Anyome watch on PCN or attend the meeting in Coudersport last night.  It was titled "The future of hunting in Pennsylvania's big woods."  Reps from the PGC, DCNR, Forestry, and the owner of First Fork Lodge fielded questions from those in attendence.  PCN had the foresight to televise it to.

Looked like the attendence was good.  Alot of passionate discussions from both sides.

I was struck by two speakers that still claim that the PGC stocked coyotes.   Most of the speakers were strongly against the current program but a show of hands when asked by the panel showed maybe 1/3 in favor.  It was interesting.

 I watched all of it.

The panel answered a lot of questions with stats and studies to back up their answers to those questions.

It seemed to me that the "quit killing all of the deer" crowd in the audience that asked the questions didn't like the answers they received from the panel in the know.

Most of the questions were about past hunting and not the future of hunting.

I got a kick out Slinsky's bs. The moderator asked everyone just to ask the panel questions. Not Jimmy, he tried to give the panel his opinion on how to manage the deer herd along with his bs stats before the moderator cut him off. But JS wasn't done yet. He went over to the line on the other side of the room and when he got up the the mic, he started again. Finally the moderator shut him off again and asked him to give everyone an opportunity to ask questions.

Susan Stout set JS straight on some of his bs.

I liked Dusza's closing comments. He said someone is taking nice bucks in this area and held up a copy of the Coudersport newspaper showing pages with pics of nice bucks taken this last season. He said hunters have never harvested this many nice bucks around here in one season.

Another observation of mine was the lack of younger hunters in the crowd.  The title was "the future" and there was not too many future hunters in attendence.  

With mentors like many in the audience no wonder the kids are frustrated according to the speakers.  I hear people all of the time telling thier kids about "the good old days" when you would see 30 deer a day.  And it is all the PGC's fault for the lack of deer now.

When I started hunting seeing a couple deer a day was the norm where we went.  I was ecstatic just to be there.  Negativity towards hunting and being negative around the youth hunters does not bode well for "the future of hunting."

thanks for the reports guys I appreciate it...