*** Editor's Note: The following ARticle is posted from the York Daily Record at www.ydr.com

York hunters head to God's Country for deer
Bill Einsig

Mention deer camp to a hunter born and raised in York County, and they'll immediately think of God's Country — Potter County, "The Mountains."
For some unknown reason, there's an undeniable link between the hunters in York and the forests of Potter. Places like Cross Fork, Costello, Conrad and Carter Camp are as familiar as Dallastown, Dover and Dillsburg.
Actually, for me, "The Mountains" start along Route 120 near Jersey Shore, where Route 44 turns into the heart of God's Country, then west to Emporium, and north to Route 6 from Coudersport to Galeton.
Camps from York County communities and sportsmen's clubs are sprinkled throughout this area of Potter, Clinton, Cameron, and Tioga counties.
At the end of the hunting day, it's not unusual for hunters to make the rounds of other York County camps to meet friends from home and check what they have on the pole.
Some years ago — maybe a few decades ago, come to think of it — a graduate student at Penn State did a study that compared the county where a hunter harvested an antlered deer to where the hunter lived. The student chose a random sample of 6,839 report cards submitted to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. He estimated that number to be about 10 percent of the total harvest at that time.
According to the study, hunters from most counties, except obvious urban areas such as Allegheny and Philadelphia, harvested the greatest number of bucks close to home, but it's interesting to compare the second-ranked counties.
For instance, 52 successful buck hunters from Allegheny County took their bucks in Forest County. That was actually their highest harvest because they took only 17 in Allegheny County. Four other counties were tied with 26 bucks each, so it looks like a lot of Allegheny hunters travel to Forest County for deer.
Cumberland County hunters took 42 deer near home, but another 26 in Perry County. Erie hunters took 43 at home and 36 in Warren County. Blair County hunters took 57 at home and another 22 in Huntingdon County.
The numbers in this sample appear to make links between certain counties. Some counties seem to have no strong ties to other counties. Its hunters either hunt mostly at home or are spread across many counties. But in York County, the numbers show a distinct linkage. In the sample from this study year, Yorkers took 58 bucks in York County, 41 in Potter County, 28 in Clinton County, and 23 in Tioga County. The rest of the 305 bucks harvested by Yorkers in this sample were taken from a wide range of counties in much smaller numbers.
Exactly why Yorkers have such a strong connection to the northwoods is unclear, but there's a long tradition of local generations hunting the large tracts of public-owned forest in the northcentral counties.
Most hunters understand they can probably see larger deer right here in York County, but the experience of hunting in "The Mountains" still makes them go north each year.
Unfortunately, much of that tradition could be changing soon as hunters find fewer deer up in God's Country. Bill Einsig writes an outdoors column for the Sunday News. Reach him at yorkoutdoors @ydr.com.
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