Pennsylvania Game News - May 2013 - 23

decided to sight it in at a field near my
grandparents’ home. We usually sight
in my gun for 200 yards, which is about
the distance I would normally shoot at
in our field, but decided to estimate.
We set out our target at 50 yards and
prepared to shoot. I shot and it was a
little high of center. My grandpa said
that at 200 yards it would have fell
dead center, so I was pretty happy with
my shot.
My family went to my grandparents’
house again that Sunday. This Sunday
I stayed at their house overnight,
because the next day was when rifle
season opened.
I awoke the next morning at around
6:30 a.m. and had a good breakfast
of scrapple and juice. I then put on
my hunting boots, beanie and orange
Carhart cold gear (which I later would
realize I wouldn’t need due to the
50-degree weather). I packed my things
into my hunting pack and got my gun.
We hopped into my grandpa’s Ford
Ranger pickup and began driving to
our stand (which isn’t more than two
miles from my grandparents’ home).
The stand is on my Aunt Tarni and
Uncle Max’s property, in a treeline
overlooking a field.
We arrived at 7 o’clock about 300
yards away from our stand and parked.
We grabbed our gear and were off. We
got to our stand, which is a homemade
box on stilts with windows facing our
right, left, front and back. The stand is
just big enough to fit us, a bench and
our packs. My pap climbed up first and
I handed up the guns and packs. After I
had climbed up myself we got situated,
loaded the guns and started to watch.
When my pap and I are in the stand
I look out the right, front and back
window, my grandpa looks out the left
MAY  2013 

and back window.
It wasn’t long before I saw deer
moving in front of us. I put my
rifle up on the ledge and glassed
them. There were several does and
a small deer that I thought was a
button buck. We have a rule in our
stand: You have to match or beat
the buck you got the previous year,
which for me was a small 8-point.
So I passed on the small deer and
later wouldn’t regret it one bit.
After a couple of minutes,
we began hearing shots ringing
through the woods. It was a chorus
of rifle fire and we thought that it
might move deer to us. My pap
told me that the deer usually feed
at night and then bed in a field
higher up in the woods during the
day. This discouraged me a little,
but I just thought about all the deer
we had seen on the trail camera.
At some point during the day,
we had some does sneak behind
us over the field fences and down
into the pasture to our left. This
reminded us to continually look
behind to make sure that there was
nothing sneaking past us. During
the day we saw 30 deer.
The day went on and usually,
in the area we hunt, if you don’t
get something in the morning you
don’t have much of a chance of
seeing anything in the afternoon.
So we waited and waited, and
about 12 o’clock we heard a shot
that was in the direction of my
cousin (he was off to our right up
in the woods along the mountain
about 300 yards away). I texted,
asking if he had shot, and he texted
back saying he had gotten a small
6-point.
23
Pennsylvania Game News - May 2013

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