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Thoughts on Sunday hunting

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I know I am a older hunter, But I never dreamed in Pa. we would allow hunting on Sundays. I am a follower of Jesus so I don't hunt on the designated sunday hunting days for that reason. I also would like to see the animals that are being hunted have at least one day a week without getting shot at! Also Sunday is a good day to spend quality time with the wife and kids and other family members. I don't know, to me some things are worth keeping the way they are. Some long held traditional ways of doing things make sense! Just take a moment to ask a older person who has hunted in Pa. for many years and I'm sure they will all tell you how better the hunting for all Pa. residents was much better. Maybe the Game commission should should not be worried about the all mighty dollar and focus on going back in time and making the hunting experience what it used to be. Maybe if these younger people actually had some animals to shoot at they would want to get away from the play station and go hunting with us old farts!! Just a thought let me know what you think?

Lets get it on!!!!!
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Unless you want to know what gun or cartridge is best to use when Sunday hunting, this might be the wrong forum.
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Your way of hunting is entirely up to you, but not everyone thinks the same way. If you don't want to hunt sundays no one is forcing you. As far as better hunting back in the day, I don't think it has ever been better than it is right now. Next year will be my 52nd year and I am very happy with things the way they are now.
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Your way of hunting is entirely up to you, but not everyone thinks the same way. If you don't want to hunt sundays no one is forcing you. As far as better hunting back in the day, I don't think it has ever been better than it is right now. Next year will be my 52nd year and I am very happy with things the way they are now.
I only have one question for you, if you went hunting on the first day of firearms deer season in say 1980 would you see more game if you spent the day in the woods? If you really want to be honest we both know the answer. Also you would see tons more hunters from 12 to 16 years old seeing and killing deer than freezing their butts off and searching their cell phones and being bored to all get out with the whole hunting experience!
Your way of hunting is entirely up to you, but not everyone thinks the same way. If you don't want to hunt sundays no one is forcing you. As far as better hunting back in the day, I don't think it has ever been better than it is right now. Next year will be my 52nd year and I am very happy with things the way they are now.
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I know I am a older hunter, But I never dreamed in Pa. we would allow hunting on Sundays. I am a follower of Jesus so I don't hunt on the designated sunday hunting days for that reason. I also would like to see the animals that are being hunted have at least one day a week without getting shot at! Also Sunday is a good day to spend quality time with the wife and kids and other family members. I don't know, to me some things are worth keeping the way they are. Some long held traditional ways of doing things make sense! Just take a moment to ask a older person who has hunted in Pa. for many years and I'm sure they will all tell you how better the hunting for all Pa. residents was much better. Maybe the Game commission should should not be worried about the all mighty dollar and focus on going back in time and making the hunting experience what it used to be. Maybe if these younger people actually had some animals to shoot at they would want to get away from the play station and go hunting with us old farts!! Just a thought let me know what you think?

Lets get it on!!!!!
Us younger guys at our camp would love the opportunity to hunt Sunday as it would double our opportunities to hunt. We live almost 3 hours from camp so for us weekends are generally the only time we get to hunt. Had we been able to hunt Sunday it would have added months of hunting time in the 19 seasons I’ve been in the woods.

As for family time, thats exactly what I’m doing, I’m spending that time up there with my parents, brother along with other friends and family. It’s a way for us to get away from the normal suburban life and spend some time in the outdoors with the people I love.

Overall we kill as many if not more deer and bigger bucks now than we did when camp started in the 80’s. To date my Grandfather, Dad, Brother and I have shot a total of 15 bucks 8pt or bigger, only 3 of them were prior to 2004 when I started and the biggest ones have all been within the past 5 years. As it stands where we hunt now is probably the best it’s ever been.


I only have one question for you, if you went hunting on the first day of firearms deer season in say 1980 would you see more game if you spent the day in the woods? If you really want to be honest we both know the answer. Also you would see tons more hunters from 12 to 16 years old seeing and killing deer than freezing their butts off and searching their cell phones and being bored to all get out with the whole hunting experience!
I didn’t hunt the 80’s, being years before I was born, but I have talked to my Dad and others who did hunt that time. They might have seen a few more deer in a day, primarily because you couldn’t shoot does so you were watching the same does get ping ponged around between different people hoping that any kind of buck had joined them.

I prefer the way it is now as the first year they switched back to buck only in 2014 I spent two days watching dozens of does go by and it was by far the most frustrating hunting experience I had ever had up to that point.
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Ya wanna go back in time to how it used to be?
That would be fine with me if I could be on one of those crews that used to go deer hunting on Anticosti Island every year and come back with a pickup loaded with 8s and 10s instead of the 6s and 4s the locals had hanging.
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People who are young enough to have jobs tend to like Sunday hunting; people who don't and hunt the rest of the week don't.
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I also would like to see the animals that are being hunted have at least one day a week without getting shot at!
Animals never get a break regardless if they are being hunted by people or not. Its a fallacy to believe that animals need a day of "rest". No such thing exists. Its a tough world out there for them.
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Animals never get a break regardless if they are being hunted by people or not. Its a fallacy to believe that animals need a day of "rest". No such thing exists. Its a tough world out there for them.
That's true unless we count how many times they hit the bedding areas every day. Seems to me they're getting plenty of rest.
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As a "older hunter" I disagree with the OP... I'll be 69 soon, I started hunting at 16...and I welcome Sunday hunting...the best is yet to come.
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The world has changed dramatically since the good old days so you can’t expect hunting to go back in time and be like it once was .
It needs to evolve and get with the times to compete with all the other distractions and activities kids have readily available to them .
Not to mention most households have both parents who work to pay the bills these days .
As for as the religious aspect I understand going to church on Sunday but what do you want younger kids to do afterwards ? Tell them they can’t watch television, play video games or be on social media ? Just stay inside and have bible study ? That’s just going to create resentment directed towards their parents.
I think God would be pretty cool with Dad taking his kids out into the beautiful wilderness he created ,spending time together and hunting.
Or maybe the parent needs some time alone to decompress and recharge the battery out there on Sunday so they can return home and be a better father or mother .
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I only have one question for you, if you went hunting on the first day of firearms deer season in say 1980 would you see more game if you spent the day in the woods? If you really want to be honest we both know the answer. Also you would see tons more hunters from 12 to 16 years old seeing and killing deer than freezing their butts off and searching their cell phones and being bored to all get out with the whole hunting experience!
Being totally honest I will take how things are now instead of then 100 percent of the time. There has not been a season since antler restrictions that I didn't kill at least one deer and most years it's usually 4 or 5. The difference being better quality deer now. I would rather see 10 to 20 deer with A chance of seeing A good buck than to see 100 deer and be lucky to see a small 4 or 6 point. As far as the kids go there are far less that are hunting, but that doesn't affect my hunting experience at all. So far as sunday goes no one is forcing you to hunt, if going to church is more important to you than hunting that doesn't affect me at all. Just the same, me going hunting won't affect you and your way of doing things.
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Tomorrow is not soon enough to legalize it. Never should have been banned in the first place.
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That's true unless we count how many times they hit the bedding areas every day. Seems to me they're getting plenty of rest.
Let us not forget the new apex predator that has recently arrived in our Pa. woods and fields! The coyote! When I was coming up and hunting and trapping as a younger person, I never even heard of a sighting of one of these scoundrels but now they are eating fawns and small game like a kid eats Halloween candy! Makes you perhaps wonder how they magically appeared? I think those friendly people in those green uniforms know all about it, or maybe they took a trip out west and helped them swim across the Mississippi river and gave them a map to the wonderful state of Pa. Just a little food for thought for today! Also if you happen to go turkey hunting today, you will know why they are scared to death to fly down and feed and stay in the trees! They know who is waiting for them!
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Let us not forget the new apex predator that has recently arrived in our Pa. woods and fields! The coyote! When I was coming up and hunting and trapping as a younger person, I never even heard of a sighting of one of these scoundrels but now they are eating fawns and small game like a kid eats Halloween candy! Makes you perhaps wonder how they magically appeared? I think those friendly people in those green uniforms know all about it, or maybe they took a trip out west and helped them swim across the Mississippi river and gave them a map to the wonderful state of Pa. Just a little food for thought for today! Also if you happen to go turkey hunting today, you will know why they are scared to death to fly down and feed and stay in the trees! They know who is waiting for them!
Yes! My cousins, uncles buddy twice removed used to work at a small grocery store that was on a one way street just off of a one way alley in a remote section of a small town. He was out for a ciggy break and to check his phone for messages when this tractor trailer with an animal hauler which had to have gone about 12 miles off of the interstate passing through much larger towns so he could maneuver his way through small streets and a tight one way alley in order to park in their extremely small lot.
The truck stank of wet dog and sounded like a gaggle of werewolves so he curiously followed the driver in who wanted to stop and get 1/4lb salami sliced thin (for the wife) and asked him what was he hauling.
The driver said "coyotes from out west"! "Those are much easier to trap in great quantity and absolutely don't fight at all when packed into a cattle trailer and have to be transported 1600mi." "I am supposed to park somewhere in the poconos and let them all out." "Even though they are 2/3 the size of the Eastern Coyote and have different dna, once they eat the blueberries along the Appalachian Trail they grow another 1/3 larger and their dna changes to that of the eastern version" "But, I fear that I have said too much"

It is all true. The store clerk never took a pic of the truck with his cell phone that he had in hand, but it all sounds highly believable as there is no way a few predators that have always lived and have been shot in Pa for centuries could turn into double, triple or even 10x the numbers like hawks and eagles have.
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Let us not forget the new apex predator that has recently arrived in our Pa. woods and fields! The coyote! When I was coming up and hunting and trapping as a younger person, I never even heard of a sighting of one of these scoundrels but now they are eating fawns and small game like a kid eats Halloween candy! Makes you perhaps wonder how they magically appeared? I think those friendly people in those green uniforms know all about it, or maybe they took a trip out west and helped them swim across the Mississippi river and gave them a map to the wonderful state of Pa. Just a little food for thought for today! Also if you happen to go turkey hunting today, you will know why they are scared to death to fly down and feed and stay in the trees! They know who is waiting for them!
The two coyotes are according to science, two different animals, and there is no proof that anybody helped western yotes to swim the Mississippi, nor is there any evidence that any coyote, western or eastern, has any map reading skillz, although there does appear to be some documentation that the western coyote can paint incredibly realistic fake tunnels on rock walls.
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The old days? You mean when you’d sit in the woods all day and see a hundred does no bucks and a basket rack five point was considered a big buck?

Or when armies of people walked all over the woods and you only really were actually trying to shoot a deer as it ran away from one hunter after another. Never truly hunting the animal on its own terms.

Or when doe season was the three days after regular rifle season ended.

No thanks, I hunted as a kid back in the 70s and 80s. It was terrible. The only better aspect was small game hunting but that’s gone for good. The deer hunting now is far better than it ever has been.

As far as animals needing a break and the religious aspect, that’s your perspective. You don’t have to hunt on Sunday if you would not like to. As far as money, yes the PGC needs hunters to remain solvent. They aren’t conniving money to spend on cigars, mansions and fancy cars.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, When the boomers finally retire from the woods within the next decade, this state will get out of the dark ages. Sunday hunting, semi autos, and bring spring turkey in two to three weeks earlier like the rest of the country.
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The old days? You mean when you’d sit in the woods all day and see a hundred does no bucks and a basket rack five point was considered a big buck?

Or when armies of people walked all over the woods and you only really were actually trying to shoot a deer as it ran away from one hunter after another. Never truly hunting the animal on its own terms.

Or when doe season was the three days after regular rifle season ended.

No thanks, I hunted as a kid back in the 70s and 80s. It was terrible. The only better aspect was small game hunting but that’s gone for good. The deer hunting now is far better than it ever has been.

As far as animals needing a break and the religious aspect, that’s your perspective. You don’t have to hunt on Sunday if you would not like to. As far as money, yes the PGC needs hunters to remain solvent. They aren’t conniving money to spend on cigars, mansions and fancy cars.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, When the boomers finally retire from the woods within the next decade, this state will get out of the dark ages. Sunday hunting, semi autos, and bring spring turkey in two to three weeks earlier like the rest of the country.
There's a good chance Turkey season will remain the same. There's talk in other states of moving opening day later in the year to increase nesting success.
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There's a good chance Turkey season will remain the same. There's talk in other states of moving opening day later in the year to increase nesting success.
Nesting success, or a lack thereof, is largely the result of poor predator control. My property and the surrounding areas are inundated with coyote, raccoon, opossum, and avian varieties. Few people trap or hunt them. I do my best but it’s a lot of time and commitment for no return. Fur prices are in the toilet, never to recover. Add in avian diseases, wild weather swings and poor habitat and it’s a wonder any small game can thrive at all.
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