More opportunity in more places, that’s what awaits hunters this fall across much of Pennsylvania, thanks to additional state game lands enrolled in the Deer Management Assistance Program.

DMAP, as the program is commonly called, works like this: hunters can get permits that allow them to harvest antlerless deer – one per tag – on the specific property or area for which it was issued.

The program has been around for years and has proven popular with both hunters and landowners – public and private – looking to achieve specific property and wildlife management goals. Last year was the first where DMAP was offered on state game lands, though. There were 22 enrolled.

This year, DMAP is in place on 41 game lands across the Northwest, Northcentral, Northeast and Southeast regions. Combined, there are 7,000 tags available across 360,014 acres.

DMAP permits for state game lands and other public and private properties enrolled in the program go on sale Monday, Aug. 12 at 8 a.m.

DMAP permits are available in addition to the antlerless deer licenses issued on a Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) basis. That has real benefits for hunters, not least across the northern tier.

Pennsylvania is broken up into 22 WMUs. Antlerless licenses went on sale in three of them – 1B, 2G and 3A – at 8 a.m. on June 24 this year. WMU 2G sold out by 5:48 a.m. the next day. WMUs 1B and 3A were next to sell out, just about 10 days after licenses went on sale in the remaining 19 WMUs.

DMAP offers hunters who didn’t get an antlerless tag in one of those three WMUs the chance to still hunt there.

Just as importantly, there and everywhere it’s in place, DMAP on state game lands will help the Game Commission manage habitat for all sorts of wildlife in the face of overbrowsing by deer.

Game Commission Forestry Division Chief Paul Weiss said most forest management conducted on state game lands is intended to create a desirable distribution of tree age classes, including early successional forest. But deer are limiting the success of those efforts.

This year, for the first time in quite a while, foresters are erecting deer-proof fencing on state game lands in every region of the state around new timber cuts, Weiss said. If they don’t, overabundant deer browse off any young seedlings that come back so quickly and so heavily that new forests can’t regenerate themselves.

“DMAP is important to helping us with that because it targets hunting pressure in areas where it’s needed,” Weiss said. “It takes the people who do want to hunt and do want to harvest deer and focuses them in on areas that are actively being managed, but where that management isn’t being successful because of deer pressure.”

Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), which manages state parks and forests, and Allegheny National Forest both use DMAP. They are two of the state’s three largest public landowners, with the Game Commission being the other. The state’s two largest private landowners, Collins Pine and Lyme Timber Co., use DMAP as well.

All have participated in DMAP for years, often on lands adjacent to state game lands. Enrolling those game lands in DMAP gives hunters the opportunity to better manage the properties that their license dollars helped pay for.

The state game lands enrolled in DMAP this year were, as last, chosen after thorough review. They are places where every other option to promote successful forest regeneration were first exhausted.

DMAP tags for a particular game lands can be used anywhere on that property. But Weiss said hunters can up their odds of encountering deer by focusing on those places where timber cuts have been conducted in recent years. Those cuts offer deer food in the form of woody browse and new growth, as well as escape cover. Cuts conducted in the last five to 20 years are especially prime.

“If you find cut areas on a DMAP property, you should have a good chance of success,” Weiss said.

An interactive, mobile-accessible map outlining the location of game lands DMAP unit is available through www.pgc.pa.gov. Clicking on a DMAP unit on the map shows how many tags remain available. When a unit sells out, it will show up as red rather than blue.

Game lands offering DMAP this season, their corresponding four-digit DMAP unit number, and the counties in which they’re found, are:

Northwest Region

SGL 24 (DMAP 5838) – Forest/Clarion

SGL 29 (DMAP 5839) – Warren

SGL 31 (DMAP 6714) – Jefferson County

SGL 54 (DMAP 5840) – Jefferson

SGL 74 (DMAP 5841) – Clarion/Jefferson

SGL 86 (DMAP 5842) – Warren

SGL 96 (DMAP 6718) – Venango County

SGL 122 (DMAP 6719) – Crawford County

SGL 143 (DMAP 5843) – Warren

SGL 195 (DMAP 6720) – Jefferson County

SGL 244 (DMAP 6721) – Jefferson County

SGL 283 (DMAP 5844) – Clarion/Jefferson

Northcentral Region

SGL 30 (DMAP 5824) – McKean

SGL 34 (DMAP 5825) – Clearfield/Elk

SGL 37 (DMAP 5826) – Tioga

SGL 62 (DMAP 6753) – McKean County

SGL 75 (DMAP 5827) – Lycoming

SGL 78 (DMAP 5828) – Clearfield

SGL 90 (DMAP 5829) – Clearfield

SGL 94 (DMAP 5830) – Clearfield

SGL 100 (DMAP 5831) – Centre/Clearfield

SGL 134 (DMAP 6773) – Lycoming/Sullivan

SGL 331 (DMAP 6756) – Clearfield County

Northeast Region

SGL 12 (DMAP 5890) – Bradford

SGL 13 (DMAP 6210) – Sullivan/Columbia

SGL 35 (DMAP 6833) – Susquehanna

SGL 36 (DMAP 5891) – Bradford

SGL 57 (DMAP 6209) – Wyoming/Luzerne

SGL 66 (DMAP 5892) – Sullivan/Wyoming

SGL 70 (DMAP 6834) – Wayne/Susquehanna

SGL 123 (DMAP 5893) – Bradford

SGL 142 (DMAP 6829) – Bradford

SGL 159 (DMAP 6835) – Wayne

SGL 172 (DMAP 6830) – Bradford

SGL 206 (DMAP 5894) – Luzerne

SGL 219 (DMAP 5895) – Bradford

SGL 239 (DMAP 6831) – Bradford

SGL 250 (DMAP 6832) – Bradford 

SGL 289 (DMAP 5896) – Bradford

Southeast Region

SGL 168 (DMAP 7108) – Northampton/Carbon/Monroe

SGL 217 (DMAP 7109) – Lehigh/Carbon/Schuylkill

Details on those properties, such as the total number of DMAP permits available and the number remaining for sale, are available at https://www.pgcapps.pa.gov/Harvest/DMAP. You can find state game lands by region, county or WMU.

Hunters can purchase up to two DMAP permits per state game land unit starting at 8 a.m. on the day third round antlerless license sales begin. That’s Aug. 12 this year. Permits can be purchased any day thereafter so long as they remain available.

DMAP permits cost $10.97 for Pennsylvania residents and $35.97 for nonresidents. They can be purchased from any license issuing agent or online at www.huntfish.pa.gov. Hunters must identify the DMAP unit number when purchasing a permit.

Of course, DMAP permits are once again being offered on other public and private properties around the state. There are a number of DMAP units that apply to geographic areas, rather than specific properties, where the Game Commission wants to get additional samples to check for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

All those, too, can be purchased the same way at the same price.

On some of those other DMAP lands – those where the landowner provides coupons to hunters – deer hunters may buy up to four DMAP permits.

All hunters who get a DMAP tag must report whether they harvested a deer or not at www.huntfish.pa.gov or by sending in a postage-paid report card available in the Hunting & Trapping Digest.