Pittston Dispatch // PD Columnists // Don Jacobs - Outdoors With Jake

Sunday February 22, 2009 | 12:00 AM

Most of us can’t wait to see the end of bitter temperatures and snowy weather. We’ve had all we can stand of snow shoveling and cars that won’t start. Scraping windshields is becoming very old at this point and so are the outrageous heating bills. I can’t wait for the warmer temperatures, the smells of spring and the disappearance of snow piles. While I believe I am speaking for the majority of people in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I know the same can’t be said for the deer research team in Susquehanna County. They are hoping the cold weather continues for a few more weeks.

A team of five research biologists are busy trapping deer in Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) 3C. This unit includes all of Susquehanna County and portions of Wyoming, Wayne, Bradford and Lackawanna Counties. Their job is dependent upon baiting deer by placing piles of food in order to trap and process them with tags and collars. If the weather is nice and the snow and ice cover disappears, the deer have no problem finding food in the woods and fields. It’s almost magical how the deer will find a pile of corn on the cob, alfalfa and or molasses when the weather is bad.

I spent two days with the team as they went about their daily routine of checking traps, rebating trap piles and preparing for an evening rocket launch. The Game Commission along with Penn State University is conducting a study on the effects of shortening the firearm antlerless deer seasons. The research team’s goal is to tag as many deer as they can. They hope to reach the 200 mark before spring. Some of the deer will have a tag with a dollar amount attached to encourage hunters to report the harvest. Many of the deer will receive radio collars so the study can also track their movement. This study is taking place in four Wildlife Units in the Pennsylvania. WMU 3C is the only one in Northeastern Pennsylvania. This was also the only WMU in our area where the antlerless deer rifle harvest was shorted from a twelve day season to a seven day season.

In the words of the Commission, “This study is designed to meet the regulatory requirements by determining the influence of season length on deer harvest rates and hunter attitudes, activities and satisfaction. The study began in 2008 and will continue through 2012.”

In short, the study is designed to answer four questions: 1. How will antlerless harvest change? 2. Will hunters see more deer? 3.Will hunter satisfaction increase? 4. Will age structure of the antlered harvest change

After spending two days with the team, from daybreak until well after sunset, it made it easy to see there is no shortfall of deer in this county. We visited five clover trap locations throughout our travels and we saw or caught deer in everyone. A clover trap is nothing more than a large box trap made to close as a deer enters to eat the bait. If a deer is in the trap when the team arrives, they jump in the box with the deer, wrestle it down, put tags in its ears and release it. The entire process usually takes only a few minutes.

The locations of the traps are a mix between Game Lands, private farms and quality deer management practicing landowners. All of the properties we visited were well inhabited by deer. Both evenings we watched as deer visited a bait pile within reach of a net attached to cannons. Twenty three deer showed up on the first night. We launched the net on one huge buck that had recently lost its antlers. The next evening four deer showed up to dine on the bait pile at a different location as we successfully cannon netted two of them.

We counted over two hundred deer in two days and most of them were out in broad daylight in farmer’s fields or food plots. I’m not quite sure what the research will find short of a lot of deer. It may find a correlation between the large number of posted properties that limit their hunter numbers and deer harvest rates. I’ll keep you posted. You can expect to see several deer trapping stories in the future on Pennsylvania Outdoor Life.

Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission Public Meetings

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) is hosting a series of public meetings to update local communities about the agency’s work while also hearing directly from participants about sporting issues that are affecting them. A total of eight evening meetings will be held. These meetings are designed to provide the public with an opportunity to meet commissioners and staff and to hear about many of the upcoming projects and activities planned by the commission.

The only meeting in our area will take place on February 25 at the Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke. It will begin with an informal open house from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., during this time the public can meet the executive director, the Commissioner representing the district and Commission staff. From 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., Executive Director Austen and regional staff will make various presentations, including fisheries updates, habitat projects, outreach and education activities, and boating and access programs. A general discussion and question and answer period will follow from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Outdoor Life

Be sure to join us tonight at 6:30 on WNEP-TV for Pennsylvania Outdoor Life. We’ll update you on the pheasant restoration project underway in Central Pennsylvania and we’ll show you what you can win at the POL Expo. Have a great day!