PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Posted on by Blaine

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
From the desk of Blaine Toy

The most prominent División in Hunters is the controversy over the fall deer rifle season opener.   USP has taken surveys over the last few years, which show that most hunters prefer returning to Monday. However, PGC disputes this information.  The survey problem could be resolved by adding a question to the hunter license purchase: Which day do you prefer for the fall deer rifle season opener? Saturday [  ], Monday [  ], or no opinion [  ].  PGC refused to include the question on the license buying process, fearing that the hunter’s opinion would contradict the Commissioner’s wishes.

The House Game and Fisheries Committee held a hearing on February 3, 2024, to get input regarding the opener.  The hearing lasted for 1 ½ hours.   Executive Director Stephen Smith of PGC supported the Saturday opener, followed by Randy Santucci, PGC’s former Commissioner Jim Daily, Dan Davilla, and Jennifer Guerriero, who opposed the Saturday opener. Finally, lobbyist and Director of Government Affairs for the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen, Mike Kriner, supported the Saturday opener.   For those interested in viewing this hearing, please visit https://www.youtube.com/live/wNKKZthWNH4.

Many hunters will be interested to know that the first 2025 meeting of the PGC was held on January 24, 2025, at PGC headquarters. The event was live-streamed; however, the public comments had some technical difficulties.  You can view this meeting, excluding the public comments, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwQpoB0VESE&ab_channel=PAGameCommission.

Another issue of interest to many hunters is that the fiscal year ended on June 30, 2024, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission finally released its fiscal 2023 – 24 annual report in February 2025. PGC reported receiving $41,079,908.00 in revenue from hunter license sales and $200,121,237.00 in other income, totaling $241,201,145.00. It is no wonder that PGC ignores the hunter input, with only 17% of its revenue from hunting license sales.  For hunters interested in reading this report, go to https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/pgc/documents/about-us/mediareportssurveys/reports-and-minutes/annual-legislative-reports/annualreport_2024-onlinefinal.pdf.

 

Blaine Toy

Big Bucks

Posted on by Blaine

BIG BUCKS

by Richard Tate

 

The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) likes to take credit for the harvest of trophy bucks in the state, telling us its deer management program is responsible for increasing the number of big bucks. However, the PGC’s program is only indirectly responsible for large bucks harvested in Pennsylvania — and certainly not in the way the PGC would have us believe.

 

The February issue of the PGC’s magazine, “Pennsylvania Game News,” points out what has occurred. The articles in the magazine discuss the harvest of large white-tailed bucks and the management for such animals. These bucks are mainly tagged on private, posted properties.

 

One of the articles in the February “Game News” discusses one family’s consistent harvest of bucks that make the record book for having large antlers. This family owns more than 900 acres that it manages for big deer. In addition, adjacent property owners do the same thing. The article points out that the properties are not hunted intensely, and the bucks have the opportunity to grow large antlers because they live a long time under the limited harvest by limited numbers of hunters on the properties.

 

Another article discusses what is probably going to become the number one trophy buck in the Pennsylvania record book. This buck was taken on a private farm sometime in the 1960s, a property that was basically fenced off on several sides.

 

Over the past several years, many articles in the “Game News” describe the harvests of bucks from private, posted properties. Few have described kills from unposted properties. All of this demonstrates what the PGC’s deer management program has done. It has developed a two-tier deer-hunting experience in Pennsylvania.

 

When I was young, there were few posted properties: Hunters were welcome to hunt almost everywhere. After the establishment of the PGC’s deer management program in 2002, most private properties were posted in an effort to prevent the overharvest of deer. Since access there was limited to only a few hunters, the deer herd remained healthy, and bucks did have the opportunity to live long enough to grow trophy antlers.

 

This is not true on public lands, such as state game lands. Deer there are shot as soon as they lose their fawn spots. Many button bucks are among these. The deer population has been compressed to unhealthy numbers where the deer have trouble maintaining their numbers, due to overharvesting and the increased numbers of predators.

 

PGC GOT IT WRONG

Posted on by Blaine

THE GAME COMMISSION GOT IT WRONG!

The Pennsylvania Game Commission arbitrarily changed the opening day of deer season destroying a highly successful 60-year Thanksgiving weekend structure. Moving the opening day from Monday to the Saturday after Thanksgiving revealed a gross lack of knowledge and enormous disregard of the economic benefits linked to hunters. One of the top sales weekends for many rural businesses was taken away. No regulatory impact study was done to assess the impact of this radical change, and tens of millions of dollars of sales and tax revenue to the state evaporated. The arrogance of the PGC Board of commissioners was further revealed, when they ignored even the fact the Saturday opener would be in direct conflict with ‘Small Business Saturday’ steering a half-million hunters into the woods that day!

The Monday opener structure not only provided families time to put thanksgiving to bed, it provided the entire weekend for hunters to travel, do last-minute hunting preparations, partake in decades-old traditions, and yes spend money that weekend before the Monday opener. This change was not an oversight or inadvertent mistake. Before this change, PGC hunter surveys, hunter contacts to the agency, input from hunters across the state were running 65 to 90% opposed. Even the PGC staff surveys of perceived benefits from a Saturday start came back flat, and were not in support of the commissioner’s Saturday opener position. A small sample poll of just 10 sporting goods stores revealed over a 360,000.00 loss in sales after that first Saturday opener weekend! They identified neighboring businesses that suffered the same fate. Chamber of commerce representatives reached out to the PGC as many of their businesses were sucker-punched seeing big losses in sales.

The commissioners had no basis to make this change beneficial to hunting or otherwise, but they convinced legislators to wait 3 years to evaluate it. The waiting period is OVER… 3-years in, hunting license sales validate this as a mistake, as the main categories of Resident adult and Resident youth are below where they were in 2018. A paltry increase of a few thousand licenses in peripheral categories, not even influenced by the Saturday change is meaningless. The PGC has nothing and generated a tiny survey, represented it as broad hunter opinion, and blasted it across the state in every media venue because the REAL indicators flopped. The Saturday opener was in part a segue to bring in Sunday hunting, the Sunday can be moved to the next weekend creating 13 continuous hunting days for those that cannot hunt Monday and everyone wins. A fresh organized movement is beginning TODAY to bring back the Monday opener, and reveal this damaging decision to the highest level of state government.

To be counted and get your voice heard for restoring the Monday opener, whether a business or individual, email your views to the following:

Eastern Pa. ddavila2112@gmail.com Western Pa. rsantucci2022@gmail.com

There will be more details upcoming.