Anniversaries are always noteworthy, and this year’s 40th anniversary of Pennsylvania’s flintlock muzzleloader deer season is for many reasons.
This special season, which is unique to Pennsylvania, has seen many ups and downs during the last four decades. It came into existence without celebration and not a whole lot of interest in 1974 when the first year of this primitive deer hunt was held. The season was almost an afterthought.
That year it was actually the bowhunters who celebrated the changes by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in the game laws. Although bowhunters needed to share their late archery season with this small group of just 2,064 specially licensed muzzleloader hunters, it seemed like an easy compromise for a larger gain.
Bowhunters were more than willing to share what was just a three-day flintlock season out of their two weeks of extended deer hunting. In addition, bowhunters had been granted the opportunity to use the new compound bows that were flooding the market.
Just 65 deer — including four bucks — were taken with flintlock rifles in that inaugural year compared to 3,909 deer — including 1,572 bucks — taken by bowhunters. Back then there were only 30 State Game Lands statewide open to flintlock hunters, so they were concentrated into specific areas where archery and rifle seasons had reduced the available number of deer.
License “stamps” were available at any time for this special flintlock hunt, and the idea of hunting for three days during the Christmas vacation had great appeal. Then, by the time of our nation’s bicentennial in 1976, the number of flintlock deer hunters had risen 350 percent.
Adding to the allure was the fact Hollywood had glamorized the venerable flintlock with TV and movies. Our own native son, Daniel Boone, was given his due; Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap was atop many a child’s head; and Jeremiah Johnson deepened our appreciation for frontier life.
Hardware stores and gun shops were selling Thompson/Center Hawken flintlocks in .45- and .50-caliber as fast as they received them from the New Hampshire company. New names in muzzleloaders like Connecticut Valley Arms, Lyman, Traditions and even old companies like Remington and Ruger were getting into the lucrative Pennsylvania market.
Needing more room for the flintlock deer hunters to roam, the PGC expanded the number of open SGLs to 60 and provided a three-week season. Muzzleloader stamp sales soared to 25,321 by 1978, but the next year the PGC board of game commissioners slammed the brakes on what it called an “uncontrolled harvest of antlerless deer.”
Flintlock season was cut back from three weeks to two, but hunters were now allowed to hunt statewide. New opportunities for hunting on private property and SGLs continued the appeal for this late season.
In 1980, the season was reduced to one week, but flintlock stamp sales continued to rise. Pennsylvania was fielding 145,144 flintlock-only deer hunters, who took 8,069 deer — including 490 bucks. Flintlock season was then reduced to four days in 1982, and it was added to the end of the antlerless season — Dec. 15-18.
This caused a drop of 15,000 in license sales and reduction of more than 4,000 deer taken, and some on the PGC board wanted to scrap the flintlock season. This was avoided through the farsightedness of then executive director Pete Duncan, who called on the help of members of the Pennsylvania Federation of Black Powder Shooters to help write regulations to keep the flintlock season primitive.
2014-15 Late Deer Seasons
Flintlock (antlered and antlerless): Statewide — Dec. 26-Jan. 10; Wildlife Management Units 2B, 5C and 5D — Jan. 12-24. One antlered deer is permitted per hunting license year, or one antlerless deer and a WMU-specific or DMAP-specific permit for each additional antlerless deer.
Archery (antlered and antlerless): Statewide — Dec. 26-Jan. 10; WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D — Jan. 12-24. One antlered deer is permitted per hunting license year, or one antlerless deer and a WMU-specific or DMAP-specific permit for each additional antlerless deer.
Extended firearms (antlerless): Special Regulations Areas of Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties — Dec. 26-Jan. 24. An antlerless deer with each required WMU or DMAP antlerless license.