Archery hunters are hoping to exercise the shooting skills they've honed in target practice and the information they gathered from scouting when the statewide archery deer season opens Saturday.

The nearly seven-week season includes Nov. 15, the first Sunday in which it is legal to hunt in Pennsylvania, and ends Nov. 20. Hunters with archery licenses can harvest one buck. An antlerless license is needed to harvest a doe. A hunter with both licenses is permitted to harvest a buck and doe on the same day.

Hunters are not required to wear fluorescent orange while archery hunting, but the state Game Commission recommends wearing some.

Ron Hasychak, 58, who has been archery hunting with a compound bow for about 30 years, begins scouting for deer signs after the hunting season ends and uses trail cameras to identify deer on the private, wooded property he hunts near his home in Clay Township.

“I think it's going to be a good year. There seems to be an abundance of acorns,” Hasychak said.

The trail cameras that he sets up in late July have been put to good use.

“No monster bucks, but I have six to eight shooter bucks on camera,” Hasychak said.

He said he likes scouting in the winter after hunting season ends because, by that time, deer usually return to their normal travel patterns that were disrupted by hunters during the season, and he enjoys the woods in wintertime.

“It's a nice time to be in the woods,” Hasychak said.

He said it is easy to pattern deer movement during the early archery season, and he is looking forward to spending Saturday in his tree stand.

“It's supposed to be a nice weekend for hunting,” Hasychak said.

Sylvia Bonetti, 71, a retired Slippery Rock Area Middle School home economics teacher, shot her first archery season buck last year, and she and her husband, James, are ready for this year's opener.

“I practice a lot. I have it sighted in. Yes, we are ready,” Bonetti said.

She said she will hunt from a tree stand and her husband will use a tree stand or a ground blind on the private property they hunt in Marion Township.

They have been seeing a lot of acorns, and trail cameras have photographed some decent bucks, she said.

“Last year, I did luck into a nice eight-point (buck),” Bonetti said.

She said she has been hunting off and on for 48 years, but started archery hunting only four years ago.

“I use a crossbow. It's pink. Everybody laughs at my pink bow, but it works,” Bonetti said.

Hunters who see purple in the woods should take notice.

The Game commission is reminding hunters that the state's “purple paint” law allows property owners to use purple paint, instead of signs, to mark the boundaries of the properties and alert people that trespassing isn't permitted.

People hunting in the wildlife management units that encompass Butler County and many other Western Pennsylvania counties are required to follow the “three up” rule when harvesting a buck.

A buck must have at least three points on one side of its antlers to be legally harvested. Each tine and the main beam of the antlers can be counted as a point. The brow tine, located just above the antler base, is not counted as a tine.