Pennsylvania Game News - December 2011 - 6

brush, a 300-grain Hornady roundnose soft point, for which the iron sights were sighted in. I then crossed the creek, worked my way up into the woods, and then turned downstream toward home. It was snowing hard, reducing visibility to 40 or 50 yards when I saw a doe feeding toward me not more than 30 yards away. I froze, looking around for other deer, when she winded me and bolted away, heading parallel to Mallory Run in a downstream direction. When she ran, two or three others went with her, but I had no idea whether or not any of them was a buck. Now, to me there is no greater thrill in deer hunting than to get on fresh tracks and start tracking, trying to get into position to get a shot at a deer. Most of the time the attempt fails, but when it succeeds, it’s an accomplishment that stays in your mind forever. These deer did not run far before they slowed to a steady walk that paralleled Mallory Run. I did not push them, but merely tried to keep pace with them while watching as far ahead as the falling snow permitted. I had already followed enough deer tracks in my life to know that whenever they stopped, for whatever reason, they would be watching their back trail. The afternoon wore on without me catching sight of the deer until I came to a pine thicket that marked the end of the woods on this side of the creek. Tracks indicated that the deer had gone into this thicket, and it was my guess they were still in there, bedded down or standing, and watching in the shelter of the pines. I was now standing in the middle of an old logging road, which reached down from the top of the hill to run downhill along the edge of the pine thicket to where the land flattened out along Mallory Run. But about
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halfway between where I stood and the bottom of the hill, a branch of the logging road swung around the bottom edge of the pine thicket. Slowly and quietly, I worked my way downhill and onto the section of logging trail with my eyes searching the woods ahead. I had just reached the point where I could see through the trees into the field on the far side of the thicket when I spotted a doe standing along the side of the logging road, looking directly at me through the late afternoon gloom laced with snow. Then, just beyond that doe, another doe stepped out of the thicket, stopping broadside in the middle of the trail with her head turned toward me. I knew there were more than two deer, so I stood motionless while my eyes swiveled to scrutinize every bit of cover. Then I saw it, not 40 yards away, the head and neck of a buck standing at the far end of a large patch of briars that grew along the uphill side of the logging road. The poor visibility through the snow and the late afternoon gloom made a neck shot with iron sights too risky, so I picked a spot through the briars where I thought the chest should be and sent the 300-grain round-nose bullet on its way. The buck never took a step, but collapsed right where he stood. I checked my watch; it was 4:30. I had been on their trail for almost an hour and a half. It is the recollection of experiences such as this that makes me regret so many of our younger hunters have never fired a rifle equipped with iron sights. It was iron sights and black powder that took millions of buffalo, along with more deer, bear and antelope in the process of clearing a whole continent than has been taken since with high-powered rifles and scope sights. Yes, I can look back almost 80 years and dredge up memories totally foreign to most hunters today. And while that’s true, I also believe that many young hunters today are forging memories dear to them, but totally foreign to me. I’m sure glad I have my memories, because that is the way it was in those days long past. 
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Pennsylvania Game News - December 2011

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