With Pennsylvania’s statewide rifle deer season opening Saturday, hunters should be aware of several changes including deer tagging and transportation through Chronic Wasting Disease areas.

Here is a breakdown of key things to know about the Pennsylvania Game Commission seasons and regulations:

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The statewide regular firearms deer season for both buck and doe is Nov. 25 to Dec. 9 and includes a Sunday, Nov. 26. In addition to a general hunting license to shoot bucks, hunters must have an antlerless license to harvest does. Legal hunting hours are one-half hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset.

Sunday hunting

Those hunting on Sunday, Nov. 26, on private land are required to carry written permission from the landowner. The permission slip should be signed by the landowner and should include the hunter’s name, address and CID license number, and the landowner’s name, address and phone number.

Antler point restrictions

In most of the state, hunters are required to find bucks that have at least three points on one side. In Wildlife Management Units 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B and 2D, along the western fringe of the state, hunters need to find bucks with three points, including the main beam, on one side, but not including the brow tine. It’s referred to as having three up points above the brow tine area.

Junior license-holders, mentored youth, disabled hunters with a permit to use a vehicle and resident active-duty U.S. Armed Forces personnel can harvest antlered deer with two or more points on one antler, or a spike 3 inches or longer.

A point is defined as any antler projection that is at least one inch in length. The main beam tip is counted as a point regardless of length.

Tagging deer

Hunters who kill a deer are required to secure the license tag to the deer’s ear. The tag needs to be filled out with a pen. In the past two years, hunters were required to notch out the date on the back of the tag, but that requirement has ended. Deer should not be tagged on an antler because the Game Commission staff want the tag to stay with the animal’s head for research possibilities. Sometimes antlers are removed from the deer at the butcher shop for the hunter to take with them.

Fluorescent orange

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During the regular firearms deer season, hunters must wear at least 250 square inches of fluorescent orange on the head, chest and back combined.

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Hunting licenses

Hunting licenses are available huntfish.pa.gov and at hundreds of sports shops and county treasurers across the state. Resident adult hunting licenses cost $20.97 and resident junior licenses are $6.97. For residents, archery licenses are $16.97 and muzzleloader stamps are $11.97. For nonresidents, general licenses are $101.97, junior licenses are $41.97 archery is $26.97 and muzzleloader is $21.97.

The commission plans to issue a total of 1.095 million antlerless deer licenses, up from 948,000 in 2022-23. Licenses went on sale June 26 at $6.97 for residents and $26.97 for nonresidents. Huntfish.pa.gov provides dynamic updates of where antlerless licenses remain available.

Chronic Wasting Disease

The Game Commission is monitoring Chronic Wasting Disease in deer across the state. There are Disease Management Areas and Established Areas where deer have tested positive for the fatal neurological disease.

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The Game Commission allows hunters who kill a deer, elk or other cervid outside of Pennsylvania to take it directly to any Game Commission-approved processor or taxidermist in the state. Hunters who take a deer within any of Pennsylvania’s DMAs or its EA can do the same. The list of CWD partners is available at pgc.pa.gov/cwd.

In past years, hunters were prohibited from bringing “high-risk” carcass parts from such animals taken in other states back into Pennsylvania.

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Hunters were also prohibited from moving those parts from any of the state’s Disease Management Areas or the Established Area to anywhere else in Pennsylvania.

Hunters who process their own deer have options, too. If a hunter kills a deer within a DMA or the EA and is transporting it home to process within that same DMA or the EA, they can do so as long as the high-risk parts are disposed of through a trash service. Hunters who live outside a DMA or the EA can quarter the animal to take it home free of high-risk parts.

High-risk parts are the head (including brain, tonsils, eyes, and any lymph nodes); spinal cord/backbone; spleen, and skull plate with attached antlers.

Also, although not recommended, high-risk parts can remain at the harvest location. But once moved from the harvest location, high-risk parts cannot be placed back onto the landscape.

All hunters within a DMA or the EA can continue to get their deer checked for CWD for free. The Game Commission places head collection bins at multiple locations around the state. They’re identified on the agency’s website. Hunters who drop a deer head in a bin can check test results on the dashboard at pgcdatacollection.pa.gov/CWDResultsLookup.

Pennsylvania first detected CWD in 2012 at a captive deer facility in Adams County. The Game Commission has tested more than 131,000 wild, free-ranging whitetails for CWD since 1998, along with more than 1,900 elk.

CWD has been found in more than 1,400 deer, 243 of those taken by hunters last season. It has not been detected in Pennsylvania’s elk herd.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at [email protected] and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website’s homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors , X @whipkeyoutdoors and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.

Source: https://t-tees.com
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