Rep Brian Smith’s proposal to move the start day back to Monday carries with it the addition of a second Sunday to create a 14-day continuous rifle deer season starting on Monday.

The season length remains the same — 14 days — as does the number of weekend days under Smith’s proposal.

We should be able to hunt all Sundays. I don't care when rifle season starts.

All because a handful of hunting camps are pissed that they can’t sit around and get fall down drunk all weekend before deer season.

Get over it. We got two extra days of deer season.

According to the article, the extra days would remain? At any rate, the purpose of this change would have been better served by leaving Monday as opening day and having a full two week season, as now proposed.

Yeah, I think this bill accomplishes the same goal- extra weekend days for people who can’t take off work- while respecting tradition. Plus, our schools get the first Monday off and I’d hate to lose that

Except it puts those days at the end of the season. The point of moving it up was so that more people could get out at the start of the season.

In the area I hunt, this has definitely not been the case. Opening day has fewer hunters than ever.TBF, this is ANF, where most hunt out of camps. Perhaps people can't get there in time without a weekend to pack and travel after Thanksgiving?

Anecdotally, we alternate Thanksgiving between my family and my wife’s, so when we travel I can’t get out on Saturday anyway.

Lots of people travel for Thanksgiving, so having two extra days that aren’t connected to a major holiday works for them.

I'm just waiting for the PAGC to allow semiautos for deer and other stuff that isn't small game/varmint/predator control.

I want to hunt deer with a HIMARS the way the founding fathers intended

It’s asinine that I can check traps with a semi auto .22 rifle, but to do so with a semi auto .22 pistol is illegal.

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I just want to use a sub-MOA AR10 chambered in 308 Winchester that I plink with at 330 yards with a very boring level of accuracy.

Hunting laws and PAGC-controlled regulations are very asinine.

If the state legislature would let the PGC do its job and make rules and regulations as it sees fit, we could avoid a lot of bullshit.

People who hunt from camps are a very small minority. This isn’t 1960 anymore.

The PAGC has a lot of control. Take semiautos for example. Originally it was state law that prohibited semiautomatics for hunting. Then the state repealed that law and the PAGC was given the authority to determine which types of game semiautomatics could be used for.

So the PAGC polled existing hunters to see if they what seasons they wanted semiautomatics to be allowed for. Naturally the existing hunters, predominantly Fudds, opposed semiautomatics being used for anything larger than a coyote, so the PAGC changed their intended plan that would've allowed semiautos for deer and such and ended up restricting semiautos to small game, varmints and predator control.

If I can’t call in a predator strike on a Sunday, the whole season might as well be canceled

Edit: I’m being facetious, and to each their own. Personally, I use a Remington 700 bolt action.

Good point. Head up to Lopez and take some pics before they all fall down. There's even an old pay phone so you could call home and check in.

No need to. Live in potter. Drive past hundreds of camps a day.

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So, more than a handful?

Seriously, what the fuck. There are so many corpses on the road, we need more culling and less killing.

Yes. Many sit empty in deer season and have done so for 10 years or more. Far more people are in camps during the last few weeks of bow season and on the three big summer holiday weekends.

Deer camp has fallen out of favor for atv riding, bow season and short term vacation rentals.

In graduate school currently, and the weekend opener was the only way Id be able to hunt this year because of logistics. Not everyone is a teacher or in an industry that understands what that Monday means in Pennsylvania. I hope it stays Saturday.

This would still have 2 saturdays

One of the reasons Pa Game commission did this was to boost license sales. People’s who grew up here, coming back to visit for thanksgiving get a chance to hunt if they stay thru the weekend which is easier / convenient then having to stay in pa until Monday. I personally love it, and as self employed it lets me get 2 days of hunting in without taking off work.