Tis' the Season

Hunting Season that is.....

After a week of only seeing one doe, my brother-in-law invited me up to his house for 2 days of hunting fun. so Thursday night my wife and I packed up and made the 2 1/2 hour treck from Harrisburg to Caonton PA, now the last time I was there, this town made that town from the movie Dante's Peak look like a sprawling metropolous, and since then (about a year ago) the town has really grown up...they now have a traffic light!

Anyway, about 2 hours and 28 minuites into our drive, I realized I left my 2 antlerless licenses sitting at home, but since I still had my buck tag with me we decided to leave that for a later panic attack since it was Thursday night and Antlerless season didn't start until Saturday. So, off we went into the sprawling 120 acre plot of land they call Tick Hallow.....no really, I'm not kidding, that is what they call their place (the place my sister called a steal at the price they were asking...I'm still not sure if she knew it was called that before she bought it)

So, off we went, into the woods. I set up at a nice big tree overlooking an intersection of trails, and I am hopeful. At this point, I was only carrying my .357 revolver, since my longest possible shot from there would be 35 yards. At the moment dawn broke 6 turkey ran our from a tangle of brush clucking like crazy. and the whole place was buzzing with activity, more turkey answered, a pheasent made a rush for one of the clearings, and about an hour into my hunt 4 doe start down the close trail, now I can't shoot one for another 23 hours, but where there are doe, buck are sure to follow....the first 3 walk within 5 feet of me, not even glancing my way, the fourth, a little yearling stops at my feet and stares at me. I was a little concerned since if they freaked out now any buck in the area would be sure to run as well, but it just stares at me, bends down and sniffs my boot. At this point I remembered that for the past 2 days, our 3 cats have been laying on my boots, and they must stink of cat.....but the yearling just keeps sniffing, then gives my boot a single lick and walks off. I have ever been so close to a live deer before, I could have killed the darn thing with my knife, but I follow the rules, and held off....but just in case (once I waited to see if a buck followed..it didn't) I left the woods and traveled to the county treasurer for a replacement antlerless tag. An hour later I was back in the woods and for the 5 hours of remaining light that day I didn't see a thing. But, that night we drank, ate, drank more, and my brother-in-law even broke out a Dogfish Head 120 minute IPA which we heartily drank, and promptly fell asleep.

Saturday started out with a small drive between myself and my brother in law. we chased around 11 doe but never anaged to get off a shot, so we took a break at 8:30 for some breakfast and to gather the troops for a big drive. Myself, Eric (brother-in-law), Lee (Eric's brother-in-law) and Tom (Eric's dad) set up google earth and planned the drive, I was going to be in a stand overlooking a 25 acre field with the most likly shot being almost 200 yards away so I stoed the revolver ad picked up my old trusty Remmington 7600 .243. Tom was covering the hill above me with a Remmington 30-06 and Eric covering below with a Weatherbee 30-06 so I was trusted to the middle of the pack wih the lightest ammount of firepower in the group. Lee, who didn't even carry a gun (he just likes to run the drives) was going to drive the deer from a large pine forest (where we chased the 11 doe earlier) and hopefully we could get some shots off, and maybe even get a shot at a buck.

So, off I go, climbing into an old stand that appeared to be made out of old playground parts, set on an uneven hill and then left to rot for several years. my first 2 attempts to get into it resulted in me breaking rungs of the ladder and falling the 7 feet to the muddy but luckily soft ground. My rifle was not so lucky; though unloaded for the climb it managed to clip a rusty pipe on my second fall and take a large chip out of the barrel and some damage to the foregrip. finally I get into the stand and the wind starts to blow, so I am forced to shift all of my weight forward on the stand to keep all 4 legs on the ground, not an easy thing to do while trying to be still and quite.

Well, no buck were chased out of the pine, and infact no deer crossed any of our paths so we abandoned that section of the drive. Lee went back to work, Tom went off to hunt another ridge, and Eric and I settled in for the rest of the day. While I can pick a spot and stay there for days (even sleeping there overnight) Eric wanted to keep moving, so he snuck high on the ridge while I camped a small stream. by this time it was 3:00, I still had my rifle, but had picked up my pistol as the drive fell appart since it was to be my primary weapon for this hunt. So, my rifle sitting beside me (unloaded per state law when carrying 2 guns for hunting), pistol in hand. When Eric spooked something it headed straight for my position, but I was pointed the wrong way, I heald ready, and I saw a doe running a full boar cross 50 yards to my left, too far for the pistol, so I opened and dumped the cylinder on the revolver, slapped a mag in the rifle, said a little prayer that the scope wasn't knocked out of zero by my falls, and at 125 yards out at a full run I put a single round in it's spine. She dropped like a ton of bricks. I stood up....and so did she. well, with her frint legs, she kind of stood up, so I put a second round through the heart and both lungs and she dropped again. That time she didn't get up.

now I felt pretty good, it was a great shot on a running target at a fair range, and I approached my prize.....shit. now I always had one rule, no yearlings. As I got closer I realized it was not a medium sized doe, but a small sized first year buck (still perfectly legal), Unless I was standing right over it when I shot there was no way of knowing it was a button buck. but still I broke my rule. So my brother-in-law lended some helpful advice as I was cleaning it (since it has been 14 years since I shot a deer) He also laughed his ass off when I was removing the bladder and managed to cover my boots in deer urine. atleast he helped drag it out of the woods. Given the difficulty of actually dragging that deer one would have guessed it's weight at about 100lbs hopefully a little more.....not so lucky, he weighed in at 85 lbs. and to make things worse, when we dropped it off with the butcher, they set it down next to the biggest doe I have ever seen, I looked at my brother-in-law and said, sorry, it looked bigger 125 yards away and running full tilt.....his response, "you still brought home more meat this season than I did"

Since this is the last week of the season I guess I have to kick it up a notch if I want to end up with more than a few pounds of meat. I have a picture, thought due to its size/age it may be a bit...disturbing to post it. so I will just leave a link, really you don't have to look, I'm kind of embarassed at its size. i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq5/Automan21k/temporary.jpg

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