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The Pennsylvania Game Commission changed the most popular deer hunting weekend in 2019, moving the 60-plus year Monday after Thanksgiving opening day to the Saturday prior.
As Thanksgiving is the most traveled family holiday of the year, you can understand how that created problems for hunters with family conflicts.
Additionally, hundreds of thousands of hunters travel considerable distances to go to camps and hotels, and this rushed timeframe of losing two days breeds further contempt for the Saturday start.
Businesses en route to hunters' final destinations were no longer patronized due to time constraints, and these small shops in rural northern Pennsylvania lost their Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, which for some is the most profitable sales weekend of the year.
There was a compromise to put one of the newly approved Sundays in the following weekend, creating 13 continuous hunting days starting with the Monday opener.
If you couldn't hunt the Monday, you had a two-day weekend, just a few days away, but the PGC commissioners chose the quantum leap that divided hunters, rather than this more sensible balanced approach.
There was no deer management or biological basis for this change.
Initially, changing the Monday deer opener was opposed by a strong majority of hunters -- from an overwhelming 89% of opposition directly contacting the agency (PGC) during the public comment period, to an earlier hunter survey revealed 65% opposed.
Myriad other metrics were brought forth that historically guided decision making of the PGC board of commissioners, five of eight commissioners ignored them all.
There was obviously more driving this decision than sound assessment of data.
After passage, due to strong opposition, a three-year evaluation was promised by PGC commissioners to then House Game and Fisheries Committee Chairmen Bill Kortz and Keith Gillespie.
This promise was made when the PGC board was summoned back to Harrisburg by the committee to reconsider their vote. The three-year evaluation never happened.
Rep. Kortz retired, the PGC board did not have a seated quorum at the three-year review date, so the seasons and bag limits were just passed through to 2022 as protocol requires.
Rep. Gillespie, seemingly too engrossed in his re-election campaign at the time, did not request another PGC board meeting after a seated board quorum was achieved just a few weeks later.
Gillespie is now in a lame-duck situation, losing his bid for re-election.
The evidence was clear before changing the opener as strong opposition was voiced to the agency and validated by PGC staff surveys.
The Saturday opener structure rushed hunting activity from travel, scouting time, traditions, youth involvement, opening a camp, business patronage, nonprofit and first responder fundraising events who utilized that weekend in small northern towns.
The heartburn continues still today.
These issues were as much a part of deer hunting as the hunt itself.
What previously was the "Super Bowl" weekend of Pennsylvania deer hunting now feels like a preseason game for far too many, if they can make the game at all.
Assessment of almost all factors the PGC commissioners claimed would benefit our sport didn't unfold. Even resident youth license sales continued their decline each year of the Saturday opener.
Some like the Saturday, but the damage to peripheral issues mentioned earlier took it on the chin. This has divided our hunters, and that one aspect alone shows all the opposition was indeed valid.
Recent movements such as the coalition to "Reinstate the Monday Deer Opener" and a Facebook group called "Pennsylvania Hunters Against the Saturday Deer Opener" are steadily growing.
Podcasts for these two entities are now available and will be continuing that explain and reveal the Saturday opener story for Pennsylvania hunters and legislators alike.
Go to YouTube and search "Opening Day Sportsman" and watch these three podcasts. Podcast 1 is an intro, Podcast 2 shows and reveals the post Saturday opener data, and Podcast 3 has former PGC Commissioner Jim Daley as a guest.
He validates the mistake of the Saturday change and exposes the "big lie" -- his words -- by the PGC for the recent elimination of rifle use for fall turkey hunting as well.
Podcast 3 also reveals answers from questions in the small PGC survey that do not support the Saturday start as a success, contrary to the agency assessment.
When contrasting all the pros vs. cons of the Saturday opener experiment, it was a relative failure.
To join the coalition, contact rsantucci2022@gmail.com or ddavila2112@gmail.com Santucci resides in Robinson Township. Davila, a Blair County native, resides in Boardman, Ohio.