Pennsylvania Game News - April 2023 - 26

Parking Lot Chats
I
'VE HAD some interesting conversations and encounters, most good, a few not so
much, in game lands parking lots in 53 years hunting in 37 Keystone State counties.
A couple of years ago in a parking lot on one of my favorite game lands in Adams
County, I had just gotten back and was loading my gear and a limit of pheasants in the
back of my Toyota FJ when a truck hauling a trailer pulled into the lot. It happened to be
Halloween and the driver was checking the tiedowns holding a huge balloon dinosaur
on its way to a display. The driver jokingly remarked dinosaurs weren't in season.
In the same game lands parking area nearly every year I run into and have enjoyable
conversations with a group of hunters who travel from Virginia during the first week
of our pheasant season. They stay in a local motel and hunt with some fine-looking
English setters. They repeatedly tell me the only way they can hunt pheasants in their
resident state is on shooting preserves. They always comment on what a bargain our
pheasant permit is and are impressed with the Game Commission's stocking program.
In a York County game lands parking lot, I struck up a conversation with a college
professor who had traveled that morning from the State College area to hunt pheasants.
We talked fine double-barrel shotguns, and after he mentioned reading Game News,
he mentioned personally knowing a couple of the magazine columnists.
More than once I've started conversations in game lands parking areas with hunters
with dogs, who after seeing I planned to hunt solo, invited me to join them. Not one to
overlook a good opportunity, I've had great bird hunts as such a guest, bagged limits
of pheasants and made many new friends.
I've had hunters in game lands parking lots help me load deer in the back of my
vehicle, and I've done the same for others.
I've helped hunters who had dead batteries, lost keys and got locked out of vehicles.
I carry and give out issues of Game News to hunters, especially when I see youngsters
with mentors in game lands parking lots.
As mentioned, there have been some less-pleasant encounters. Several years ago
while dove hunting, I had bagged about seven or eight birds that were pouring into
a roost area. I quit when hunting hours ended, and had to pass a trio of hunters set
up at the hedgerow on my way to the parking area. They continued shooting at the
doves streaming in, despite me telling them hunting hours had ended. They were still
banging away as I reached the lot, and when they finally came out, the conversation
got a little heated as they insisted they could shoot until one-half hour after sunset only
to eventually realize they were wrong.
But an encounter like this is an exception to experiences I more regularly have.
If you run into me in a game lands parking area, feel free to converse. I love to talk.
Bob D'Angelo
26

Pennsylvania Game News - April 2023

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