It’s the most wonderful time of the year for Pa. bowhunters [column] | Outdoors

Pennsylvania’s first archery deer season of the 20026-27 hunting year begins Sept. 19.

That’s the early archery opener limited to Wildlife Management Units 2B, 5C and 5D.

WMU 5C includes a tiny sliver of northeast Lancaster County, and parts of several counties to the east, including neighboring Chester and Berks counties.

In the rest of the state, archery hunting begins Oct. 3.

This will be my 35th year chasing white-tailed deer with a bow and arrow in Pennsylvania.

There’s nothing like it, in my opinion.

Don’t get me wrong.

I love gun season.

But it’s just not the same as hunting deer with a bow.

In gun season, I feel like I’m sitting out there in my tree stand hoping another hunter bumps a deer that runs my way.

In archery season, it’s me against the deer when the deer are just out there doing their thing in the wild.

I spend time in the woods figuring out their travel routes and daily patterns.

I’ve got multiple cameras scattered around giving me 24-hour surveillance of the places where I think deer like to congregate.

I’ll likely spend many hours across many days during the season just sitting in my stands watching the woods.

All of this effort is in hopes of being in the right place, at the right time, when the right deer does all the right things to walk within range of me and my compound bow, which is generally under 40 yards.

I shoot my bow nearly every day, all year long, just so I can take some measure of control of one aspect of this scenario – most of which is out of my control.

There’s no question today’s compound archery equipment is capable of precision accuracy out to 50, 60, 70 yards and even farther.

But the bow can only do what the archer makes it do.

To be truly proficient with a compound bow takes practice.

Lots of practice.

I have a 7mm magnum rifle that I haven’t shot one time in probably five years.

I feel pretty confident I could take that to the range today and hit within an inch of a nickel-sized dot at 100 yards.

Developing that confidence with a compound bow at 40 yards takes dedicated practice.

But that’s part of the game.

Also part of the game is understanding I have to be much closer to a deer to take it with my bow than I’d have to be with a gun.

And that’s no small feat, given the whitetail’s legendary senses of smell, hearing, and eyesight, not to mention its equally legendary sixth sense that allows it to simply avoid danger when everything seems to be in the hunter’s favor.

So on a random day in October or November, I’m in the right place at the right time, and a nice buck does all the right things to bring it inside 40 yards of my position.

That’s when things kick into overdrive.

This is the moment we bowhunters live for.

And until you’ve been there, any description of this moment is understated.

The instant I decide a deer within bow range is a deer I plan to shoot, my heartbeat shifts gears.

It gets fast and it gets loud.

I can actually hear the “thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump” in my ears.

I don’t know how deer don’t hear it.

With that increased heart rate comes a surge of adrenalin that causes muscles to tighten and limbs to shake.

And it’s at this moment that I have to draw my bow, hold it steady, take careful aim and then deliver a perfect shot.

Until you’ve done it, you can’t imagine how difficult it is to take control of your mind and body at this moment and force them to focus on the task at hand.

I’ve shot with some incredible target archers over the years, who were considerably more accurate than me on the range, but who fell apart when it came time to take a shot at a deer.

Both situations involve shooting a bow and arrow, yet the experiences are like night and day.

Levi Morgan is one of the best target archers on the planet.

He has told me more than once that having to shoot a perfect shot on the last shot of a major tournament to win tens of thousands of dollars is the closest he’s come to replicating the adrenalin surge and nervousness that come with taking a shot at a deer.

But how many of us ever get to experience that situation?

Experience taking a shot with a bow, and deliver the perfect arrow that results in you attaching your tag to a whitetail, and you’ll understand immediately why October and November are the most important months of the year for a Pennsylvania bowhunter, bar none.

Christmas holiday season, birthdays, summer vacation – they’re nice.

But you don’t spend every other month of the year preparing for them, dreaming about them, strategizing your actions during them.

Pennsylvania’s archery deer season is arguably more popular now than it’s ever been.

Back in the 1990s, Pennsylvania boasted healthy sales of archery licenses that regularly topped 300,000.

Those sales slid through the early 2000s, dipping to about 257,000 in 2006, 266,000 in 2007 and 260,000 in 2008.

In 2009, crossbows were legalized for use by all bowhunters.

Previously, using a crossbow during the Pennsylvania archery season required a note from a doctor that stated the hunter suffered from some injury or disability that prevented that person from using a compound bow or traditional bow.

Since crossbows have become legal for anyone to use in archery season, archery license sales here have soared.

According to Pennsylvania Game Commission figures, archery license sales hit a peak of 373,000 during the 2020 season, which saw a spike in all outdoor activities due to Covid.

Sales of those licenses have cooled a bit since then, but each of the years from 2022-2024 saw sales above 350,000, plus another 40,000 junior combination licenses, which cover archery, furtaker and muzzleloader privileges for junior hunters.

Andy Williams in 1963 famously recorded the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” about the Christmas season.

I’m pretty sure if he were a Pennsylvania bowhunter, he’d have had a different time of the year in mind.

And that time starts now.

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