Pennsylvania Game News - December 2008 - 5

through the patch of blueberries, masking everything beyond 10 yards, then dissipated briefly, only to be replaced by the next wave of fog. I focused my attention on the spot where I had seen the flash of white. Was it the tail of my buck or simply the belly of a bird flying through the brush? I waited, and waited, and waited and then my heart skipped a beat. There, in the blueberries and 30 yards to my right stood five does. The lead doe was the largest, followed by deer of decreasing size. They were slowly and cautiously moving through the blueberries, their heads down. I watched and my heart raced and pounded in my ears. Would I get a shot? I slowly raised my rifle and took off the safety; the lead doe was about 40 yards away and feeding. The fog had dissipated for the moment. I looked through the scope and centered the crosshairs just behind the doe’s shoulder. I slowly drew my breath and squeezed the trigger. The noise of the rifle rippled through the air and the deer took off running. I lowered the gun and watched as the lead doe jumped, landed on her feet, and ran full speed away from me. Then, as if a light switch had been turned off, she dropped to the ground, motionless. I clicked the safety on and tried to collect my thoughts. After tagging and field-dressing the large doe, I spent the next few hours walking slowly around the vast property. By 1:30 the weather had not changed. Occasional glimpses of the sun broke through heavy waves of fog. On a whim I decided to hike through the thick rows of blueberry bushes near my stand to see if the woods opened up on the other side. After crawling on my hands and knees for 20 minutes I finally emerged on the other side. The thick bushes gave way to a beautiful mature forest. I was standing at the top of a large hollow that stretched a few hundred yards below me. I could hear the trickling of water DECEMBER 2008 traveling through a small stream at the bottom. I leaned against a large oak tree and quietly surveyed the land, looking first left, then right and then left again. The fog restricted my view in different directions from a few yards to maybe one hundred yards. Wave after wave of fog rolled through the hollow from my left, slowly, silently, relentlessly. After standing for about 10 minutes I sat down in a small thicket of downed trees and tried to imagine what direction I would come from and where I would go if I were a deer. A few minutes into my daydream and through a thick wave of fog, I thought I spotted movement to my left. As quickly as I saw it, it was gone. It must have been the fog I thought. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my pounding heart. When I opened my eyes the fog had cleared and I could see the entire hollow stretched out before me. I scanned from left to right and then back left. My heart skipped a beat and began pounding furiously. There, about a hundred yards to my left, was a large deer. Its head down and moving cautiously, the deer headed across the hollow to my left. About 80 yards in front of me the path disappeared into a thick patch of blueberry bushes and scrub oak. Where it emerged, the path split, one leg leading in front of me about 40 yards out, the other well to my left and into the field in front of my stand from the morning. I watched as the deer disappeared into the thicket and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Just as I began to calm my nerves and accept that the deer was probably grazing in the field behind me, it emerged from the thicket. The deer took the path leading in 5

Pennsylvania Game News - December 2008

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