Dec 3, 2016 4 min read

There were fewer hunters out on the opening day of deer season than I’ve seen in my lifetime and I also heard fewer shots than normal as a result.

Saturday wasn’t a whole lot better. There were more hunters about than on opening day, but it was still sparse. And there wasn’t a whole lot of shooting going on.

And I’m not buying the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s excuse for that obvious decline – more people are hunting with crossbows.

In 1982, some 1.2 million hunters bought licenses. By 1999, that number had fallen to 1 million. The trend has continued downward.

And in 2015, the commission estimated that there would be 750,000 hunters afield for the opening day of the rifle season. This year? The commission estimated that number was going to be 550,000.

So over the course of a year, why did the commission lower its estimates by 200,000 hunters? There aren’t that many people now using crossbows.

But that’s the story coming out of the commission.

“Archery season has become so popular with the advent of crossbows, a lot of hunters have already harvested a deer,” Bob D’Angelo, associate editor of Pennsylvania Game News said in an interview earlier this week.

If that’s the case and some 200,000 hunters have been successful archery hunting, then the commission is short-changing hunters who use a rifle to hunt deer.

That, however, simply cannot be true.

Yes, crossbows have made it easier for hunters to shoot a deer in archery season. They don’t even need much practice – which is something that irks traditional archery hunters.

But they did not kill 200,000 deer.

There are more issues working against the commission here.

Weather wasn’t a factor Monday. It was a beautiful day. Perhaps that kept a few hunters who were hoping for snow or cold weather home, but that’s doubtful.

Could the disovery of chronic wasting disease in the state be a factor? Perhaps in south-central Pennsylvania, where it has been found, but certainly not around here.

Lack of open land could be a factor, but it hasn’t necessarily been that impactful in recent years. There’s still plenty of open huntable land in Washington and Greene counties.

A lack of new hunters in the system could certainly be a factor. We’ve got an aging population and if we’re not replacing the older hunters who are giving up the sport with young ones, that could certainly cause the decrease.

Maybe more people than ever had to work on the opening day.

But none of those factors account for a drop in 200,000 hunters in a single year.

If there were only 550,000 hunters out for the opening day of the rifle season, the commission has a serious problem. And it doesn’t involve archery.

The commission is already hurting for funding, which it gets largely from the sales of licenses. If there were only 550,000 deer hunters in the state this year, that doesn’t bode well.

• The deer hunting numbers aren’t the only thing that are off this year. The preliminary state bear harvest was down slightly this year, as well.

According to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, there were 2,579 bear killed in the state this year, down from 2,693 from the 2015 season.

The largest bear taken this year was by Chad Nauman of Cresco, who shot a 700-pound male Nov. 19 in Monroe County.

A little closer to home, there was an increase of bear taken in Westmoreland County, with 33 killed this year, up 10 from 2015. Fayette County also saw a slight increase from 56 to 59 kills.

Once again, there were no bears harvested in Washington and Greene counties.

Outdoors editor Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.