Most hunters welcome Saturday start of Pennsylvania’s firearms deer season

Business was brisk at Westmoreland County deer processing facilities Saturday as hunters rolled up with the fruits of their labor during the first day of Pennsylvania’s firearms deer season.

Most of those who spoke with the Tribune-Review were glad this year’s season started on a Saturday and Sunday, instead of the Monday following Thanksgiving Day.

“I think it’s great,” Larry Daniels Sr. said of the non-traditional schedule, including several Sundays when deer can be targeted. “Having it on Sundays helps people who want to hunt. That’s when people are off. Everybody works all the time now.”

Daniels and his son, Larry Jr., 27, both of Salem, bagged an 8-point buck Saturday morning and can return to their regular hunting spot, on a farm close to home, to set their sights on does.

In another new twist this year, licensed hunters are able to hunt bucks and does concurrently.

That change worked out well for Ron Keslar of Latrobe, a sergeant with the city’s police department, and his father, Ronald Keslar, of Saltlick Township, Fayette County. Combined, they took a doe and a buck while hunting together at Keystone State Park.

“When I was working, you had to take (vacation) days for hunting a buck and then you’d have to take off another day for doe season,” said the elder Keslar. “This way, you can take off one day and get them both.”

The Keslars look for a good location where they can stay put to spot deer in the area of the park where hunting is allowed. “We sit in the tree stand together, and he tries to keep me awake,” the elder Keslar said of his son.

Chris Gerhard of Derry Borough hunts on a farm in Derry Township to help the owner control the deer population there. He welcomed the season’s weekend start.

It gives him a three-day span to devote to his quest for deer, counting the Monday after Thanksgiving that is offered as a day off work by his employer.

But Gerhard isn’t keen on the concurrent seasons for bucks and does, which he thinks could be dangerous as hunters aim for more targets on a given day.

“When I grew up hunting, when you heard a shot on the first day, you knew somebody was shooting at a buck,” he said. “Now, you don’t know whether they’re shooting at a doe or a buck.”

Gerhard’s goal is to help the host farmer control the number of does on his land, but he ended up shooting an 8-point buck on Saturday.

“He came along, and I wasn’t going to pass him up,” Gerhard said of the buck. “I’ll go out tomorrow and try to kill some does.”

This season, the state Game Commission reduced the number of doe licenses available to 925,000, down from the previous 932,000.

Unity resident Mel Davis, who delayed his plans while recuperating from knee surgery, was among hunters who failed to get a doe tag before they were sold out locally.

There was no shortage of game in his usual Derry Township hunting spot, and he was able to bag a buck just before 9 a.m. Saturday. “I saw three bucks and three does by 8:30 a.m.,” he said.

Davis is a solitary hunter.

“You can’t trust anybody else to go with you,” he said. “Once the two of you find out there’s a big (buck), the other guy always tries to beat you out of it.”