Of course, many hunters would disagree with this analysis. But along the ridges, soils are thin and very acidic. This is not rich habitat.

Now, after letting the PGC's deer-management program begin to do its work, signs of progress are showing.

"The health of the deer has been very good for two or three years now. Again, as I probably told you last year, the butcher shops were pretty much talking about the larger size of deer in general. That is definitely a trend, and we noticed that two years ago. They reiterated it last year and this year, it's kind of common knowledge they're that size."

If you want to take a mature mountain buck -- one of the greatest, most honorable prizes in all of deer hunting -- this is the time, and the mountainous section of the Southwest Region is the place. No, probably you will not see many deer. No, it won't be easy. Your chances for success are not high. But if it were easy and the odds for success were high, then the prize wouldn't be as great. You might as well go to a commercial deer hunting operation and buy a buck.

This isn't for hunters who need an easy kill. This is for hunters who really enjoy the hunt, who can have a great time without even seeing a deer, just knowing that there is a mature buck around.

When this kind of a hunt excites you, then you are an elite deer hunter. ] Perhaps you will see more deer in the northern mountains than in the southern mountains, although this is not a great difference.

"Area 2E -- and again, this is personal observation -- seems to have a higher density of deer, generally speaking, than 2C," Zaffuto said, "based on hunters' observations and our guys."

Through the past several years, state game lands have expanded in northern Indiana County. This can be some of the better deer hunting in western Pennsylvania.

"The game lands are made up of portions of reclaimed strip mines, usually the hilltops or hillsides. That area is just beautiful," Zaffuto said. "It's deep hemlock valleys, grapevine hillsides and openings from the past strip mining that are reclaimed. Very diverse, very nice."

The Game Commission is currently inventorying this area and doing extensive habitat work.

"SGL No. 2E is sort of a northern forest broken into small farms plots, that kind of stuff. Northern Indiana, remnants of the North Central Region coming down from the top, mountainous area and the remnants of the ridges coming from the south -- they all just sort of converge there on 2E, rugged river valleys, kind of nice area to hunt. Most of it's in Clearfield County, Indiana and Cambria."

There are 14 state game lands to scout in WMU 2E.

SGL No. 262 is one of those that have been enlarged through the addition of reclaimed strip mines and where the habitat has been extensively improved. It's situated in northeastern Indiana County between U.S. Route 119 and U.S. Route 219, across a sprawling area of broken, irregular tracts roughly between Hillsdale, Rochester Mills, Smithport, Glen Campbell and Gipsy. It has a total area of 5,415 acres.

The Northwestern Region also holds some of the better deer hunting in Pennsylvania, but with a lot of habitat quite unlike anywhere else in the Commonwealth. This area, like the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, was scoured by Ice Age glaciers, but the results are very different.

As in the northeast, there are numerous swamps, ponds and small lakes, but the soil here is richer. This is some of the better farmland in Pennsylvania -- perhaps as rich as the southeast, but with a much shorter growing season.

Due to the rich soils, this glaciated area, which consists of WMUs 1A and 1B, gives ups some of the better trophy bucks in Pennsylvania.

Though access to private lands is somewhat better than in the Southwest Region, it's still the state game lands where visiting hunters should look for more consistent hunting opportunities. WMU 1B in particular has plenty of public land tracts, with 34 state game lands ranging in size from several small tracts to 5,050-acre SGL No. 101 on the Erie County/Crawford County border.