The Game Commission changed the 1st day of rifle deer season in 2019. Some rural Pa. businesses want to see it switched back.

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EMPORIUM — CJ Spirits once bustled with hunters who traveled to rural McKean County after Thanksgiving to prepare for the start of rifle deer season in Pennsylvania.

Hunters would drive to camp on Friday, shop locally in Kane over the weekend, and head out early Monday morning to seek their first deer.

However, a 2019 decision by the state Game Commission to move opening day to Saturday instead of Monday has altered longstanding traditions and spending habits. Now, there’s a rush to get to camp, shoot a deer by Sunday, and get home by Monday for work or school.

The change has resulted in thousands of dollars in lost revenue for CJ Spirits, owner Sam Cummings Jr. told Spotlight PA. For business, it’s an almost “nothing weekend,” he said.

The Game Commission didn’t study the potential statewide economic impacts before approving the new opening day, and there hasn’t been a comprehensive review since. But local officials and business owners say they’ve lost money because hunters now spend less time in their communities. Additionally, they worry about the long-term effects of the change given the shrinking populations of rural areas.

Tina Johns Solak, executive director of the Cameron County Chamber of Commerce & Artisan Center, said local business owners talk often about the effects of the switch.

“The misnomer that we make most of our money during hunting season — it’s a joke because we don’t anymore,” she told Spotlight PA. “Elk watching is a big deal here. That brings a lot of people. We have people coming in, and that has helped, but it still hasn’t replaced hunting season.”

Game Commission studies showed current hunters preferred keeping the Monday opener by a 2-to-1 ratio, as noted by then-Commissioner James Daley during an April 2019 public meeting. An additional survey of lapsed hunters found that only a small percentage would buy a license with a Saturday opener, he added at the time.

“The potential benefits are outweighed by the disruption for many hunters and rural businesses,” Daley said at the meeting. He resigned after the Game Commission approved the new date.

Some commission members said they hadn’t heard strong opposition about the change, which aimed to make hunting more accessible to people with constraints on the weekday. Feedback against the switch wasn’t enough to sway a majority.

But input over the past five years from business owners and hunters has convinced some lawmakers to propose a return to Monday — though the legislation has largely died without making it out of committee.

Most recently, state Rep. David Maloney (R., Berks) pushed to add language moving back to a Monday opener to a bill that would end Pennsylvania’s near-total ban on Sunday hunting. When the Game Commission made the change in 2019, he said “sportsmen were ignored.”

Lawmakers, however, rejected the idea in committee and advanced the bill, which later expired in the state House.

Policymakers who opposed a switch back said the weekend opener makes the sport easier to access, especially for students who might not get the Monday after Thanksgiving off from school anymore. In some rural districts across Pennsylvania, the first day of rifle deer season was a holiday in its own right.

State Rep. Anita Astorino Kulik (D., Allegheny), who chairs the House Game & Fisheries Committee, said in October that she’s discussed the issue with members of the Game Commission and expects those talks to continue.

The agency stands by the change and thinks it was the best move for the future of hunting in Pennsylvania, Executive Director Stephen Smith said.

He told Spotlight PA that Pennsylvania has avoided a national trend of declining hunting license sales, in part thanks to the Saturday opening day.

From 2014 to 2018, Pennsylvania sold an average of 902,138 hunting licenses annually, reporting consistently lower numbers each year. While more recent sales are still lower than those in the past, the annual decline isn’t as steep.

The Game Commission doesn’t receive money from the state’s General Fund, so it primarily relies on license sales and gas and oil leases on state Game Lands for revenue.

“Our counterparts all across the country have been experiencing a pretty slow and steady decline of license buyers going back decades, and when the board made this change, what we saw is that decline stopped,” Smith said. “Essentially, we went through a period where license sales have basically plateaued, where we’re no longer losing hunters at the rate that we were prior to the board making this change.”

He also attributed the state’s steady numbers — which have averaged 858,434 since 2019 — to expanded Sunday hunting opportunities and the COVID-19 pandemic driving interest in hunting.

In 2021, the Game Commission contracted with Responsive Management to survey Pennsylvania hunters about the opening day of deer season following the switch to Saturday. A majority of respondents — 60% — supported the Saturday opener. Opposition to the change was higher among hunters 55 and older and those who hunted at a camp. Hunters who support a Saturday opener said they have work obligations on Monday.

If license numbers remain steady — and even increase in the future — Smith said he expects the benefit will also be felt by communities and businesses with ties to the sport, noting that he hasn’t heard directly from individuals frustrated with the 2019 change, but the Game Commission is open to that discussion.

“The board truly made this decision because it’s in what it considers to be the best long-term interest of the sport,” he said. “That being said, the board is always open for feedback and input from our stakeholders all across the spectrum.”

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