Pa. antlerless deer licenses soon available in stores, online

Change is in the air this Pennsylvania hunting season.

Hunters in the state soon will be able to buy their 2023-24 antlerless deer licenses wherever hunting licenses are sold.

The new process will go into effect at 8 a.m. Monday when sales begin for general hunting and furtaker licenses. Hunters can either go to a license issuing agent or they can purchase licenses online at huntfish.pa.gov.

Not all hunters are happy to see the tradition of mailing their pink envelopes to county treasurers — and waiting with anticipation to receive their doe tag — be erased after four decades of practice in Pennsylvania.

Some lifelong hunters such as Mike Bilik, 67, a board member of Westmoreland County Sportsmen’s League and the Sportsmen’s Association of Greensburg, think the change was unnecessary and may come with unforeseen repercussions.

“I think the (computer) system will crash,” Bilik said. “I can’t imagine the system is going to be able to handle that many people visiting the site all at once the first thing in the morning. The old system worked and it was fair. Why fix something that isn’t broken?”

The new process for obtaining antlerless licenses was made possible by a new law — Senate Bill 431 — that took effect this year. Hunters previously applied for each round of antlerless licenses by mail, sending pink envelopes to county treasurers, the only entity permitted to sell them.

They had to do so according to a set schedule, with various deadlines based on state residency and rounds of sales. Hunters were required to use a self-addressed stamped envelope and paper checks, a process that is becoming “increasingly foreign to some hunters.”

There have been mixed opinions from local hunters about the new procurement process. Some raised the concern that older generations of hunters don’t have computers in their households, nor are they familiar with how to navigate different portals on the Game Commission website. Other hunters said the new law allows for a modern approach for getting an antlerless deer license, and takes a massive amount of work off county treasurers’ shoulders.

“(The new law) opens up new options for hunters, including buying antlerless licenses online,” said Travis Lau, communications director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. “So there is increased convenience and choice of how or where to purchase an antlerless license associated with these changes, and hunters no longer will need to navigate the mail-in application process.”

Jason Simon, 46, an avid hunter and member of the Logan’s Ferry Sportsmen’s Club in Plum, believes the new law was a “long time coming,” pointing out that other states such as Texas and Virginia have had online license purchases available for years.

“We might see a decline in older hunters, but it could cause an increase in younger hunters because it will be easier for them to get a license,” Simon said. “I think that (the Game Commission is) trying to modernize their hunting process.”

Bilik predicted that the lines at in-person license purchase sites will be “out the door.” He said the second round of license sales would be unfair because it would be first-come, first-served rather than the traditional raffle that came with the mail-in application system.

“I just think the old way worked,” Bilik said. “It’s going to be a big change, and change is always hard. It may turn out to be the best thing in the world, or it may turn out to be the worst. We won’t really know until it happens.”

The law change is prompting local hunting license sellers to buckle down and prepare for the wave of hunters soon to flood through their doors.

Despite the worries that older hunters have expressed, local shop owner Megan Orient is confident in her employees’ preparations for the upcoming rush. Orient, 46, is a fourth-generation owner of Hepler’s Hardware in Youngwood, a store that has seen a regular influx of customers for hunting license sales over the years.

“For us as a small business — our hardware store has changed a lot over time,” Orient said. “We’ve always offered something to do with sporting goods, and hunting has become an integral part of our business. This change will help expand an already popular service.”

Orient said that in past years, Hepler’s has seen up to 1,000 customers per year just for fishing and hunting licenses.

The store manager, Dylan Grindle, 25, believes the new law will help local businesses that sell hunting licenses. He said it would invite new shoppers to explore the store.

“I feel that the addition of the license will give us some more foot traffic through the door,” Grindle said. “It might get some new people through the door when they look up where to buy a license and they see our store name pop up.”

Grindle said he and his employees have gone through different training, emails and letters that the Game Commission sent in preparation for the change. Employees also received a video that demonstrated how to find all of the appropriate portals to purchase licenses.

“I definitely think that this new process will kind of streamline the whole thing,” Grindle said. “I think a lot more people will be more inclined to come right down the street rather than have to drive all the way to the courthouse.”

Like in previous years, antlerless licenses are available in limited numbers. Each of the state’s wildlife management units is allocated a certain number of doe tags specifically designed to manage the deer herd in each unit. Once a unit sells out of doe licenses, hunters without a doe tag for that unit will not be able to harvest an antlerless deer there.

The number of licenses to be made available within each Wildlife Management Unit is set annually by the Game Commission based on the deer-management goals there. None of that will change.

“The change is to the process,” Lau said.