Pennsylvania Game News - August 2011 - 49

wildflowers were in bloom on either side of me, their petals white with pink stripes. in the stream bottom, among the unfurling skunk cabbage, rounded mounds of marsh marigolds displayed bright green leaves and showy yellow blossoms. Red and white trilliums sprinkled the ground. it was good to feel warm air again and see things growing. i took a calling position where the path widened and the sun shown brighter, and a grassy area made a small, wild lawn. if i was a turkey gobbler, i reasoned, this is a place i’d strut. i yelped and clucked, thankful my headnet was holding off most of the blackflies. A noise and a motion below made me turn. i knew it wasn’t a turkey. turkeys don’t bound. three deer came toward me, passing at about 30 yards. the first had budding antlers, a couple of inches long. the second i’m not sure about, but the third also had short, velvet-covered swellings on its head. this was probably a “bachelor group” and the middle deer was likely a buck, as well. these three had made it through last hunting season, the winter and should be here for next deer season, if they stay clear of cars. good again, i thought. i’ll remember this place for fall, too.

the several hours left of the day’s hunt passed quickly, with my calling for a while, moving out the hillside a bit and sitting and calling again. My watch told me it was getting toward noon and the map on my gPS showed me i should be just below where the car was parked. i cut up through the woods, but couldn’t get into the game Lands food plot that would take me to the road corner. the edges of the field had been cut back some yards, the trees left piled high. i realized that the game Commission had done habitat work since i’d been there last year. i knew that although the slash was now impenetrable, it would protect new seedlings and stump sprouts. Some might see the cutting as “ugly,” but i knew that in several years the food plot edge would be young, thick growth, and that made me smile. i could imagine the grouse, woodcock, rabbits, deer and other wildlife enjoying it. And my hunting it in the years to come. “Did you see anything this morning?” my husband asked back at the car. i knew he meant gobblers. “no turkeys,” i said, “but my time wasn’t wasted.” then i told him what i’d seen. 

Trapper’s Tips… Trapping tools that work:

By Dan Lynch

Trappers can acquire a lot of tools throughout the years. Some of these tools are sold to convince the trapper that he or she can’t go on without them. Many of the tools I have purchased have never really ended up in my truck or in my trapline bucket. However, one tool that I use is very important and provides me with multiple uses on both the water and land lines that I run. This tool is called a three in one tool and it looks like a metal hammer with one flat end and one with a claw shape. The handle is about 15 inches long and the end of that handle is beveled and can be used for digging holes. The hammer is used to pound stakes or simply pound a trap bed in frozen ground. The claw is used for cutting roots, digging holes in dirt banks as well as pulling traps and stakes out of the ground at the end of the season. I can do without many of the tools I have purchased over the years but the three in one tool is not one I can go without.
august 2011 49

http://www.pgc.state.pa.us http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/document/920435/trapper's_tips_pdf http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/document/920435/trapper's_tips_pdf

Pennsylvania Game News - August 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - August 2011