Bob Frye / Tribune-Review
Deer and geese mingle on the grounds of Pymatuning Wildlife Management Area.
It’s become less a hunt and more a spectacle.
Virtually every year since the 1970s the Pennsylvania Game Commission has conducted a controlled hunt on its Pymatuning Wildlife Management Area in Crawford County. About 1,300 people apply for a tag; 90 are chosen. The hunt lasts all of one day.
Because of the lay of the land, the hunt has essentially become a “90-man drive” to Pymatuning Lake, said Jerry Bish, land management supervisor in the commission’s northwest region office. Hunters walk in, all from one direction, and push deer toward the lake.
It’s all highly visible, he added. It’s not uncommon to have people who didn’t get a permit line up along the road. They park, set up lawn chairs in the back of pickup trucks and use spotting scopes to follow the action, Bish said.
For all that, the hunt was long popular because it offered sportsmen the chance to see 80 to 100 deer a day and oftentimes shoot a nice buck, he said.
Things have changed, though, and the commission wants to take advantage of that.
In 2012, an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease wiped out many of Pymatuning’s deer. The herd’s been on the rebound since.
“So this is a chance to adjust,” Bish said.
What he would like to do going forward is establish seven specific hunt zones on Pymatuning’s 614 acres. A pair of hunters – awarded a permit through a lottery – would be assigned a zone. They would get exclusive rights to hunt it for one week, Monday through Saturday, from 12:30 p.m. to dark.
Hunting would be permitted over six weeks. Hunters would be allowed to take a deer using whatever weapon is currently in season, be it archery gear, rifles for junior and senior hunters in October, inline muzzleloaders or flintlocks.
Hunters who took a deer would be required to report it using a special harvest tag beyond the standard one.
“It would be a pretty neat thing for someone to have 50 to 100 acres to hunt to themselves and a buddy,” Bish said.
At two hunters per zone and seven zones over six weeks, the program could accommodate 84 hunters, Bish said. That’s nearly identical to the number who got to hunt each year before, he added.
Commissioners seemed enthusiastic about the proposal, which could go into effect for 2017.
“It would be a very quality hunt,” said commissioner Jim Daley of Cranberry Township.
They had one concern: cost.
In years past, hunters applying for a permit to hunt on Pymatuning didn’t have to pay anything, said Richard Cramer, director of the commission’s northwest region office.
Commissioners want to change that, however. Hunters applying for an elk license have to pay a non-refundable $10 fee to get into the license drawing, noted commission president Brian Hoover of Delaware County. Hunters seeking to hunt Pymatuning should probably have to pay something similar, he said.
“We’re looking to cover our costs. We need to think outside of the box to fix our funding issues and that’s one of the ways to do it,” he said.
“I think hunters would be willing to pay something,” agreed commissioner Tim Layton of Windber.
