Pennsylvania Game News - June 2012 - 20

DaD’s Last Buck
By Carl L. Pillar
AD SHOT his last buck, a 6-point, in 1986, at the age of 67. It was just one of many deer he took over the years, and while it certainly wasn’t the biggest, from my standpoint, it may have been the best. Dad began hunting in his early teens, and like most of his generation, more out of necessity than sport. He grew up on a farm in Warren County in the 1920s and ’30s, and it was fortunate that game was all around, because venison was an essential part of feeding the family. I guess he had to learn how to hunt from relatives and neighbors, because his father died when Dad was only 10 years old. His first buck, I believe, was taken with a slug from a 16-gauge single-shot. That was in the days of blue jeans frozen stiff around your legs and leather shoes inside thin rubber boots with buckles. I know it was many years before better times allowed for a wool hunting outfit and insulated boots. Over the years, Dad owned and used an assortment of rifles and shotguns for deer, including an octagonbarreled lever action .32-20, but his Winchester Model 94 .30-30, “made before 1964, when the steel was better,” he always proudly added, was his favorite. He was never much for scopes, binoculars, treestands, grunt calls, scents or lures (except for maybe an apple in his pocket), or any of the other gadgets hunters today seem to need. He never saw his buck on a trail camera before the season. More likely, he may have seen it from his kitchen
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window, because there is a natural crossing deer have always taken across our field. I guess Dad’s general philosophy of life, and of hunting, was to keep it simple. I know I’ve dealt with a fogged-up or snow-covered rifle scope enough times to see the wisdom of his ways. Once, as a teenager, I got myself wedged in the crotch of a hemlock tree I was using as a treestand, unable to turn around quickly enough as I helplessly watched over my shoulder as a nice buck walked past. Those things don’t happen when you stick to open sights and keep your feet on the ground. Dad knew and often talked about when deer were scarce in Pennsylvania. When he was young, finding a deer track was pretty exciting. Seeing a deer was even more unlikely, and actually getting one placed you in the hunting elite. He remembered, as an elementary student in a 1-room school, of being let out to see a buck someone had lucked into. Even after the deer population recovered through management, Dad still remembered those times, and he taught my three brothers and me a respect for deer as a valuable resource, always to be appreciated, never to be taken for granted. For my part, you might say I was born to be a deer hunter. For what other reason would I have entered this world on the first morning of buck season? As Dad always reminded me — I “ruined” his hunting that day. He went out as usual, but not far into the woods. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he heard my mother blowing the truck horn, the signal that it was time, his hunting over for the day. My birthday still often falls on the first day of deer season, but the luck that should bring me has been somewhat elusive. Success or not, though, deer season has
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Pennsylvania Game News - June 2012

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