McKean County hunters will have a good opportunity to harvest a doe or a buck when Pennsylvania’s two-week rifle season opens Saturday.

The overall deer population has been on the increase over the past 10 years in McKean County, and in the past two or three years that has become obvious to most of the people who live or hunt here.

Twenty-three years ago under the guidance of wildlife biologist Gary Alt, the Pennsylvania Game Commission encouraged and enabled hunters to harvest more antlerless deer to allow forests to recover some of its natural deer habitat. It worked. Deer numbers were down from 2005 to 2012 with lower levels of deer than most people or hunters saw in the past 70 to 80 years in this area.

But now the deer have made a comeback.

It take years, actually decades, for a forest to recover from overbrowsing caused by overabundant deer populations. But it worked.

The forests are much thicker with brush these days. And some of that brush and other plant growth is good deer food, as well as cover. Today’s deer harvested by area hunters are bigger than they used to be, both the bucks and the does. By having more and better food, local deer now reach normal weights that Pennsylvania deer should attain. The females are in better condition to have and raise fawns. The increased amount of food per deer also allows the bucks to grow bigger bodies and then bigger antlers.

When antler restrictions, another part of Alt’s management program, were added to the plan 20 years ago it did not take long until hunters saw the results.

For decades, many hunters harvested bucks with spikes or three or four or five points, or what many hunters called small six-point racks with 12- to 14-inch spreads and 5- to 6-inch tines. By 2015, with better natural foods, and more of it, many bucks were living to be 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 years old, or even older, thanks to better cover to hide in and antler restrictions.

More bucks were growing eight-point racks with spreads over 17 inches up to 20 inches. The local big buck contests soon had pictures of dozens and even hundreds of bucks with bigger antlers than most locals or hunters had seen in decades.

The reason for this is that for generations the forests of McKean County had been overbrowsed and the good foods deer needed to thrive on were disappearing and being replaced by the plants with less value.

Almost everyone who spent time in the woods remembers those days. One would see 10, 20, 30 or more deer while hunting the open woods. One could see a long way as the small trees and shrubs and other plants that composed the brush were less abundant. Yet often a hunter would not see any deer with even legal-size spikes to shoot in buck season. That is a sign of undernourished deer, and also a sign that the forest, which is the deer’s habitat, was in poor shape.

After deer number’s were lowered and the forest partly recovered, the deer weights and antler sizes proved the habitat was improving and doing a better job of maintaining healthier deer.

Good deer habitat can be hard to hunt. Good habitat provides way more cover for deer to hide in, and with more food, deer spend less hours per day feeding and more hours per day resting while keeping an alert eye out for danger. Another factor these days is, nationwide, hunter numbers have been declining for close to 30 or 40 years. So when you have less hunters pushing deer around, and more brush to restrict what a hunter can see, the odds increase in the deer’s favor.

Another factor that was not in play 20 or more years ago is the abundance of trail cameras used by hunters and others. Many hunters often speak of the many deer they see on their trail cameras, bucks and does. But when they go out hunting they still have trouble seeing some of those deer.

The best answer for that predicament is to have more hunters out moving around in your area. Many hunters these days sit a lot in tree stands and do very little walking. Many hunters today have better quality hunting clothes and boots and stay warm with very little walking. Quite a few even have blinds to keep warm in. The result is many deer can lay in a spot all day long and nobody walks by to scare them up and get them moving.

Times have changed from when cold hunters with cold feet were walking all over the place to keep warm and causing deer to run around throughout the day. These days it’s not a shortage of deer to hunt, but a lower number of hunters that makes for a quiet day.

So, in 2023, if you want to see deer, remember to make the deer move around by doing some walking while hunting. Hopefully you can find a few friends to go along and hunt with you and do some walking also. Having others along really pays off when a deer is harvested and must be dragged out of the woods.

Pennsylvania remains a great place for deer hunting. Good deer management needs hunters who will harvest antlerless deer as well as antlered deer. Keeping deer numbers in balance with their habitat is the best thing one can do to ensure the future of deer hunting. Sharing your hunting with friends and family members is still a great way to get some exercise and enjoy the beautiful forests and wildlife Pennsylvania offers.

If you harvest more deer than you can use, McKean County now has a program call Hunters Sharing the Harvest through which you can have the deer meat given to those who cannot get out and get one themselves.

Good luck to all of you Saturday. Have a good time, and be safe out there.

(John Dzemyan is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission conservation officer and land manager.)