PA deer tags 2023

[yobuck]

From what I have been told black bears eat as many fawns as coyotes. And I don't think I need to tell anyone from Pennsylvania what has happened with the bear population in the last 10 or so years especially northern Pa.
Yes if someone puts in the work and knows the terrain they can be successful. The thing is that most have better hunting close to home and don't have the time to drive a couple hours one way to scout.
I would love to get back up there but with only so many vacation days a year I have to play the odds and stay close to home.

Well that has always been the case with many hunters.
I lived in the southeastern corner of the state (Bucks County) for all of my life before moving to Florida.
In the early years it was an all day trip to get from where we lived to Cameron county. Today with the good roads that go around all the small towns its about 4 hours.
But most people we knew thought we were crazy to drive that far to hunt deer when there were lots of deer in the Poconos.
And for that matter Bucks county as well at that time.
And there still is if you can find a place to hunt.
And especially when you like hunting the big ridges long range.

 

[CMP70306]

Lol this is insane - just tried to log in and I am number $119,362 in line to log in.. How does PA screw something like this up?

They put a queue in to stop the website from crashing under the weight of 100,000 people trying to buy licenses at the same time. All you had to do was wait until the email then log in after your number came up and buy your stuff. Total time spent would be less than 15 minutes.

If you just go to somewhere local that sells them, outside of waiting in line at a busy store it seems like very few people had any issues buying them in person and by the end of the day there was almost no wait online.

 

[birddog 68]

All you had to do was wait until the email then log in after your number came up and buy your stuff. Total time spent would be less than 15 minutes

Should have been but this stuff happens

I got in the que around 0750 and my number finally got pulled around 1445….I saw the screen say I was being redirected to the issuing website. As soon as it took me into that section, it told me my 10 minutes had expired and offered a link to get back in line. I clicked it and went back to 139K in line!

Hopefully it'll be better next year.
Good luck to all this hunting season

 

[CMP70306]

Should have been but this stuff happens

Hopefully it'll be better next year.
Good luck to all this hunting season

Next year? They have round two of doe tags coming up and that is the more important one as that is when the doe tags start to get tight in some WMUs. They better take the results from the opening day and scale it for that.

Personally it doesn't really matter to me as I hunt 4A, we didn't sell out last year and they added 11,000 more tags.

 

[birddog 68]

Next year? They have round two of doe tags coming up and that is the more important one as that is when the doe tags start to get tight in some WMUs. They better take the results from the opening day and scale it for that.

Personally it doesn't really matter to me as I hunt 4A, we didn't sell out last year and they added 11,000 more tags.

I just picked up my license today. He said only 2 WMU sold out so far.
I am in 1A and got a tag today and will get another no problem. I think they added about 4,500 more for this unit. 2 does and maybe a buck is plenty of meat for us.
11,000 tags added seems like a lot!

 

[Backwoods towny]

I just picked up my license today. He said only 2 WMU sold out so far.
I am in 1A and got a tag today and will get another no problem. I think they added about 4,500 more for this unit. 2 does and maybe a buck is plenty of meat for us.
11,000 tags added seems like a lot!

Got my license this evening, missed out on doe tag for upstate. Was in and out not a long line or wait though. There's also dmap tags coming up soon.

 

[FrogFire7]

I grabbed all the tags I needed online tonight as well. 3B is about half sold from what I saw

 

[CMP70306]

I just picked up my license today. He said only 2 WMU sold out so far.
I am in 1A and got a tag today and will get another no problem. I think they added about 4,500 more for this unit. 2 does and maybe a buck is plenty of meat for us.
11,000 tags added seems like a lot!

CWD zone, they want the population knocked down way more than it is and only about 11,000 people get tags there based on previous sales. It never got close to selling out until they let us buy more than three tags. The one year they had around 45,000 tags and only sold around 30,000.

 

[rharfo]

Im curious as to what state you feel would be better?
With all its faults, PA still offers more hunting opportunity than most others at a very reasonable cost.
As for doe licenses, ive never bought one.
But then i still remain friendly to those who do. lol
My first hunting season was 1947.
The first doe season in many years happened in 1950.
No special license involved.
They decided to make the first 2 days of the season doe only, no bucks, untill Wed. of the first week.
All they managed to do was to make outlaws out of other wise honest people.
No doubt that due to the long economic depression, followed by WW2 where everything was rationed, quite a few of them were being shot anyway by necessity.

WV, longer season, 7 day hunt week, bait deer on private property. Over the counter tags without the online wait. No additional fees to buy online- print at home. Easy app to check in deer harvest.

 

[yobuck]

WV, longer season, 7 day hunt week, bait deer on private property. Over the counter tags without the online wait. No additional fees to buy online- print at home. Easy app to check in deer harvest.

All sounds good.
As i drive to and from Florida to our N C Pa camp, its hard for me to keep my eyes on the road due to all the good long range hunting spots i see in West Virginia.
Same thing goes for Virginia.
But my question is, how many of those places are public land open for public hunting?
From what ive been told, not very many, as most is private land.
And thats where PA has an advantage, since there are millions of acres of public and game commission owned land open for public use, including hunting.
As for the 7 day season, Pa has caved to the demands and changed the long tradition of a Monday opener for deer in favor of a Sat. opener, and has been having some Sunday hunting for the past several years as well. But by and large it hasent improved the numbers of hunters. All its done is to shift the days some of them hunt.
There will be the same number of cars parked at the popular spots on Sat. as there were with the Monday opener.
But it was still a victory for the whiners. lol

 

[rharfo]

All sounds good.
As i drive to and from Florida to our N C Pa camp, its hard for me to keep my eyes on the road due to all the good long range hunting spots i see in West Virginia.
Same thing goes for Virginia.
But my question is, how many of those places are public land open for public hunting?
From what ive been told, not very many, as most is private land.
And thats where PA has an advantage, since there are millions of acres of public and game commission owned land open for public use, including hunting.
As for the 7 day season, Pa has caved to the demands and changed the long tradition of a Monday opener for deer in favor of a Sat. opener, and has been having some Sunday hunting for the past several years as well. But by and large it hasent improved the numbers of hunters. All its done is to shift the days some of them hunt.
There will be the same number of cars parked at the popular spots on Sat. as there were with the Monday opener.
But it was still a victory for the whiners. lol

I've hunted in PA for 37 years.
Live on the border of PA, can see it out back window. I'm 3 miles from 16000 acres of public land - Cooper State Forest.

 

[birddog 68]

Well today was the second round for doe tags. I stopped by the local hardware store and got my second (and last) tag for the year. No line for me after work at 3 but the woman said that they were lined up again this morning and most were buying for this unit (1A) which had about 20,000 tags left! 5 units were sold out.
Hopefully everyone got a tag or two for the area they wanted.

 

[FrogFire7]

3B went early. My brother was hoping for a second tag but it sold out withing minutes of him getting through the que. I think in person at a store probably was the best shot at units that sold out early

 

[FrogFire7]

Kind of cracked me up seeing stuff about being able to buy 6 tags or something . Maybe if you want to hunt downtown Pittsburgh or something. Lol