Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010 - 6

overly optimistic. I hadn’t gotten one since 2005, when I took a 6-point from the same stand I was in this morning. I finally gave into temptation and got into my lunch bag and attacked my traditional good-luck turkey sandwich, made with Thanksgiving leftovers. The afternoon was much slower, and I got a call from Jay on the walkietalkie around 3 o’clock that they were getting ready to leave, because “Jeffrey’s anxious to get going to show off his buck.” I had my suspicions that Dad was as anxious to show it off as Jeffrey was, and I couldn’t blame him. I said goodbye and told Jay I would be moving to his stand for the rest of the day, as his was usually a better evening stand than mine. I still-hunted my way up the 150-yard logging road to the field but didn’t see anything. When I got to the top of the road and stepped into the field, I was faceto-face with a big doe 20 yards away, getting ready to enter the high grass. Truth be told, we were both caught in the open, and it was another standoff for 20 seconds or so. Again, I wasn’t ready to take a doe, but I didn’t know if she was alone or not, so I didn’t want to spook her. I finally decided she was alone, but not wanting to stand there for another half hour (I had learned my lesson earlier), I decided to see how she would react to my movements. I put the gun up and back down twice before she finally spooked and ran back into the woods. I got in Jay’s stand around 3:15 and stayed till dark. Other than a lone doe that bedded 50 yards from the stand, it was an uneventful afternoon — the perfect way to end a day of hunting. That brings me back to the second day, which both Jay and I were planning on spending (dawn till dusk) in our treestands. The sunrise of the first
6

day had been uncharacteristically boring, with the heavy cloud cover, and good shooting light hadn’t arrived until well after 7 o’clock. This day, however, was shaping up to be different. Shortly after settling in the stand I saw a faint pink glow in the eastern sky. And that usually meant that an incredible meteorological show was (literally) on the horizon. The “curtain” went up as the pink gradually brightened and then burst forth into a fiery explosion of red and orange. Some days I think it’s worth the effort of getting out of bed just for the privilege of viewing the many stunning sunrises. Good shooting light came much earlier and before 7 o’clock I was on full alert. At 7:15 a large doe worked her way up from the field below, followed by a fawn. They fed to within 15 yards, and I was afraid they would bed nearby and I’d be pinned down in my stand. Thankfully, though, they moved off and over the ridge. That was pretty much it for the morning. Things were definitely slowing down and I was hoping that by afternoon the deer would be getting hungry again and would be up and moving. At 3 o’clock, I heard from Jay saying he was probably going to hang it up for the day. I debated moving to his stand again but decided to stay put. The woods were quiet, except for an industrious gray squirrel that managed to convince me a half dozen times that a deer was coming. I was resigned to enjoying the peace of the late afternoon when, at 3:55, I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a nice buck standing in some laurel. I saw antlers immediately and there was no question he was legal. I had no idea how long he had been there or even how he had gotten there, but there he was, with his antlers bobbing up and down, rubbing a sapling, as oblivious to my presence as I had been to his a few seconds before. As I reached for the rifle it hit me that he was standing in the exact spot where I had missed a buck the year before. That déjà vu moment made me so nervous that
GAME NEWS

Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010