[00:00:00] Speaker A: Deer rifle you had in Pennsylvania. And what is your favorite whitetail deer caliber?
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I don't want anybody else to apply for an elk tag, but guaranteed to.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Every WMU with the exception of those three. Hello and welcome to Call of the Outdoors, the podcast of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Joining us today is our deputy executive director, Mister Dave Mitchell. And we're going to discuss a whole lot of things, but we're going to talk about the new hunting license, year 2024, and all the new analyst programs. Pretty exciting times. You know, we also have a really cool opportunity for some young bow hunters out there. The game commission is partnering with raised at full draw to offer three youth bow hunting camps throughout the state. This summer, campers are going to learn all kinds of bow hunting skills and be able to complete their hunter trapper education course. Scholarships are also available for a limited number of students from the Clearfield center and Dauphin county areas. You can learn more and
[email protected]. dot for Pennsylvania hunters and conservationists, our roots run deep. The episodes we bring to you on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast, Call of the Outdoors, will take a deep dive into exposing the incredible work being done by agency staff and partners, including statewide habitat projects, the science behind wildlife management, and what drives agency decisions. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's mission is twofold, to manage and protect wildlife and their habitats for not only current, but future generations, and to promote hunting and trapping in the Keystone state.
Good morning, Dave. And it's almost that time of year. Our hunters out there are getting excited. It's, it's new license time.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Oh, it's the best time of the year next to November 7, but this is about as good as it gets.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: I got you. So, I mean, obviously you've been with the game commission a long time. Tell everybody you know, in our new format of call the outdoors, you know a little bit about your career.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: I've been here for 33 years now, which seems like yesterday, but I realize it's a long time.
Started out as a game warden for a few years, went into land management for the bulk of my career, and then spent a couple years as north central region director, and now I'm the deputy director of field operations.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: So tell everybody what that really means. What you're doing now for the PGC.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Right now I'm responsible for all the activities that occur in our six field region. So we have six region directors who supervise all our employees who are out there working in habitat and doing research, you know, our game warden and stuff like that. So they all we all work together to make sure that the policies and programs of the Pennsylvania Game Commission are implemented.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Right. And, you know, a lot of folks, you know, myself included, for a long time, we didn't realize that we're broke up in six regions. But when you look at Pennsylvania, there's really a diverse landscape, if you will, across the state on different regions, different areas. And something we're going to talk about today, obviously, is antlerless license and allocations and things like that. But that different landscape across this state is important when it comes to managing wildlife that you really have to take a good, hard look at.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. When you look at the southern part of Pennsylvania, southeastern Pennsylvania, it's fairly industrialized now, urbanized, but that was all really rich farm ground. Then you get into that ridge and valley area.
People would say that might be the most beautiful area of the state. As you go up through those valleys and ridges and you have that plateau and the Poconos, you got the plateau up there in north central Pennsylvania. You get out to the western part of the state, and it's glaciated, really rich soils, but different. So, yeah, every one of those wildlife management units is kind of situated around one of those different geographical areas of the state.
As such. You know, some of them are more productive, some of them are less productive as far as growing everything from, you know, the size of the deer to the size of the trees. So it is diverse, though.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: One thing, you know, you and I got to spend some time in the woods together, and you've actually ruined me.
You know, I thought that I knew.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: How to turkey hunt.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Well, that, no, I don't. I forget completely how to turkey hunt. But, you know, when you walk through the woods with someone like yourself or Dave Gustafson, it's not just about looking for a buck rub or a scrape or a white oak. I mean, there's a whole lot of stuff going out there when you get into the woods in Pennsylvania, and, you know, when you open your eyes. I went turkey hunting last night, you know, taking advantage of, you know, these afternoons getting off work. And I'm looking around and, you know, this year we've had a lot of moisture. There's a lot of green out there. The animals have lots to eat. When you look at the big picture.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Oh, they really do. And it's fascinating. You know, I always said, I've been here for 33 years, and one of the most meaningful days that I ever had in the woods was when we were in a training school. We went to a place that you talk about a lot Latham's acre and I never realized what wasn't here.
When you get to spend time with somebody, and I'm not a botanist or an ecologist, there's so many people that know way more than I do. But when you get to spend time with those people like John Zemian and Len Groschuk and people who really understand, you know, what's here and what's missing, it's just fascinating to walk around the woods and see what deer are eating and see what turkeys are feeding on. And it's just, yeah, if you take the time to look at stuff, it can be really, really interesting. I know, like some time that we've spent up there, like you've been able to pick up on a lot of different things, you know, all your different tree species now, and it just makes you more effective hunter, really.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: I know enough to be dangerous, maybe, but like last night I was walking around and I saw these invasives, like, standing and I'm like, you know, you get mad at it and you're trying to figure out how to get rid of it so those native plants can come back. But, you know, when we talk about that and you talk about Latham's acre and John and we got to talk about our deer herd, and that's what we're here to talk about today is some exciting stuff. You know, it's new license year and when you look at the, hear the buzz out there, you know, the passion that our folks here in Pennsylvania have for hunting and, you know, we have some changes we need to talk about. And those changes are good changes. They're positive changes in where we're heading in the future. And when you look at our deer herd in many places in the state, it's as big or as good as it's been in a long time.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Oh, it certainly is. I mean, I see deer all over the state when we're out there. We're out touring game lands. Just the other day I looked out in the meadow below my house and there was a Doe and a newborn fawn there. So people are interacting. They're seeing deer all the time. When you talk to people who are out there hunting for the largest majority of them, especially people who are willing to hunt where the habitat's good, no matter where that is in the state, you know, they're extremely happy with the number of deer they're seeing, the size of the deer they're seeing. It's a great time to be a Pennsylvania deer hunter. That's for sure.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. And talk about fawns, you know, it's that time of year and we're starting to see them. Those are starting to bring them out. And, you know, this is the biggest call that we get to our dispatch calls that we get to our dispatch center every year is, hey, I found a fawn and it's abandoned in thousands of Facebook. I mean, everywhere. We're getting these messages all the time. Leave them alone. That's what mom does.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Exactly. She splits them up. A lot of times she'll have two fawns and she puts them 100, 203, 400 yards apart. That's what they do. That's how they survive up until, for another six weeks or so until they become really mobile. Right now, if you watch them when they're moving, they're unsteady on their feet. They've been designed to hide and avoid predation. I mean, that's what they do. So they're laying there. The reason they don't jump up and run away is because they think that if they stay still long enough, you're going to walk, not see them and walk right by them. So the best thing you can do is don't put that intrusion on them. Don't put anything there that's going to cause a predator to wonder why you might have been there or just let them lay there underneath that bush or in that grass field, you know, take a quick picture if you want, and walk away. Don't touch them. And I guarantee you that within a couple hours, that Doe is going to be back to feed them and she'll probably move them because she's there somewhere watching, seeing what's going on.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: When you look at it, Mother Nature's pretty incredible. But I think you should take a lesson from those fawns when it comes to turkey hunting, because if you sit there and be patient and be still and he's answering you, he'll probably come pay you a visit.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess that you have way more faith in your turkey calling.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Dave likes to do a lot, but anyway. Well, we're talking about dear, but let's talk about license sales. I mean, it's that time of year, and it's the coolest thing for me the last five years is to watch that passion on the opening day when licenses go on sale. And obviously last year we've changed the system. I mean, we got away from the pink envelopes more modern, you know, purchase your analyst license over the counter. But let's talk about this year, the couple changes that we have. And first is you know, when do license go on sale?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Well, if you look at what happened last year, we went to that first come, first served dough license, and we weren't really sure how people were going to be responding to it. And one of the things about the passionate hunters that we have in Pa, like their first kill of the year, is securing that tag so they can go hunting season. They want to go, it's like hunting season, and people take it seriously. They want to make sure that they have their antraless tag.
And people really responded to that. We had a huge influx of people at our retailers online, and the system slowed down. Like, it did not behave the way that we were hoping that it would. So, yeah, we listened to what people were saying about how we could alleviate some of that pressure on the opening day of license sales. So this year, on Monday, June 24, licenses go on sale. But we would encourage people, if you're going to hunt Antralus deer in three specific wildlife management units, that would be one b, 2g or three a. Those are the times for you to go buy your license. So one of the things people ask us last year is, is there a way that you can stagger the dates when the different wildlife management units go on sale? And we did that this year. So those first three days, there's going to be Antelis licenses available in those three wildlife management units, and they're going to be like normal. They're going to have an allocation, and they're going to be available until that allocation is met. Whether that's met in one day or, you know, one week or a month, you know, we'll be able to sell those licenses until those allocations are exhausted. Then starting on Thursday, June 27, the remaining licenses will go on sale. But there's not going to be a cap on those. So we've set allocations. We feel that probably they will not be exhausted, but if they are, it'll only be by a little bit. So we can actually make sure that everybody who wants a license in those remaining wildlife management units will get one. So we kind of took that hybrid approach. You know, the three super high demand units that we have, once again, they're one b, they're going to be available first for three days, and then starting on that Thursday, you'll be able to buy a license. Residents will be able to buy a license for any remaining wildlife management unit up until the day that non residents are able to purchase licenses. When that happens, I believe that there is July 8, we're going to take an hour so up until 07:00 a.m. on July 8, you'll be able to buy those licenses. Then the system's going to shut down. You're not going to be able to buy anything until 08:00 a.m. things are going to recalibrate and you'll be able to look online and you'll see how many licenses are remaining in every wildlife management unit. If they've reached their allocation, you know, they're not going to be available anymore. If they haven't, you'll see how many tags are left, and then non residents and residents will be able to continue to buy licenses just like last year. Nothing changes from that point on.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Right. And that's, you know, when you look at it, you know, the biggest change is those three wmus. And, you know, last year was our first year to collect the data and just really see what our resident hunters, what our hunters buying patterns are. And that's where we developed this system for those three wmus that are available the first three days. And when you look at our system, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of folks are like, hey, I can order something in Amazon and it, you know, it's here in three days.
Our system is designed to be very functional, but that first day puts a lot of pressure on our system because we're all excited. I mean, we're all, you know, number one, don't get on there and just to see how it goes, you know, and be one of those FOMO people fear missing out and want to see what's happening. If you're going to get a 2g or, you know, those, those three coveted, you know, three of the most popular wmus, get on there and get it. And, you know, you can wait. If you're in that queue, in that system where you're queued to, there's a wait time. It'll send you an email when it's time, and it's smooth. When you look at last year's buying pattern, the first 2g was the first to sell out on day three.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Day three, right. It took three days for that to sell out. So, you know, it's a very popular unit. A lot of people have camps up there. You know, it's largely public land. People like to hunt there. There's good hunting there. I mean, I hunt there. I know you go up there and hunt with us sometimes.
It's a really, really cool place to go and has a lot of demand for it. But I don't think that, I don't think people need to. It's not going to sell out in an hour, so you have a little bit of time. But I would encourage people, if you're going to hunt in 2G, probably get on there first day and try to get your tag. But if you're going to get a tag for where you live in four b or something like that, don't worry about it that ten days. And you know that you can pick that license up at any time, right?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: And the other thing, you know, just being patient. You know, one thing that we've done this year, we're trying to let everybody know, obviously we're doing this podcast because of that. Postcards have already been sent to every household that has a hunting license. And this is really important.
Gotta make sure your address and all your information's correct in our system, in the hunt fish PA system. Cause we're getting lots of returns as it is right now. We wanna let you know what's going on. So, you know, if you want to do something between now and opening day license sales or whatever, get on there. Make sure your information is correct. The better that information is, the better we can get ahold of you via postcard, via email. If you want to sign up for our email, you can get on our app, obviously our website. You know, when you check that out, it has all this information. I mean, we want to make sure that we're open lines of communication, mainly because we're all hunters too, and we sit in those lines just the same as everybody else. And you know, everybody has a place, they their first choice. And you know, one thing to remember is there's still only one analyst tag available per round, correct?
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. The rounds are going to be just the same as they were last year. And like you said, Matt, if you didn't get that, if you didn't get that postcard, go on to your, go on to your hunt fish PA account and make sure that all your information in there is up to date. Heck, I would tell everybody to go on there and make sure that it's up to date because it's very important that we have a way to reach you. If, you know, we send out surveys based on that. We do a lot of different things. And while you're on there to beat the beat, to rush, apply for your elk application. You can do that now. You don't have to wait until you buy your license.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: I thought you didn't want anybody else to apply for an elk tag.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: I don't want anybody else to apply for an elk tag. But we have great elk hunting. We have probably the best elk hunting in the United States for sure.
Yeah, get on there and we have three seasons. And take care of that before you go by your license. It'll make that other transition go smoother.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Right. When you look at the other rounds too, like you said, it starts. We'll talk about that a little later. It starts a little. It's exactly like it was last year.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Exactly. The only difference is those first three days, there's only three wildlife management units that you can buy an antralous tag for. So if you're going to buy a tag in one of the other units, you know, don't get on there on Monday, wait until Friday or the following Tuesday.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Got eleven days.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Got eleven days. There's no rush. You have all the time in the world. You can get on there, you can get your license, you can get your Antralus tag and be good to go. So the goal is to spread out that peak buying time. Last year, everybody jumped on the first day. People who were buying Ancillus tags don't sell out until October. We're buying them the first day. And we appreciate that. Like, those are our, those are our people, those are our passionate hunters. They wanted to see how it was going to work. They wanted to make sure they had their tag. But. But you don't have to do that. You have all the time in the world.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: You look at back in the old days when we had pink envelopes, old days being two years ago, you know, when hunting license went on sale, we still had crowds and rushes and you didn't have to send those envelopes for a month. So it is that excitement and, you know, at headquarters it gets full of people and I like to go out and talk and there is some lies told. I mean, it's just like hunting camp. And, you know, a lot of folks have been hunting a long time and it's a great event. I mean, don't be scared not to come and hang out. Cause we love to have you, right?
[00:17:34] Speaker B: It's the start of the new license year, you know, everything's reset to zero. You know, like I'm sure everybody else thinks the same as I do, you know, like when you're going into that hunting, everything's fresh, you know, you can't wait. You're gonna kill big buck, you're gonna kill a bear, you're going to do all those things and you're going to hopefully draw an elk license. And it's the season, it's new. Everything I don't blame people for being excited. I've always been excited about buying my hunting license and it's a great time to be a Pennsylvania hunter.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. So when you look at it, just some questions that folks might have. How will this help reduce wait times compared to last year? What is our anticipation? We don't have a crystal ball. In theory, this is what we're trying to do.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well when you think about how many tags we sold last year on opening day, even if everybody gets on there to buy a license for those three units, we still have less people than we had last year. So by reducing that demand, by spreading that demand out, we're hoping that we don't have.
I think last year maybe at the beginning we had 70,000, 80,000 people in the queue, 100,000. I'm not sure what exactly it was, but it was a lot. There were people who got on at 930 and bought their license probably at 930 at night. And we're trying to reduce that demand on that first day so hopefully people don't line up and go all out to get their tags. So by spreading that time out it should in theory reduce the amount of wait time that you have.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: And the system obviously last year we had that slowdown and a lot of folks want to know will the system be able to handle that? So there is a lot of things we've done this year to try to make sure that we don't have that same issue as we did last year.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Our people in licensing, our people in automated technologies, they've been working with the vendor, they've been running repeated load tests on it. I believe right now they're very hopeful that it's going to be able to take that demand. Our goal would be to have it go as smoothly as possible. Have a go like it did for the other, you know, 364 days.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: That's a fact. And here's something to think about. And you know, I, obviously social media falls in our, in the marketing bureau and look at a lot of comments and they're like, we'll do it like this, do it like this, people do it like Delaware do it like Ohio. The first three days of hunting license sales last year we sold as many hunting license as Ohio did. Total. Um, I mean like they have 300 5400 thousand hunting hunters out there. We have close to 900,000. And quarter million of them bought a hunting license within the first three days last year. I mean that's a lot. That's a ton of people.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Oh, it's totally a ton of people. And then if you look at other states where they have those first come, first serve licenses, Idaho, Arizona or two that come to mind, they have problems as well when they get that demand, and their demand might only be 20,000 people and their systems struggle to keep up with it.
Hunters are amazing, you know, like they approach their sport with that zest for success, you know, so. And the first thing is they want to get that tag. So, so it's just innate, you know, if you're going to get up at 330 in the morning and walk in 2 miles to your spot, you're going to get up and you're going to get your license so you can do it. And we appreciate that passion, we want that like, and we're doing everything we can on our end to make sure that that buying processes as smooth as possible.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: How many, uh, how many tags are you in for all over the country right now? Are you wife's watching, so we probably not tries to talk about that.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: She's in for some too. I'm not in for very many anymore because I've seen that read unsuccessful and quite, in quite a few. But like, hope springs eternal, you know, there's still a couple out there that maybe we'll get lucky and draw. So like I said, this is the best time of the year. You know, everybody's, everybody's on a, even playing field. So. Got my fingers crossed for Arizona. We'll see how that goes.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: There you go. So if, you know, saving time and money for postage, you want to wait to buy your general license until the time that you're going to purchase that dough tag of your first choice. I mean, whatever. If you're hunting at home, and mine's four b, I'm going to wait till one of those eleven days to buy everything. General licenses are on sale on the 24th, but the only antlerless license that will be issued are those three units.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Right. So if you buy your general license, especially online, now, if you go to a vendor, you know, obviously you walk away with it. But if you're gonna use our online purchasing system, which I believe almost half of our people did last year, every time that you buy something, you're gonna be charged postage. So if you're going to get an anterless license, it would certainly make sense for you to wait until later in the week so you could get everything shipped to you at one time instead of having multiple envelopes coming to you.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Right. Is there anything else you can think of that we've done to help improve the buying process and smooth things out for this coming year.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: I mean, mainly the things that we've talked about already, we have the splitting of when those antralous licenses are. We've done all the load testing and everything.
Last year, some of the complaints we had concerned postage. So this year you're going to be able to check whether you want to physical digest or not. We don't control those postage rates that's set by the United States Postal Service. And I think there's going to be a rate increase probably right in the middle of our license sales time sometime in July.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: That's not our fault, folks. That's not our fault. That's USP's us. Before we start getting darts thrown at us when the postage goes up, I mean, obviously we have to incur that as well.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Exactly. But I think a lot of people do like to use the convenience of buying it from their phone or from their computer. And if you do that, there's multiple ways that you can view your hunting regulations. We have an application that you can download to your phone that has all those seasons and bag limits on them. You can go on our website or you can use the hunt fish PA site. So there's three digital ways that you can get the information that you would normally get in that physical digest.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: And you can stop by your favorite sporting goods store and ask for a digest, too.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah, or stop by one of our regional offices and pick one up. They'll be readily available. The fact that we can, you used to have to get that to get your, you know, your extra antlerless applications. So the fact that we can do that all online now reduces that demand a little bit.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Right. And, you know, we talked about this earlier and I think it's vital. And, you know, even some of the shows we go to, the big show in Harrisburg and all the shows we do across the state, one of the things we try to do and encourage, and we talked about it, is update your hunt fish PA account now because it'll save time, you know, when you're purchasing your license for sure. And also it'll allow us to communicate things like this that are happening as we go forward throughout the year. So we talked about first round, you know, and we're gonna hit on these dates for the second, third and fourth round. I think they're important. And these, you know, are going to be till the allocation is sold out. You're guaranteed that other than those three units, you're guaranteed the WMU of your choice as a residential in you know, in the first round, non residents go on sale. Then the allocation, you know, if it's depleted, it's sold out. But for any license that are left, second round will start on second round.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Starts on July 22, so that's when you can buy your second antralous tag. Third round will start on August 12, when you could get your third, and then round four begins on August 26, and that's when you can buy those three additional so you can end up with a total of six antralous tags. Dmaps will go on sale again at the beginning of round three. So that'll be August 12 when DMAp permits go on sale. And you can go on our website and you can see the public facing DMap tags that are available on either cooperator properties like Collins Pine or Bethlehem Authority.
There's dmaps on a lot of DC and R property. There's dmaps on the Allegheny National Forest and state game lands. Last year we started using, using dmaps on some of those where we were suffering a lot of deer damage, where we've had to do deer to turn fencing and things like that.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: So let's talk about analysts real QUiCk and does, and, you know, why it's so important that we, you know, allocate and try to harvest x amount of does. You know, when you first thing is, you know, reporting your harvest is important. That estimated harvest, it takes one. It takes four issued antlers tags to harvest one doe. And our biologists are continuously to watch in these numbers because there is a goal and why is it important that we hunt does, I mean, really, when you think about it, it's not just we're handing out tags. We're not like, there is a science and a factor and an importance to making sure that we take x amount of those every year.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Right. I mean, you harvest does or antralous deer to control your deer populations. So, you know, our goal is to try to keep that deer population at a point where it's not destroying its habitat, where the majority of the people are okay with how many deer are there. So, you know, if, if the deer are eating everything in the forest, that negatively affects all the other species that, that live there, from, you know, wild turkey to rough grouse to neotropical migrants to cottontail rabbits, like they all, you.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Can'T say neotropical migrants on this podcast anymore.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Okay. Healthy habitat is good for all wildlife, including deer. So if you have really good healthy habitat, you know, your deer are going to be healthier. They're going to have bigger racks, you're going to be bigger bodied, all those things. So you want to keep the deer in check with their habitat. You also want to keep the deer at a level where it's socially acceptable. So if you're a farmer that has itty deer in their fields every night, you know, that's purely going into their profits. If, if the deer are eating your rose bushes, you know, you're not going to be real happy to have to constantly be replanting them. So we want to keep those deer at a level where they're sustainable and people can enjoy them, but we don't have too many. So we do that by harvesting antralous deer.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: And we have some areas in this state where CWD is chronic wasting disease is pretty rampant. When you look in that bedford blair area and.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah, the endemic area, absolutely. And when you have too many deer, it's not just all diseases you have to worry about then, you know, like they're deer social animals. They congregate together so they can pass on those things. But yeah, the lower the deer numbers are, the better we would be in those CWD areas. And even on the fringes of the CWD areas, you don't want to get a positive in an area that has hundreds of deer because it's much more likely for it to spread. So if you have those numbers at a better number, you know, where it's, you know, maybe there's only 30 deer per square mile or something there. It won't become quite as well established and as rampant.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: When you look at, you know, we've all got friends all over the country, too, and I look at, you know, some of my friends that when I was in the hunting industry, you know, like Mark and Terry Drewry's, I mean, Mark will tell you that he shoots every doe that he possibly can on his place because exactly what you said. Number one, he wants that, you know, he wants that ratio buck to do better than it, than it was last year. But the other thing is, you know, for him, they're managing for trophy bucks, I mean, big bucks, and he feels real strong on having that doe population in check. And here's the bottom line. It's hunting. You're not going to, I mean, those deer are good at getting away from you and you're not going to shoot every deer in the world.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Well, their job is to survive. And we've done some research where we've fitted deer with collars and we've given gpss to hunters and it does not take long.
People all the time say that there's no deer on public lands. That's completely false. If you look at the harvest rates of Mark Deer and you compare it to those deer that are on game lands or state forest versus those that are on private property, the harvest rates on private property are actually higher. So you have older deer on our public lands, especially up in like north central Pennsylvania, because they know how to get away from people. You know, like a lot of the roads are either on the top of the plateau or in the bottom. So, you know, they'll get off the edge on those steep side hills where it's almost impossible to get into on them without them being knowing that you're coming. A little bit of hunting pressure and they go off that easy terrain. They get on those side hills. If you look at the research in the deer Forest study, it'll show you where deer are living like they're living, especially in hunting season, they go where people are not going to bother them. So that can be in somebody's backyard, somebody's posted property, or it can be on a big chunk of public where people just don't want to go.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Our deer do have a good education. We're talking about public. One of the first years I was here, you invited me up north to hunt and on a piece of public ground that gets a lot of pressure. And you sent me with Steve Ferrari, and I think I saw the devil on the place that I went. But it was second week of deer season. I think we saw five or $6 and, you know, a pile of does. And these deer were in places that nobody wants to go to or, you know, get one out, that's a tough thing. And that's a whole nother podcast. But they're survivalists. Turkey's the same way. I mean, you know, you think about it and relate it. You know, we are a predator as a human being, but we can reason and figure out situations. The deer's not reasoning and figuring out a situation. It's trying to stay alive.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Right. When you talked about Mark and Terry Drury, you know, if you look at the way they set their properties up, like they're hunting them on a food source, when the wind directions right, and they never go into their cover other than to recover a deer. So those deer feel completely safe there, and that's why they're successful. I mean, that's smart. They own the property, they can do that. And if you own property and you manage it for deer, that's, that's a good way to do it. If you don't own property. The thing that you need to do is figure out where those areas are on public, you know, land that you have access to, figure out where deer don't want to be bothered. And, you know, a simple way to do it is you can look at a map and you can say, well, most people may be willing to walk, you know, a quarter mile off of an access point. When I say, I'm not talking like, you know, a public road, but like a trail or anything like that. So if you look at a map or you look at Onx, and you exclude all the areas within, I mean, ideally a half a mile. But, like, that's probably where the deer are living, especially when there's a lot of hunting pressure. Then you just need to figure out where they're, where they're feeding at and how you can take advantage of that.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: And having the wind in your face.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: Having the wind in your face.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: If the wind's in your back, they're gone.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah, they're gone. So, you know, but, but they're there for a reason. But they're all, they also have to eat. They have to, you know, do all the things that they need to survive. But if you're sitting on a food source that's a half a mile or a mile away from where those deer are betting, you're probably not going to be successful. But if you can be right on the edge of where that is, you have much better odds of being successful. You have to hunt deer where they live, not where they're going to be in the middle of the night. Like, everybody loves to run trail cameras, you know, and they get pictures of big bucks at 02:00 a.m.
like, you need to get the pictures of those deer at the edges of shooting hours or during the daylight. Then you know that you're close enough to where you can be in the game. You know, deer can travel a long distance at night, and you may get lucky during the rut or something like that. But the closer you can be to where that deer lives, where that deer beds, the probably the more successful you're going to be as a hunter.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: Right. So guaranteeing these, these antlers license in that first or in the. In that first round, you know, guaranteed to every WMU, with the exception of those three, will that lead to overselling or over harvest?
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Any other thoughts? I don't believe so. The reason that we were able to allow them to be bought, like, if you look at the historical buying patterns, they don't sell out in the first round anyway.
So our biologists were very comfortable putting those units out there because historically there were always tags available going into the second round.
When you look at people and how they feel they have to get that tag. So they're going to jump on the system early to make sure they get it, even though we know that they're going to be available. So by telling people that you have ten days to buy that license, we're hoping that that just spreads out that buying pattern and it helps reduce the demand on the system.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Wake up in the middle of the night, set your alarm for 03:00 a.m. and you'll be the only person on there. I mean, really.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: I mean, I mean, you can probably do that at, at four or 05:00 at night when you get home from work on the second Tuesday that tags are available. It should be a much more seamless transition this year of buying those licenses. You should be able to buy them, boom, get them shipped to you and you'll be in good shape.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Obviously, at our vendors, you walk home with a license. You walk home with your antlers license. But for those folks that do, and half of them have bought their license last year on the Internet, on Hunt. On the Internet on hunt fish Pa. When would we expect those hunters to receive those, those licenses in the mail? Last year there was a little backlog. Obviously, we were, you know, first thing I'm gonna say, you're going to have them before hunting season. I mean, like, people don't have them in six days and they're freaking out and no reason to freak out.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, I believe, you know, our goal would be to have them all shipped within seven days. But new this year, you'll be getting an email when it's, when it's sent, so you can start looking for it. So say you buy your license and, you know, four days later you get your email that says your item has been shipped. That's no different than anything else. You know, like, I buy something from Midway USA, they'll send me an email and say that it's been shipped. So do you buy a lot of.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Stuff from, from those kind of places?
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Sometimes. Sometimes, but, yeah. So, you know, you'll be getting that notification email which will allow you to start looking in your mailbox, you know, if for some reason you don't get it, you know, and a normal amount of time, a week or so after you receive that email, give a call to hunt fish pa and let them know, and they can, you know, reissue you one but by doing that, by knowing that you're going to, you know, that that'll show you that it shipped. So you need to call in five days and say, hey, where it is. Well, they didn't get to it yet, but, you know, like, as soon as that gets in the mail, you'll receive that notification email and then you can start looking for it.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Right. We're shooting for ten business days to make sure they're all shipped out. That's our goal this year. And, you know, we're gonna, there's gonna be a rush. We know that. But, like, you're going to get it plenty of time for hunting season. And, you know, if you wanted to go groundhog hunting or something like that early, you can have a digital form of your hunting license. You know, the only paper copies you really need are for your tags.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. You'll have that and you can screenshot it or you can, you know, save it on your app and be able to go out and do everything that you need until really until the first day of that early archery season is when the first physical tag that you need. So you can download everything else, even your migratory bird stamp for hunting doves and all that, and just use it on digitally on your phone.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: So we talked about it earlier. Just want to recap on postage. Will the postage fees be the same as last year and the other options that we have with the digest?
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, like we talked about, we don't set the postage fees. Those are set by the postal service. But it's going to be real similar.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: And when you look at the different rounds, so we come up on round one is over.
Non resident timeframe is over. We go into round two.
There is a cutoff time when you can purchase that license.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Right. You can buy those licenses up until 07:00 a.m.
from seven to 08:00 a.m. it's going to be a blackout period while things reset. And they not sure what they're doing on the back end. They're doing computer things, but getting ready to go. And then starting at 08:00 a.m. you'll be able to start buying those licenses.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: When you think about it, you get on and a lot of folks want to purchase license for other family members. Can you do that on the same transaction?
[00:37:44] Speaker B: I believe that they're going to be separate transactions. So if you want to buy multiple licenses, they have to go through multiple transactions.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: It's going to go by, I would assume, separate cids and all that. If you want to do that. And if you got it right in, if you want to buy your wife's or your uncles or your father's, just log back in and do it again.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Right?
[00:38:04] Speaker A: And again, that first round got eleven, 1011 days to get those, your first pick in Antwerp. So there's really no rush to get on there. The first, you know, day one.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah, there really isn't. You know, they're gonna be there. I know everybody wants to have that license in hand, but, you know, just don't forget about it. But just do it at your convenience would be my suggestion.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: So do you have any, if anybody has any questions, because obviously we covered the high points and we covered most of it. I mean, it's really simple. I mean, it really is. But if there's any other questions, do you have the information that folks can go and learn more from us here at the game commission?
[00:38:43] Speaker B: There's multiple places that you can get the information. Probably the best one is our website, which is PGC dot Pa dot gov.
If you have our app, you could go on there as well. But everything's out there on the.
Everything's out there on the website. I think I just saw that it was in game news. If you're a game news subscriber and just check your mail, everything's on that postcard as well.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Yeah, there's information everywhere. You can get on Hunt, fish, Pa. You can get on, you know, again, if you're going to get on there early, go make sure all your stuff is correct out there and all your information, and that saves a lot of time. Get on our website, or if you need to give us a call, you know, you can call us at 833 PGC Hunt or 833 PGC Wild. That's our numbers there at the office. But, you know, we're here for everybody out there. We're excited, just like everybody else. If you have.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: I have one thing that I would like to ask our listeners. So if you're listening to this podcast, you obviously really care about hunting. You care about making sure that you're getting things right. We'd ask you to be an advocate for us and to spread the word among your, your peer group, the people that you hunt with, your, your family, and let them know what we've talked about here. Because even though we've, you know, send out that postcard, even though we've done a lot of things, most people rely on their hunting buddies to get the word out. So if you're listening to the podcast today, take the time to get the right information in their hands. Because if you think about how rumors get started and how people start talking about things, if you listen to this podcast, you have the correct information. And we'd like you to help spread the word to the people that you hunt with to make sure that. That you can get that information out there so they're able to get the license in a timely manner, but not end up creating maybe a potential problem or trying to buy a tag for three b those first three days when they're not available. So by getting that word out, hopefully everybody has a better buying experience.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Right? Good stuff. And sorry I was cutting you off because I was going into another direction, and I'm good at that, but I want to, and I ask everybody this, and we probably asked you this before, but I want to talk about it because it's a big word, and that is conservation. And I'd like, with your 30 plus career, 30 plus YeaR career Here, and I know your dad and I know the Way you grew up, what does conservation mean to you?
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Conservation, I mean, that's a pretty tricky thing. You know, it means a lot of different things to me. But, like, when I think about conservation, it's making sure that we're leaving it better than we found it. So, like, when I look at, like, everything that I try to do on our property, you know, like, if you look at our flower beds, you know, we're planting natives, and there's hummingbirds and butterflies and stuff like that in them. It's trying to harvest antralus deer to help keep that herd in check.
It's just trying to do things, you know, it's applying for tags to fund game agencies all over the west. You know, all that money that they get from. From somebody buying a license or an application that they're able to put back into managing wildlife, all of those things are conservation. You know, like, it's. It's trying to use our natural resources wisely without wasting them.
[00:42:04] Speaker A: You like to buy bullets, too. Cause you like to shoot. And that's conservation as well.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: That's conservation as well. That's why I got that midway account set up. So, yeah, you know, every time somebody pulls the trigger or buys a bow or you buys arrows, any of that stuff, it qualifies for that Pittman Robertson excise tax, which we use for not only managing wildlife, buying land, but putting up and enhancing our shooting ranges, managing them. So there's a lot of different things. If you look at hunters in general, we are probably the greatest conservationists in the world. And everybody does it a little bit of a different way, but really it's making sure that we're using those natural resources in a wise way.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: And there is something, you brought up something that I think that everybody needs to know because I just learned this in the last month.
When we sell an antlerless license, there's an earmarked figure, an earmarked dollar amount that goes directly to habitat. And a lot of folks don't know that it goes directly to habitat work on state game lands. And I think that is crucial when you look at the funding and how we make things happen out there in the dirt.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Absolutely. And when our food and cover guys are out there doing work, habitat work on the game lands, they code that work to one of those cost centers that are for that habitat work.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: From our antlerless licenses in our bureau, we're going to talk about that a lot more out there on social and things like that. So folks understand where those monies, especially for that antlers thing. And I don't know the exact figure.
If I quoted, I'd be lying. But that figure is x amount of dollars goes directly to that fund. And I think that's pretty incredible and that a lot of people don't know. And plus our analyst licenses are very inexpensive when you look at the big picture.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: Oh, when you. Totally. Exactly. Yeah. When people think that we're trying to issue more of them to make money, like, that's really not it at all. Like we're putting those licenses out there because we need to have those deer harvested. And, you know, I mean, I grew up just like you did, you know, where Doe hunting was kind of looked down upon almost, but like, I've probably killed five times as many does as bucks in my career.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Have you ever been up north when they did the burn your doe license barrels or anything like that? I never, I remember seeing it.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: I remember hearing about it. But like, I grew up, we didn't have a deer camp, so like we just hunted on my grandfather's farm and that wasn't something that, that I was able to do. But like, I had friends who had camps up in Potter county and stuff and yeah, they would go up and burn their doe licenses. So, you know, it seems like, you know, what's old is new again. And we still have people thinking that we shouldn't be killing the number of deer that we are and that if we stop shooting does, we'll have more deer. But the reality is you can only have so many animals. It doesn't matter what that is, whether it's, you know, whether it's cattle in a pasture or. Or deer in a forest, if they have enough food, they're going to be healthier and more productive.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Same with trees?
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Same with trees.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: I never knew that till here. Like, you see a tree die, there's a reason that it dies. But an acre will only support so many trees and species and things like that. And it's, you know, when you look at that science, it's pretty cool.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Take it to your garden. You know, if you can have a row that has a hundred lettuce plants in it, and they'll be kind of stunned and spindly, or you could have a row with five of them in it, and they'll be, like, really full. Full and lush because they're taking advantage of all that growing space. You can actually get a higher yield from, you know, from five lettuce plants than you can from 100 because of the way they grow. So deer are kind of the same way.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: I got one more question. It's two parter.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: Two parter. Okay.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: What was the very first deer rifle you had in Pennsylvania, and what is your favorite whitetail deere caliber?
[00:45:48] Speaker B: My first deer rifle was a Winchester model 94 32 special that my dad still has.
And my favorite whitetail caliber is probably 270 Winchester.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: I thought maybe it was a 30 30. So the 32 special is pretty two special.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Yep. Shot my first year with 32 special, but, yeah.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Did you ever knock the skin off your knuckle trying to work the lever too fast?
[00:46:12] Speaker B: No, I was pretty proficient about it. I didn't have those issues.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: All right, well, Dave, thank you. Thank you for your career for the game commission. Thank you for what you do every day for wildlife and for our hunters out there in Pennsylvania, and thanks for joining us on call the outdoors.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
