One of the better hunting tactics is to locate trails leading down from the state game lands to feeding areas on surrounding farms. Enterprising hunters may intercept deer moving in the mornings and late afternoons.

After the firearms season begins, deer probably will not go into the open fields during daylight hours. So you should place your stands well into thick cover where the deer will linger while waiting for the cover of darkness.

Wildlife Management Unit 4E lies in the northeast, bordering WMU 4B. It also is ridge-and-valley terrain, but with somewhat less forested habitat.

This area had a harvest last year of 11,400 total deer, a 13 percent decline from the previous year.

PENNSYLVANIA'S 2007-08 DEER SEASON
TOP FIVE ANTLERLESS WMUs
WMU	ANTLERLESS HARVEST
1. 5C	18,900
2. 2D	18,100
3. 2B	15,300
4. 2A	14,300
5. 1A	12,500
TOP FIVE ANTLERED WMUs
WMU	ANTLERED HARVEST
1. 2D	9,100
2. 2C	8,400
3. 2A	6,600
4. 5C	6,500
5. 1B (Tie)	6,000
5. 1B (Tie)	6,000
TOP FIVE COMBINED WMUs
WMU	TOTAL DEER HARVEST
1. 2D	27,200
2. 5C	25,400
3. 2A	20,900
4. 2C	20,000
5. 2b	19,700
STATEWIDE TOTALS
Antlered Deer	109,200
Antlerless	213,870
Total	323,070

WMU 4E has dense human habitation and a small amount of public land, even with 19 state game lands.

"We are still recommending a goal of stable populations in most of the state," Rosenberry said. "Some of that is due to the fact that in some units, there is no Citizen Advisory Committee. In much of the state right now, if forest habitat health is at too low a level, we expect to see an improvement. But right now, we don't have the data to show that. So we're looking to stabilize the deer herd in most places."

THE BIG WOODS
It's across the Big Woods of the north-central counties where there's probably been the greatest discontent with the current deer situation -- and certainly not without reason. Deer numbers are down and probably stabilizing at current numbers, which will not please many hunters.

The Big Woods is comprised mainly of wildlife management units 2F, 2G and 3B. To keep things more manageable, we'll include WMU 3A.

Note that none of these WMUs is among the leading units for total deer harvest, even though WMU 2F and WMU 2G are very large. Only WMU 3B is in the upper percentile for total deer harvest, and this unit stretches eastward beyond the traditional Big Woods.

WMU 2F, discussed earlier, consists primarily of Allegheny National Forest, where there's an average density of fewer than 12 deer per square mile. Less than a decade ago, the deer density there was about 28 whitetails per square mile.

And during the glory years of Big Woods deer hunting, the density on parts of what is now WMU 2F may have approached 50 deer per square mile! It's easy to see why long-time hunters of this area are disappointed.

For the 2007-08 hunting season, WMU 2G -- the state's largest wildlife management unit -- had a harvest of 11,700 deer, a drop of just 100 deer from the year before. That may be misleading, however, because the antlerless deer harvest increased more than 43 percent, while the antlered deer harvest dropped 29 percent.

In WMU 3B, the total harvest was 16,100 deer, a decline of less than 6 percent from the previous year -- not bad on a comparative basis. This unit has a fair amount of public land available, though not nearly so much as WMU 2F or WMU 2G.