Gryphon,

I do not doubt that with a little direction a good sambar hunter could take a few whitetail, but a trophy class, not unless he was being guided by a local.

Here are some interesting facts and figures - These numbers are from the PA Game Commission Report - 2001 - 2002 harvest counts

Antlered Deer - 165,416
Anterless Deer - 352,113

Grand Total - 517,529

That is the official count not including roadkill which I could not find any official numbers on, but would guess to be around 10% of that figure.

Official estimate of the deer population is 1.5 million and increasing.

Here is an interesting line from the report - More than 230,000 hunters spent 1.37 million days hunting and bagged 1.28 million squirrels, making it number one in harvest for all game.

In 2001 there were 2.5 million licensed hunters, which brought revenues in excess of $35,000,000 to the Commission.

500,000+ deer sounds staggering, but an even more impressive number is the fact that on the first day of buck season, there is usually about a 1,000,000 hunters afield, and that is just in PA. I think, PA has a population of about 16 million, well over a 2,000,000 hunters, 40,000 gun dealers(more than Texas), and some 40 million guns, if my memory serves correctly. Let's just say gun control laws are not a light matter for politicians to mess with.

Hunting is very different in PA from Australia, deer season is limited, archery starts the end of October and runs to the end of November, then "buck season"(bucks only with firearms) starts and runs for 2 weeks, then doe season runs for 2 days, followed by 3 days of muzzleloader. There is a late archery season for 4 weeks after the New Year, but it is usually bitter cold and most of the bucks have dropped their racks, so not many people hunt at that time.

Whitetails are very wary, and any buck that makes it past 3 years will have learned to adapt to humans and know how to be almost impossible to find. Standhunting, tree or ground, is used almost exclusively, since stalking a whitetail is all but impossible. A big whitetail buck can run full pelt through brush that a human can barely crawl through on hands and knees.

What makes whitetail so great to hunt is the fact of their abundance, which makes hunting to fill the freezer much easier, but on the flip side trophy class deer are few and far between.

I have not hunted sambar yet, so I cannot make a true comparision, but I intend to change that in a few months.

mikeh416Rigby;

I am from Abbottstown, which straddles Beaver Creek, the county line between York and Adams. I grew up on the York County side, exactly half way between Gettysburg and York. I used hunt in Clearfield County, south of Bennezette, and in Bradford County, around Rome. I hunted around my home, since I was a local and had knew most of the farmers and had their permission to hunt on their ground.

Lynn Miller