PA Sportsmen Already Paying The Price

By Bob Frye, Tribune-Review

You walk into your doctor's office with a bullet hole in one leg, stab wounds in your chest, severe burns on your feet and, what the heck, let's throw in a doozy of a hangnail, too.

Clearly, you need care.

And your doctor's response?

He asks if you've been taking your vitamins. He wonders if you've considered getting more exercise. He suggests you fundraise to buy bandages and promises you baby aspirin, maybe, later, if you can convince the neighbors you need them.

That's how Pennsylvania lawmakers treated sportsmen last week.

The executive directors of the Pennsylvania Game and Fish and Boat commissions delivered their annual reports to the members of the House of Representatives game and fisheries committee. As expected, both spent a significant portion of their time asking for money.

Hunting and furtaking license prices haven't changed since 1999; fishing licenses not since 2005.

Increasingly, that's leading to consequences.

The Game Commission has already closed two pheasant farms, something that will mean 50,000 fewer pheasants ­­— at least — for hunters this fall. Next up, said executive director Matt Hough, might be the shuttering of the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area and Howard Nursery, which provides trees and shrubs for game lands.

The Fish and Boat Commission, meanwhile, will have no choice but to make “deep program cuts” starting in 2018 without additional revenue, said executive director John Arway. It's likely some of those will come via hatcheries, he warned.

Both agencies are short on law enforcement officers — the front line against poaching — and may get shorter, the directors said.

That's all on lawmakers.

Only they can increase prices. The fact that they haven't in so long is, as Wes Waldron of the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania said recently, “at best unconscionable.”

What's the holdup?

Naked self preservation.

Lawmakers didn't display any animus toward the commissions, unlike in times past. But they danced all around the fee issue.

They quizzed the agencies on whether they're cutting costs. They suggested other ways of raising revenue, like selling permits to allow people to use ATVs on game lands. One offered to propose giving each $1 million in general tax money — something that's unprecedented — to tide them over until something, meaning who knows what, changes.

That's all fine as far as it goes. The commissions should be pressured to be efficient and creative.

But none of those ideas will solve their problems or help sportsmen.

Several lawmakers said they understand that and have heard virtually every statewide sportsmen's group say they favor fee hikes.

But they also made clear they won't risk votes back home to do anything about it, not until the commissions can somehow prove an even wider groundswell of support.

Enough's enough.

No one likes paying more for anything. But the time's come.

Sportsmen who value fish and wildlife and the recreation they provide must tell lawmakers to properly our natural resource agencies.

If not, we'll all pay the price in other ways.

Bob Frye is the Tribune-Review outdoors editor. Reach him at 412-216-0193 or bfrye@tribweb.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

Rest In Peace Tony Dan

Long time club member, kitchen master and one of our hardest working members Tony Dan passed away this past week.

Anthony "Tony" Guy Dan, 74, of Valencia passed away Sunday at UPMC Passavant. 
Born Oct. 15, 1942, he was the son of the late Guy and Laura Dan.
Tony was a graduate of Har-Brack High School, Class of 1960. He attended Duff's Business School, Forbes Trail Technical School and the University of Pittsburgh. Tony worked on mainframe computers for 45 years. He enjoyed oldies, camping, hunting, campfires and fishing.

He leaves behind two sons, Adam (Erin Maxa) Dan and Eric (Sunshine Centennial) Dan; and three grandchildren, Isaac, Ellis and Liam Dan.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife of 35 years, Ida Mary Dravis Dan; his sister, Adelaide Dan Robins; his half brother, George Altmas; and his half sister, Sally Nolker. 

Catch trout with the bugs of late winterx`

By John Hayes / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When the last gusts of winter have yet to blow, and the first rays of spring sunshine are still weeks away, macroinvertabrates already are active in streams across Pennsylvania and most of the eastern United States.

Greg Hoover, an author, fly fisherman and recently retired Penn State entomologist will talk about early season fly fishing Feb. 19 at Cabin Fever, an annual fly fishing expo benefiting Penn’s Woods West Trout Unlimited at the Marriott Pittsburgh North in Cranberry.

“A lot of people I think don’t know that you can [fly fish] all year long,” he said. “To be effective, folks should be prepared with patterns imitating the various life stages of the common Big Three groups.”

It’s no surprise that mayfly, caddisfly and stonefly nymphs drifted slowly near the bottom of the deepest pools can draw winter strikes.

“I would expect some Slender Winter Stoneflies to work -- just a few millimeters wide, very narrow in body profile and a total length that may not exceed a half inch,” Hoover said. “Also try a Little Black Stonefly Nymph, size 16 or 18, fished very slowly on the bottom.”

Before the spring rains, native trout and even stocked holdovers can be tempted by well-played wet flies, he said.

“One good subsurface imitation is the Zebra Midge. It imitates a wide range of midge pupae, and size 18 or 20 can be effective,” he said. “Midges emerge 13 months of the year, but [in winter] when we have thaw days, the pupa stage swims to the surface.”

It may seem counterintuitive that in the slow-metabolism months of late winter trout would sacrifice energy to chase minnows. But Hoover said it can be a good time of year to tie on streamers.

“The bigger adult fish are coming out of a period of spawning,” he said. “They’re really aggressive. Recovering is causing them to look for big chunks of protein.”

Try 3- to 5-inch streamers with articulated shanks and long tails.

“You’re fishing them slow, not really stripping them through the water like a baitfish would move in May or June,” he said. “Before spring sets in, try fishing streamers when we get high-water events. Fish them in the eddies and along the banks.”

Soon after ice-out, trout start looking to the surface for food. A difference of even a couple of degrees can determine when and where liftoff might occur.

“Sometimes on the same river, one stretch will have nothing happening and another will have a hatch. One stretch they’ll be eating females and on another they’ll be eating males,” Hoover said. “Mayfly emergence begins with males — for fly fishermen that’s the Red Quill. When the water gets warmer you get females, imitated by the Hendrickson. Even early in the spring, be ready with both.”

People have been tying fur and feathers to “angles” in hopes of catching trout since ancient times. What actually triggers feeding and preference remains a mystery.

“It’s easier in May and June to know what the hatch will be. Earlier than that, in March and April, sometimes you have to be ready for just about anything,” Hoover said.

Don’t have what the fish want? Improvise. Even in late winter, when patterns are fished slowly and deliberately, approximations can work.

“If it’s a choice between having the right color or the right size, go with size,” he said. “Say a trout is near the bottom and when it looks up, the insect is in its window of vision. What it’s seeing is the outline of the insect — seldom is the color apparent when viewed from below.”

Cabin Fever opens 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Feb. 19 at Marriott Pittsburgh North, 100 Cranberry Woods Drive, Cranberry. 724-772-3700, www.pwwtu.org/cabinfever.html. Admission $10, 12 and under free.

Greg Hoover speaks on Pennsylvania entomology at 2 p.m., and presents a tying demo at 3 p.m.

Hunter shatters Pennsylvania record with non-typical buck

Few hunters ever will have an experience like this one.

Eric Carns of Hesston in Huntingdon County was out with his crossbow Nov. 5, on family property in Clearfield County. He was on the ground when a deer spooked by his father ran to within 20 yards of him. He made a quick decision to shoot.

Good move.

The buck's rack had 26 points and a 196/8-inch spread. This past week, it was certified as the new state record nontypical archery buck. It scored 2286/8.

The previous record was an Allegheny County deer killed in 2007 that scored 209 ¹⁄₈.

What's more, Carns' buck ranks as the No. 3 nontypical in state history even when considering deer taken with firearms. The only two bigger bucks were one taken in 1942 that scored 2386/8 and one taken in 2001 that scored 2302/8.

“I've scored maybe a handful of deer over 200 inches. But that's the biggest I've ever scored,” said Bob D'Angelo, state records program coordinator for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

“It had everything — the points, the length, the mass.”

What made it score so well, he said, were its odd points. It had 13 on each side and was symmetrical that way. But each of the main points had another coming off them. They added nearly 51 inches to the rack's score.

“That's just tremendous. That just piled on the points,” D'Angelo said.

Carns himself hasn't said much. He asked the commission not hand out his contact information.

Tracked down anyway, he did not return any of several phone calls.

His only comments, in fact, were those made to WTAJ-TV, an Altoona television station.

“I shot a 10-point last year and got it mounted. It was 20 inches wide,” Carns told WTAJ. “This year's just makes it look small.”

His deer was the cream of what has apparently been an excellent crop across Pennsylvania. D'Angelo said large-racked bucks have become commonplace in recent years, with this past season especially good.

“A 140-class deer, I don't even get excited anymore. Although I've never killed one that big myself, I don't get excited when they come in to be scored because I see them all the time,” D'Angelo said.

That's the trend all across the country, it seems.

This past fall, a hunter in Tennessee killed what is now officially the new world record nontypical. It scored 312 ³⁄₈.

There have been media reports, too, of possible state-record deer being taken in Minnesota, Mississippi and Louisiana, where not one but two hunters might have broken the state's 70-year-old whitetail record.

While all those deer have yet to be certified, there's no doubt there are plenty of big bucks on the landscape these days.

That's not by accident, said Johnathan Bordelon, deer program manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

To reach their potential antler-wise, bucks need to live relatively long lives, he said. Once, hunters didn't permit that.

In 1981 in Louisiana, for example, Bordelon said, yearling bucks made up 80 percent of the annual harvest.

Now, things have flipped completely. Eighty percent of the harvest typically is made up of deer at least 2 ¹⁄₂ years old, these days, and 67 percent 3 ¹⁄₂ years, he said.

“Older-age harvest has allowed deer to grow larger and reach their growth potential. The result has been an increase in the number of large bucks harvested,” Bordelon said.

Much the same thing has happened in Pennsylvania.

In 2015, more than half of the bucks killed in Pennsylvania were 2 ¹⁄₂ years or older. Mandatory antler restrictions that require hunters to pass on smaller, younger bucks partly explain that and are also the “most obvious” reason so many big bucks are showing up, said Chris Rosenberry, the Game Commission's chief deer biologist.

Those older deer grow larger antlers, he said.

But there's more to it than that, at least nationally.

Louisiana has some of the longest deer seasons in the country and no mandatory antler restrictions, for example.

“The increase in age structure is tied to hunter desires,” Bordelon said. “Long seasons have provided hunters a long window in which to be selective.”

At the same time, increasing numbers of hunters have come to grips with the idea that the key to large, healthy, big-racked deer is maintaining whitetails in “appropriate numbers,” said Adam Murkowski, big game program leader for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' division of fish and wildlife.

That can mean fewer deer than in decades past, he said.

“But I think a lot of hunters are coming to realize that the answer to growing big bucks is not to increase the size of the whole pyramid and hope to get a few more big ones at the top,” Murkowski said.

“It's to maintain that appropriate number of deer. You get more big bucks as a result of that.”

Still, bucks as large as the one Carns took will always be rare, D'Angelo said. It was, he said, “incredible.”

But every hunter who heads out can hope. Sometimes, he said, that's all it takes.

“You hate to say it, but a lot of these are just luck,” D'Angelo said.

Bob Frye is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via @bobfryeoutdoors.

PA Game Commission Pheasant Chick And Egg Program Comes To An End

HARRISBURG, PA - Two long-running programs that enabled groups and individuals to

raise pheasants for release in their local areas have come to an end due to financially driven changes to the Game Commission’s pheasant propagation program.

The Pheasant Chick Program, started in 1933, provided day-old pheasant chicks free of charge to sportsmen’s organizations with approved propagation facilities. And the Day-Old Pheasant Hen Chick and Surplus Egg Programs enabled properly permitted organizations and individuals to buy chicks and eggs to raise and release.

Each of the programs served to augment the pheasant releases the Game Commission conducts each year before and during the pheasant hunting season. The birds that went to sportsmen's organizations were released on lands open to public hunting.

In an effort to cut costs, however, the Game Commission is implementing changes to its pheasant propagation program. The agency recently announced the closure of two pheasant farms, and will rely on the remaining two farms for all production. In closing the farms, the agency has also released birds that would have been kept as breeding stock.

Rather than raising chicks from the eggs laid by these birds, the agency will purchase day-old chicks from a privately owned breeder, and raise those birds for release.

Purchasing chicks is more cost-effective. And in making the switch and eliminating 14 positions that had been held by game-farm workers, the agency expects to save $1.5 million in the coming year.

The Board of Game Commissioners also is discussing creation of a $25 permit that would be required for all adult pheasant hunters, and would further help pay for Pennsylvania’s propagation program.

The application period for pheasant egg and chick programs traditionally opened in January.

Organizations and individuals that had planned on taking part in the program in 2017 might still be able to obtain pheasant eggs from private propagators.

Unlike most state agencies, the Pennsylvania Game Commission in not funded by tax dollars. It relies primarily on revenue generated through the purchase of hunting and furtaker licenses – the fees for which are set by the General Assembly and have not been adjusted for inflation in nearly two decades.

“Cost-cutting measures, like the changes we’re implementing to the pheasant propagation program are necessary to balance the agency’s budget until a license-fee increase finally is approved,” said R. Matthew Hough, the Game Commission’s executive director. “We’ve had to make a lot of difficult decisions in recent years, and a lot of them probably went unnoticed because initially we cut in areas we knew would have the least impact on those who rely on the services we offer. But as we’re forced to make bigger and more significant cuts at the program level, there’s no avoiding the impact to services. Unfortunately, more cuts will be needed to balance the budget for the coming fiscal year, and Pennsylvania’s citizens and wildlife resources have begun feeling the impact.”

Fisher Resurgence: Once extinct in Pennsylvania forests, a big active predator is on the rebound

By Ben Moyer / Special to the Post-Gazette

The fisher, Pennsylvania’s second-largest member of the weasel family (the river otter is largest), is poorly named. “Mouser” or “squirreler” might be better.

Although fishers prey on diverse food sources, fish are not part of their diet. Small rodents, rabbits, squirrels and carrion make up much of the menu, and fishers are effective predators of porcupines where that prey is available. But biologists who have worked to re-establish the fisher, once extinct in Pennsylvania, concede it will eat almost any wild creature that doesn’t eat it first.

“In fishers, we’ve seen the most diverse diet, including each other, of all forest predators; there’s nothing they won’t eat,” said Matt Lovallo, wildlife biologist in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Game Mammals Section. “With some food items like deer, whether it’s predation or scavenging, we don’t know. We do understand that hunters have an intuitive concern about turkeys because fishers are skilled tree climbers, but birds are very limited among the food items we’ve analyzed.”

The name fisher has roots in the older French word “fichet,” which applied to the polecat, a European weasel. Known to scientists as Martes pennanti, fishers are weasel-like in appearance but larger, cloaked in dark brown to black fur, sometimes brindled with white or silver. Big males can exceed 4 feet from snout to tail tip with the heavily furred tail accounting for about a third of the total length. The sharply triangular head is topped with short rounded ears. Adult males generally range between 9 to 12 pounds, with the largest specimens nearly doubling that weight. Females are smaller.

Question

Should the state Game Commission invest resources into restoring extirpated wildlife or focus on improving conditions for Pennsylvania hunters?

50%

Restoring wildlife

14%

Improving hunting

36%

Both

Fishers are forest-dependent and currently range all across Canada’s forest belt, but their original distribution embraced the Great Lakes and extended southward along the Rocky and Appalachian mountain chains. As native Appalachian and Midwestern forests were cleared in the 19th century, fishers disappeared from the region. But as second-growth woodland reclaimed much of the landscape, biologists in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Michigan and Wisconsin sought to re-establish fishers in those states.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Fisher Management Plan states that West Virginia released fishers captured in New Hampshire as early as 1969. New York followed in the 1980s by re-locating fishers from a remnant Adirondack population to other forested tracts. Most significantly, between 1994 and 1998, Game Commission biologists working cooperatively with Frostburg University released 190 fishers at six heavily forested sites across northern Pennsylvania. Fishers have been sighted, crushed on highways and caught accidentally in traps with increasing frequency ever since.

“Fisher reintroductions have been a success across the Northeast and Midwest, maybe at a quicker rate than we expected,” Lovallo said. “Although we released fishers in northern Pennsylvania, and they’re doing well, we believe the growing population in southwestern counties is a result of range expansion from West Virginia.”

Biologists know that fisher populations are growing and spreading within the state because they monitor legal trapping harvests, survey trappers to track incidental fisher captures and document road-kills.

The Fisher Management Plan reports that between 2001 and 2008 the number of fishers trapped incidentally rose from one to 105. The Game Commission’s Wildlife Management Unit 2C comprising mountainous Somerset, Fayette, Westmoreland, Indiana and Cambria counties accounted for nearly half of the 2008 total.

“Since we wrote that plan in 2008 the number of incidental captures has climbed to over 1,000 today,” Lovallo said.

Lovallo explained that incidental captures are fishers caught unintentionally by trappers targeting other species such as fox or raccoon, or trapped outside wildlife management units open to legal fisher trapping. Trappers are required to release these fishers unharmed if possible.

Since 2010 the Game Commission has regulated a limited trapping season (Dec. 17-28 in 2016) for fishers across 13 wildlife management units including WMUs 1B, 2C and 2D in Western Pennsylvania. Only one fisher may be taken per year and trappers must have a fisher permit.

“About 6 percent of our trappers with a fisher permit are successful. That rate has remained amazingly consistent since we started the season,” Lovallo said. “For example, [in 2015] 6,564 permit holders trapped 401 fishers in units with an open season.”

Jim Griffith, a veteran trapper from Somerset who also works as a fur receiving agent for Fur Harvesters Auction Inc. of North Bay, Ontario, has caught fishers in wide-ranging locations.

“I travel a lot buying fur and I trap in a lot of places,” Griffith said. “I’ll never forget the first thing I caught in a cable restraint in Pennsylvania was a fisher. Of course, I let it go because that was before we had a season. I carry a noose-pole and I slip the noose over one leg, stretch them out so they can’t bite and release them. Away they go.

“Being an aggressive predator, fishers are fairly easy to trap,” Griffith continued. “When the Canadians trap beaver in the remote bush they skin them on-site and take just the pelt. If a fisher gets on that beaver carcass it won’t leave it, even if it has to fight wolves.”

Griffith said signs of renewed interest in American fur from Chinese and Russian buyers, fisher pelts included, is encouraging news for local trappers and the fur market, .

“Right now, prices are as low as I’ve ever seen,” Griffith said. “But I’m optimistic and it can only go up from here. Not long ago a prime female fisher brought $200. Today, maybe $60 or $70.”

Female pelts fetch better prices than male fishers because the female’s fur is softer and silkier, Griffith explained.

Griffith’s top tip for trapping fishers?

“Use skunk scent as your lure. Fishers love it,” Griffith offered. “Around here, where you mainly find fisher is in heavy woods with hemlock or spruce where they can get red squirrels, but they have adapted well to all types of woodland.”

When asked to explain biologists’ motivation in re-introducing an opportunistic predator like the fisher, Lovallo doesn’t hesitate.

“The reality is that we had fishers in great numbers prior to the 1900s. Part of [the Game Commission’s] agency mission is to maintain and restore wildlife populations,” Lovallo reflected. “We’ve restored many such as elk, otter, eagle and beaver. Other large predators like wolves and mountain lions we’ve lost and probably never will get back, unless they do it on their own.”

Ben Moyer is a freelance writer from Farmington, Pa.

2017 Winter Trap League Schedule

Fight the Winter blues by coming out for the Winter trap league every Sunday starting January 8th 2017.  

This league rotates between Frazer Sportsman, West View Sportsmen and Bull Creek Rod and Gun Club. Sign-ups are from 10:00AM to 3:00PM.  League fee is $10.00 per week to shoot 50 targets from 16 yards.  Practice is $7.00 and and junior shooters (under 18) are $7.00! To be eligible for the banquet you must make 9 of 12 shoots. The top 7 scores will be counted each week for team honors.

January 8th at Frazier 
January 15th at West View
January 22nd at Bull Creek
January 29th at Frazier 
February 5th at West View (Super Bowl)
February 12th at Bull Creek
February 19th at Frazier
February 26th at West View
March 5th at Bull Creek
March 12th at Frazier
March 19th at West View
March 26 th at Bull Creek
TBD(Saturday) Banquet at Bull Creek

National Wild Turkey Federation Annual Banquet January 27th, 2017

Hunter numbers down on opening day of PA deer season, but it remains busiest day

BY BOB FRYE

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is trying to avoid any confusion.

On Nov. 14, state lawmakers sent House Bill 263 — which removes the prohibition on hunting with semiautomatic and air rifles in Pennsylvania — to Gov. Tom Wolf for his signature. He signed it into law at Act 168 last Monday.

However, that doesn't mean hunters can take a semiautomatic rifle into the woods this deer season.

The commission still has to develop regulations for semiautos, determining things like in which seasons they can be used, what calibers are acceptable, the maximum magazine capacity for those guns and more.

The goal, according to the agency, is to spell that all out in time for the 2017-18 license year. In the meantime, though, semiauto rifles aren't permitted in the woods statewide.

This deer season, centerfire rifles “must be manually operated.”

“The only exception is that semiautomatic shotguns may be used to hunt deer in five counties — Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery — that are defined as special regulations areas,” the commission said in a statement. “Semiautomatic rifles generally are not permitted for any type of hunting in any part of the state at this time.”

Meanwhile, hunters who go afield in any of the state's designated “disease management areas,” are being reminded of the special rules pertaining to moving deer parts.

“Hunters may not remove from any DMA any deer parts deemed to have a high-risk of transmitting (chronic wasting disease). The head, backbone and spinal cord are among those high-risk parts, and successful hunters who live outside a DMA can remove and deposit high-risk parts in dumpsters that have been set up on state game lands within each DMA. They then can transport the meat and other low-risk parts outside the DMA,” a commission news release reads.

Hunters also can take their harvests to a processor or taxidermist within the DMA. A list of those can be found at http://pagame.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=cf5aa9463b464dcebefaff06b451edd0.

As for getting an individual deer tested for wasting disease, hunters can contact the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Veterinary Laboratory. There is a fee for testing. Information is available at agriculture.pa.gov.

— Bob Fry

There is no question in Jim Daley's mind.

The Cranberry man, who serves as a member of the Pennsylvania Game Commission board, will be in the woods on Monday morning for opening day of the statewide firearms deer season. It's the same way he has spent every Monday after Thanksgiving for decades.

Neither his dad nor grandfather will be there this year; both have passed away. His son will be missing, too, in college in Texas.

So he most likely will be going it alone. But go it he will.

“For a lot of old guys like me, it's in your lifeblood. It's almost inbred,” Daley said.

“You'd sort of have to be on your deathbed not to go.”

That's still the case for the majority of Pennsylvania hunters anyway. The first day of deer season remains the busiest hunting day of the year.

“Every year we just get surges of people coming in getting ready for opening day,” said Zack Prugh of 4K Outdoors, a sporting goods store in Elderton.

That's how things were on Friday for sure. The store was jumping with hunters, he said.

“We're pretty busy right now. They're looking for everything from knives to ammunition to scopes to guns.”

And yet, things aren't what they once were.

At one time, less than a decade ago, opening day put upwards of 750,000 hunters in the woods. This year the commission estimated the opening day crowd will number closer to 550,000.

There are thought to be several reasons for that, not the least of which being there are fewer hunters now than in the past. In 1982, according to the commission, Pennsylvania had an estimated 1.2 million hunters. Now license sales are closer to 900,000.

The growth of archery hunting is a factor, too.

“Participation in the firearms deer season has been trending downward in recent years as the archery deer season has become more popular with hunters, and more deer are taken in the archery season, before the firearms deer season begins,” reads a commission news release.

“Archery license sales have increased annually since 2007. And in the 2015-16 seasons, deer harvested during archery seasons accounted for 31 percent of the overall deer harvest.”

Deer are more widespread than they once were, too, added Game Commissioner Bob Schlemmer of Export. When he was a youngster in Punxsutawney in the 1950s, he said, there were no deer around locally. Hunters — from across Pennsylvania and other nearby states — flocked to the “big woods” where they did exist.

“You could not pull out on Main Street in Emporium on the weekend before deer season, there were so many cars,” Schlemmer said. “If you were on a side street, forget it.

“But that's all changed.”

With longer deer season providing opportunities to chase whitetails throughout fall, and deer spread out to the point that they're sometimes more numerous in the suburbs than elsewhere, and people's work and social schedules different, opening day of the season is different than the “old days.”

“Human dimensions have changed completely,” Schlemmer said.

There still is value in going out from a harvest standpoint, though.

According to commission figures, hunters killed 315,813 deer in the 2015-16 seasons. That was about 4 percent more than the year before. The buck kill — 137,580 animals — was up 15 percent over the year before.

Twenty-seven percent of all those deer — and 47 percent of all those bucks — were killed on opening day, alone.

Beyond that, opening day remains important for other reasons, said Matt Hough, the commission's executive director.

“It's a tradition that's about more than just harvesting deer. It's about family and friends enjoying the outdoors together. Moreover, it's what being a Pennsylvanian is all about,” he said.

Jason Beck of Monessen, president of the National Pike Branch of the Quality Deer Management Association, agreed. He will spend opening day hunting with his wife, Elainna.

Lots of other hunters likewise will be in the woods with family members and friends, he said. That's how things will always be, no matter changing seasons, deer populations, demographics and more, he predicted.

“I believe there's a core group of individuals who hold it dear to their hearts and go out for all the right reasons. They'll always keep it going,” Beck said.

“It's not all about the horns. It's relationships, it's what keeps us together. It's still important to us.”

Bob Frye is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via @bobfryeoutdoors.