Area hotels may not be overflowing with hunters for the opening
day of deer season today, but most innkeepers say their businesses
are nearly full.

In Bradford, DeSoto Holiday House desk clerk Sheila Prosser said
late Sunday afternoon that there were “only a handful” of rooms
available for the night. Some hunters had walked in already, and
she expected more walk-ins to arrive at the 70-room business.

At the Best Western downtown at the same time, some hunters were
checking into the 112-room hotel. Desk clerk Nichole Heffner said
about two-thirds of the rooms were occupied, but there would likely
be “a bunch of walk-ins” there, too, based on what happened when
New York state deer season opened recently.

In addition to dinner specials in the lounge Sunday night, the
hotel planned to open its breakfast an hour early today, starting
at 5 a.m. She said that occupancy was really good “for a Sunday”
and that they indeed had reservations for the rest of the week.

At the nearby 48-room Comfort Inn downtown, the desk clerk said
there were only four rooms available as of 4 p.m. Sunday. The staff
there was opening the continental breakfast at 4 a.m. so hunters
could get some hot coffee before going out into the woods.

Over in Coudersport at the Mill Stream Inn, only a few rooms
were available for Sunday night, and no rooms were available for
Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, according to clerk Debbie Tubbs.

West of Bradford, Corydon Hotel manager Jason Giordano said
Friday that business has been slower every year.

“It had already had a huge effect on us when they combined buck
season with doe season because we lost one of our biggest weekends
of the year. Now they’re talking about combining bear and deer
(seasons) which would really hurt. That takes three good weekends
that we should have and turns it into one.

“With no deer around we’ve had a lot of trouble filling rooms
here. There used to be a waiting list, and now I’m lucky if I can
rent out half of my rooms. I practically have to beg them to come
here. Now we have lost half of our business … easily half.

Giordano said, “I had people that have been coming to this hotel
for 35 years straight that aren’t coming this year. They said that
‘with the amount of money that we spend going to hunt out-of-state
with the equipment, licenses, food, etc. that there’s no point in
spending that kind of money when we can stay at home and have a
better chance of getting a deer.’

“Bear wasn’t near as good as usual either, and this year we had
to count on that because deer season is going to be useless,”
Giordano said.

Bob Williams, manager of S&S Archery in Bradford, did say
Friday that “we haven’t sold as many outof-state licenses this year
as in the past.”