Online antlerless sales flops with PA Hunters

By Bees O’Brien

RENOVO, PA- The infamous antlerless pink envelope era came to an end on Monday morning in Pennsylvania, but it was anything short of a successful transition.

For the first time in Pennsylvania online antlerless deer license sales were offered and as expected the Pennsylvania Game Commission was far from ready to handle the massive traffic both from online sales and sales from licensing agents.

The pressure was on at Tony’s Hardware in Renovo as hunters lined up well before 8 a.m. The store itself doesn’t open until then so owner Travis Fantaskey and employee Zack Pedokus were hammered right from the start of their work day.

“It was crazier than I expected, but people were very patient and understanding even with the glitches,” said Fantaskey. “We started at 8 a.m. and were done at 5:45.”

Tony’s usually closes at 5 p.m. but remained open to serve their patient customers as best they could even despite a two-hour crash within the licensing system.

Those glitches were huge and the massive volume would result in the system crashing multiple times throughout the day. Region 2G, which Tony’s Hardware is located in possibly received the biggest amount of cyber traffic. The wildlife management unit is one of the state’s more popular hunting destinations and usually sells out within hours during the standard old format.

“It was pretty insane. They system crash didn’t help at all, but once they fixed it the process went smooth,” said Tony’s employee Zach Pedokus.

Others in 2G fared much worse and were very much displeased with the PGC’s new way of doing things. Brian Knapp of Millerton waited 12 and a half hours to finally get his chance to purchase licenses. He finally got his license at 9:30 p.m. in a quest that began at 9 a.m.

More displeasure flowed from 2G with Kyle Helm of North Bend waiting almost 9 hours to finally purchase his license.

The online sales did benefit Justin Ditty of North Bend, however. Ditty is on a family vacation in Louisiana and more than likely wouldn’t have been able to get his hands on 2G antlerless tags. Ditty’s wait was still a massive ten hours.

It wasn’t just locally that issues were found. Carl Hill of Athens was in pursuit of antlerless licenses in Region 3C. After a long wait Hill finally was able to purchase a license, but his thoughts on the whole situation was a common comment heard throughout the online hunting community.

“I would say it’s about the PGC not having a big enough system to handle it all at once. It’s the first year and people don’t like change and panic,” said Hill.

Pennsylvania hunter Matt Robley may have had the best idea. His idea was to not have the antlerless sales the same day as the general license sales. This would surely ease off the pressure of the computer systems that the Commonwealth currently relies on.

Both Hill and Helm agreed with Robley’s idea.

The online purchasing did allow Helm to get his licenses while on the road working, but many changes will need to be made before the 2024 licenses go on sale.

My experience saw me log in at 8 a.m. and wait until 4:30 p.m.to finally purchase my licenses. I, for one am glad this day is over.