Ask a few questions, and you have to live with the answers you get.

For years, proponents of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's deer-management program have speculated that it's just a "vocal minority" of disgruntled hunters who are unhappy with the state's deer population.

That there is a "silent majority" out there that backs the agency's deer management program.

Now it can be stated as fact that an overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania deer hunters aren't happy.

They're dissatisfied with the number of both bucks and does that they're seeing in the areas where they hunt.

They believe deer numbers are declining in those areas.

And even though a majority of hunters say they support managing deer for a healthy forest, more hunters than not say they don't want deer numbers reduced to accomplish that management goal.

Perhaps most stinging of all is the fact that just 36 percent of hunters said they are satisfied with the current deer- management program, while 27 percent are ambivalent about it and 33 percent are dissatisfied.

All this was released last week in the results of the 2011 Pennsylvania Deer Hunter Survey conducted by the Game Commission.

The agency randomly selected 6,000 hunters who bought licenses for the 2010-11 season and sent surveys to them last year.

From that pool, a total of 3,572 usable, completed surveys were received for data collection.

The survey asked a series of 87 questions covering a variety of topics, ranging from hunter health to preferred methods of hunting to the amount of time spent hunting.

But the meat of the survey gauged hunters' views on the quality of the deer hunting in Pennsylvania and on the deer populations in the areas where they hunt.

Here are a few statistics from the survey:

• Three of four hunters said the number of bucks they saw in 2010-11 was too low for them to be satisfied.

• Although 61 percent of hunters said they support the current antler restrictions, only 36 percent said they were satisfied with the quality of the bucks they saw, versus 38 percent who were dissatisfied.

• A total of 61 percent of respondents said they weren't satisfied with the number of does they saw.

• In the areas where they hunt, 66 percent of respondents said the deer population is too low, 31 percent said it's "about right" and 3 percent said it's too high.

• In rating the 2010-11 deer hunting season, 37 percent said they were satisfied, 24 percent said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied and 40 percent said they were dissatisfied.

• On deer management, 75 percent agreed herds should be managed for healthy, sustainable forests, and 88 percent agreed they should be managed for a healthy, sustainable deer population.

nWhen asked if they would accept lower deer numbers to improve forest habitat, 27 percent agreed, 32 percent remained neutral and 37 percent disagreed.

nWhen asked if they would accept lower deer numbers to improve deer health, 29 percent agreed, 32 percent remained neutral and 36 percent disagreed.

Now that the survey report is out, it's hard to conclude anything other than — when it comes to deer — support for the Game Commission from its customer base is pretty weak.

I don't think the survey will force any significant changes in the deer management program, however.

The biologists believe in what they're doing, and they have plenty of science to back their position.

But I do think it's important for the Board of Game Commissioners — the folks who have to consider the social side of hunting in addition to the science — to know how their customers feel.

They don't have to like it or agree with it.

But they need to know it.

And let's give credit where credit is due.

A lot of folks thought the Game Commission would never ask the hard questions it did in this survey, because they said the agency didn't really want to know what hunters thought about the deer-management program.

Well, it asked those questions. And it gave us the answers — the good, the bad and the ugly.

Now we all know where the hunting public stands on deer in Pennsylvania.

Following are a few random statistics from the survey that I found interesting:

• Only 11 percent of hunters hunted deer outside Pennsylvania in 2010-11.

• Only 17 percent of hunters exclusively hunt public land in Pennsylvania.

• Only 19 percent of hunters use trail cameras.

• Only 5 percent of hunters paid a fee to access land to hunt deer.

As you can probably surmise from my phrasing, I would have guessed more hunters did all of these things.

One survey result that didn't surprise me in the least was that 93 percent of hunters said they hunt deer to "relax, enjoy nature and escape from other everyday concerns."

Amen to that.

P.J. Reilly is the Sunday News' outdoors writer. Email him at preilly@lnpnews.com.