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By Shirley Grenoble
sports@altoonamirror.com
So many things combine to make the day before deer season one of the most exciting times in a hunter's calendar.
Anticipation hones each of our senses sharply. Dreams of nothing less than 8 point bucks will dance through our dreams tonight, if indeed we get any sleep at all.
For thousands the thrill is the long awaited trip to camp. Packing up, meeting your buddies, telling and retelling the hunting stories; the smell of Woolrich, gun oil, wood stoves, vegetable soup and boiled coffee. Rigging a meat pole, firing a couple of insurance shots at the range and laying out everything you'll need next day. Deer camp is a strong Pennsylvania tradition. I feel a bit sorry for anyone who doesn't hunt from a camp atmosphere because camp is really a different world from the usual.
You are neither doctor, lawyer nor Indian chief at camp. The only distinctions will be greenhorn hunters, average hunters or old-timers. There are novices, often youngsters, out for their first or second season, who either soak up the chatter and atmosphere or put on the cool act and fool no one.
If the camp has old-timers, they've got a blessing. These grizzled guys don't much appreciate changes and will gladly tell you how it was in the old days. Those were the days when there weren't a million deer in the state, and to even find a track a hunter really had to hunt. If you were lucky enough to come upon a deer track, you stuck with it, maybe for days, until you caught up with the deer.
I suppose most of us fit in the average category. Some years we get a buck and some years we don't. Few of us have the time these days to spend long hours pre-season scouting so we head back for the spots where we have had some luck before. Come opening morning, most hunters are on their own. When you leave camp or vehicle and start into the woods, you are alone and you love the feeling. You want so much to see that buck just as dawn arrives, yet you don't want your buck hunt to end that soon, no matter how many doe permits you have in your license holder.
Things change in the woods each day. With the exception of Saturdays, which will arrive as another mini-opening day, there are fewer hunters in the woods each successive day of the season. Many, of course, have bagged the deer they want and have gone home. Many simply can't roll out of bed the second, third or fourth day because in our exuberance, we overdo it the first day or two, and so protesting muscles refuse to go out again.
Others simply lose interest. If they don't see 50 deer a day, they declare there aren't any deer in the woods anymore. There are plenty of deer. Just a couple days ago, I had a report from a pretty reliable source that they had been riding around and saw over 100 deer in a field. I believe this will be the case this year. Hunters sometimes have to adapt to conditions.
In our neck of the woods, acorns and other mast are scarce in many areas. The first day or two of the season, as hunters push deer from one end of the woods to the other, you will see deer just about anywhere, but as hunters thin out and deer calm down, they will bed near whatever food sources they find. Agricultural habitat will be good this year,as cornfields and other places will be favored by all wildlife for sustenance.
Here are a couple tips for you:
n If you plan to have your animal mounted, taxidermists tell me to bring the head and hide in one piece. It makes it easier for them to cut it exactly the way you want to cut it.
n In fastening the tag to the deer's ear, make the slit in the lower part of the ear where hair is thickest and make the shortest slit possible. Do not make the slit close to the edge of the ear.
We have had lots of snow this year before the season to be able to track deer easily. If we get much more, it will make it difficult to still hunt the woods. I've hunted in snow up to my knees and it is a tough go. Lots of times deer will simply head for pine trees with lots of thick branches ad they will scrape out a bed underneath those branches. They will jump up out of it at the last minute, giving you the same thrill you get when a grouse suddenly breaks into the air.
This year will be a really hard season for me. As many of you know, my son for years has come up to Pennsylvania to hunt with me. He was killed in a car crash this past summer. He sent me a new rifle for Christmas last year because he noticed that my .308 -- which I have used for deer for about 45 years -- was getting very heavy for me in my old age.
The loss of him as my favorite hunting buddy has left me bereft. I didn't have the heart for deer hunting this year and toyed with the idea that I just couldn't go if Mark wasn't there. But I knew my son well and knew he would want me to be out there, especially with that new rifle. So I will be.