Even amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 figures to present some unique opportunities to local deer hunters.

The annual buck rifle season gets underway Saturday — the second consecutive year that the season begins the Saturday after Thanksgiving rather than the following Monday. In addition, Sunday hunting makes its rifle season debut in the Keystone State, giving hunters an extra day to be in the woods.

That initial extra day from last year’s Saturday opener helped pave the way for the 2019 deer harvest, which topped out at 389,431 and was the state’s biggest since 2004, when more than 409,000 whitetails were taken.

“In a simple word, it’s (about) opportunity,” said Charlie Burchfield, a local hunter and outdoors columnist for The Era. “When buck season comes up, it’ll be Saturday and Sunday hunting, and that’s going to be a game changer for a lot of people. License sales are up and there’s a lot more participation. Given the extra opportunities, hunters will take advantage.”

Not all hunters are in that camp, however.

Said Wade Robertson, another local hunter and outdoors columnist, “I realize I’m in the great minority here, but I really dislike the Saturday opener because it disrupts the flow that worked so well. You would show up to camp on Friday, get ready and sight in your rifles on Saturday and then get settled in and relax until Monday, which was the traditional opener.”

He added, “I’ve talked to several people and of course they hunted (the Saturday opener) but they missed that ability to come to camp, get everything prepared, relax on Sunday and start out fresh and excited on Monday.”

Regardless of which day hunters preferred to get to camp and then begin the season, camp life may be taking on a different form in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The state Department of Health has urged strongly that residents don’t gather with those from outside their own immediate households, including hunters heading to deer camp.

That said, Burchfield thinks camps with smaller numbers (think up to about eight hunters) will carry on as normal for the most part, while those with larger groups will likely scale back some.

“I think with the larger camps, you’ll see a reduction in participation or they’ll take it and split it out over a longer period of deer season.”

Robertson said his hunting group has continued camp life this year, and has just taken precautions and “used common sense.”

“As long as nobody was recently in contact with someone that has COVID or has symptoms themselves, we’ve been doing things pretty much as normal. It’s a common sense thing,” he said. “Camp life is a tradition, and you’d hate to miss it. We would (miss it) if we were sick or felt we were in danger with one another.”

Those opting to head out this year will be greeted with a relatively warm weekend (Sunday has a projected high of 49 degrees in Bradford) to start before temperatures cool off into the mid-to-upper 30s beginning on Monday.

As such, Robertson is anticipating a slower start to the season over the weekend before things really get rolling on Monday. Still, he says nothing can be predicted for certain.

“Usually after the rut when the bucks ran hard, they won’t move much during warm weather. The little ones will, but the big bucks will lay up and hate to move. I would say (a slow start) is likely, but the thing is you can’t predict them entirely.”

When things cool off, however, is a different story.

“I expect they’d be on their feet early and late (in colder weather). They have to eat and have a full stomach in order to stay warm.”

Those are sentiments echoed by Burchfield.

“Temperature helps rule the hunt. With an average temperature into the low 40s or 30s, deer will have to move to feed, and that helps hunters. With the cooler temperatures, a lot of hunters need to move to keep warm, so they play into each other. Ideally, you’d like to see an inch of snow on the ground for the first day.”

That inch of snow won’t come on opening day, but hunters just may be in luck on Tuesday, when the area could receive 1-3 inches of snow in the morning.

While out in the field, Burchfield says to keep an eye on secondary food sources for deer, because primary mast options such as apples have pretty well dried out.

“I’d keep an eye on the cherry (acorn) crop and also look, especially with deer, at briar cane. Believe it or not, it does have a lot of jaggers in it but deer chew that up and they really enjoy it. It’s one thing a lot of hunters will overlook, but if there’s a shortage of feed, look for those patches of briar that are out there and hunt those harder.”

And with those tips and an extra couple days to hunt, PA hunters just may be able to exceed last season’s big harvest. Robertson says it’s a trend he anticipates will continue.

“I expect it will continue,” he said. “People who are still working can have the ability to hunt on Saturday and otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. There will be more people afield, and hopefully they’ll all do well.”

Pennsylvania’s antlered deer rifle season runs Nov. 28-Dec. 4. There is a bad limit of one antlered deer per hunting license per year.