"I'd say the overall comments I've heard from hunters have been favorable," said Bruce Metz, a Southwest Region land management supervisor. "As you get toward the urban areas, there have always been big bucks because they're protected."

Age has been the primary limiting factor on rack size in Pennsylvania. However, with so much land closed to hunting in the Southeast Region, many more bucks live longer here.

Changes as a result of antler restrictions are most evident on state game lands along the northern edge of the region. These are mostly forested ridgetops.

SOUTHCENTRAL REGION
The Southcentral Region, as usual, trailed all other regions with a harvest of 16,000 bucks last year. That was a 16 percent drop from the previous year. Bedford County was the top county with a harvest of 3,100 bucks. It ranked 10th in the Commonwealth. Huntingdon County was next with 2,800 bucks, 13th in Pennsylvania.

"We did see plenty of antlers. I've never seen anything like it," said Don Garner, Southcentral Region Information and Education supervisor. "That should top out this year."

The steep ridge and valley terrain in this region can make hunting difficult. Deer move onto the agricultural lands in the valleys to feed at night and then retreat to the forested ridges during daylight hours. Hunting pressure on the farms also moves deer onto the more remote ridges. Conveniently, most state game lands are on those ridges.

Access is limited to many of the state game lands in the region. Hunters should scout for the bigger bucks by spotting them on farmlands and then figure out how to get onto adjacent state game lands. Some farmers may allow hunters to walk across their farms as long as they do not hunt until they get onto the public land. In other cases, hunters must use one of the access roads to the state game lands and then make long hikes to their hunting areas.

SOUTHWEST REGION
The Southwest Region led the Commonwealth in bucks harvested and had four counties in the top 10. The 2004-05 take of 27,000 bucks was a 13 percent decline from the previous year, about average for the Commonwealth. That 2004-05 buck harvest is a 38 percent drop from the record 2000-01 season, a record for the region, and the state record was the following year.

This can partially be attributed to the 4-points-on-a-side antler restrictions in WMUs 2A, 2B, 2D and 1A, which make up the lion's share of the region.

The western counties are heavily weighted to the 4-point rule. This led to a 34 percent drop in buck harvest in the Southwest Region the first year antler restrictions were in effect. This was the only region to increase its buck harvest in the second year of antler restrictions.

Barry Zaffuto, a regional land management supervisor, noted that the mast crop was generally good in the region last fall with a few weak areas. This bodes well for trophy hunters this fall.

"If we get snow during deer season, people are going to wonder where all the deer are coming from," Zaffuto said.

Two distinctly different hunting situations confront hunters in this region. Certainly the best option for trophy hunters who are interested in high-scoring racks is hunting on private lands in the lower elevations.

"If hunters are lucky enough to find a place to hunt, they should just keep on working it," Zaffuto suggested.

However, opportunities for big bucks are also quite good in the mountainous public lands. Two factors play into trophy hunters' hands. One is the ruggedness and remoteness of these lands. Although there are many serious hunters in the region and hunting pressure gets very heavy in many areas, there are pockets of cover where bucks have time to grow old. The other factor is a good buck-to-doe ratio brought about by large antlerless deer license allocations.