Pennsylvania deer hunters to be afield Saturday, Sunday in firearms season for 1st time

For the first time in Pennsylvania history, deer hunters will be able to hunt for a full weekend during the statewide firearms deer season.

Hunters will go afield Saturday throughout the commonwealth for the opening day of firearms season for the second consecutive year. Then, those who don’t fill their tags on Saturday can go out on Sunday again for the first time in search of whitetail deer.

This will be the last of three consecutive Sunday hunts that the state’s hunters will be able to partake in this year. On Nov. 15, deer archery hunters were permitted to hunt on a Sunday for the first time. Then, on Nov. 22, bear hunters were able to go out on a Sunday.

The Sunday hunts were added after the General Assembly passed a law in 2019 allowing hunting on three Sundays. The law gave the Pennsylvania Game Commission the authority to name the dates and hunting seasons for those three Sundays. The game commission chose the consecutive hunts in November and approved the dates in April.

The game commission had sought to legalize Sunday hunts as another way of addressing a trend of declining license sales during the past two decades.

The Saturday opening day was added for the 2019 season in an effort to lure younger hunters who might attend college or have their first job, allowing them to hunt on a weekend instead of taking time off for the traditional Monday opener.

The Pennsylvania demographics for hunting have been skewing older as fewer young people have gone afield. As hunters age and stop hunting, the game commission is looking for younger hunters to replace them and keep the Pennsylvania tradition going.

The Saturday hunt appeared to be somewhat successful in its intended purpose as it helped halt the decrease in license sales and even led to a small increase for 2019.

The Sunday firearms hunt was added as a way of augmenting the Saturday strategy that focuses on attracting younger hunters.

Safety issues

With this weekend’s hunt approaching, the game commission has been cautioning about two areas of hunting safety:

• As the covid-19 pandemic spreads statewide, hunters are asked to not to gather in large groups from different households in camps. This risks the spread of the virus and also could particularly endanger elderly hunters who are members of the 65-and-up age group, which is the most at-risk demographic during the pandemic.

• The game commission also cautions hunters to double their efforts to be safe in identifying deer before shooting. One of the main concerns of opponents of the Sunday hunts is that it could risk the safety of hikers and other outdoors enthusiasts who often head onto forest trails during Sundays.

• Another issue addressed was the concerns of landowners who feared hunters going on their property during Sunday hunting. As part of the law, hunters must get written permission from the owners to be on private property.