Pennsylvania Game News - April 2011 - 4

breeze. Hop’s two horses spotted me and galloped across the pasture. It is the welcoming committee and I feel embraced. I’ve left my husband and two children back at our home in Schuylkill County, as well as responsibilities and a busy schedule. I could get away for only this one day. The fog hung low over the First Fork at 6 a.m. I rearranged my shotgun slung over my shoulder and paused on the swinging bridge. I raised my eyes to the sky, lifted up my blaze-orange baseball cap and noticed the morning brightening. We climbed the steep mountain and listened to the staccato of the ovenbird’s song. Its voice often described as sounding like a sewing machine. Lime green, striped maple leaves made a low lacy curtain that I ducked under. Hay-scented ferns pushed fiddleheads through the leaf mold all over the forest floor. Their tops tightly curled, like fairy scepters, were backlit by the low morning sun. I

placed my feet methodically on the spongy earth, and noticed last year’s buff-colored ferns covered every rock and fallen branch like matted hair. As soon as the sun appeared across the landscape the wind kicked up. Our calls won’t reach the gobblers’ ears, we thought. Not a single bird answered. They are quiet. “Not a good day for hunting,” Hoppy announces. It is my only day to hunt. I have to make the best of it. We walked the deer trails and paused to call. When a gobbler finally answered, we calculated his direction, climbed to the ridge and set up. I sat motionless, gun poised, heart pounding, waiting for him to pop over the horizon. Then I spotted the magnificent bird. The colors of his head were blinding. The top of it was a cottonball white, like a skullcap. Brilliant cobalt blue surrounded his beady eyes and traveled down his neck. The rest of his head was a cherry red. He stretched his neck, looking for his lady (that would be me), and then he went into a strut, dragging his wing tips, fanning his tail, making himself look bigger and more desirable than any other tom in the woods. His whole body quivered with excitement over the possibilities that awaited him. I was smitten. In a split second he was before me. I fired, missed and Hop hissed, “shoot again.” I was so shocked I didn’t even consider shooting twice. The bird flew out of range and I was overcome with disappointment. I felt like such a failure. Twenty yards, a perfect shot and I had blown it. I disappointed Hop, who could have had the bird himself, had he not given me the chance. We had gotten up so early, worked so hard to climb the mountain, raced like nimble mountain goats, for nothing. I doubted if I’d ever get a chance like that again. It was over so unbelievably quick. My spirits dragging, I stumbled down the mountain in disbelief. This surprised me because I’ve always felt that hunting is not about the kill, but about being out in
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Pennsylvania Game News - April 2011

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