two days of Sunday deer hunting will be added during the opening weekend and archery deer.
“I think the addition of two Sundays will add a lot of opportunity for folks, but I don’t think it’s going to change the harvest much,” he said. “It may change the timing of the harvest some, but the Game Commission has a great means of predicting the annual harvest. I don’t think it will have that much of an impact.”
See the Game Commission’s full deer harvest report at pgc.pa.gov.
Shooting ranges
Gov. Tom Wolf closed indoor shooting ranges along with most “non-life-sustaining” businesses as a COVID19 precaution, but on Tuesday quietly reopened them on a temporary basis at the urging of several justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Associated Press reported firearms dealers may now sell guns by individual appointment during limited hours while complying with social distancing guidelines and other measures to protect employees and customers from the virus.
Northern exposure
Conventional wisdom holds that the Ohio River is too far south for Northern pike, and that they rarely mingle with muskellunge. But in recent weeks anglers have caught and released several good-sized Northerns, as well as muskies, near the juncture of the Ohio and Beaver rivers. Their presence suggests the pike may be running from the Ohio up the Beaver to spawn, making it as far north as the New Brighton Dam.
“I would say that Northern pike are uncommon in the Three Rivers. We occasionally pick them up when we are conducting fish surveys,” said Gary Smith, Fish and Boat Commission southwest region fisheries manager. “Northern pike and muskies do cohabitate, particularly in lakes where muskies are stocked in waters with naturally reproducing Northern pike populations.”
Northerns spawn when water temperatures reach the low 40s. Muskies spawn later, when water temperatures reach the low 50s.
Fish and Boat doesn’t stock Northerns in the Pittsburgh region. It stocks muskies in the lower Allegheny from Freeport to Sharpsburg, and in the lower Youghiogheny. Muskellunge and tiger muskies, a fast-growing muskie-Northern hybrid, are stocked in the Monongahela from Grays Landing to the Maxwell Dam, and tigers are stocked in the Ohio from the Dashields to the Montgomery dams, and in the lower Beaver River.