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Do your homework for gobbler hunting

I marvel every March when I see bulbs pushing up, even through the snow sometimes. It quickens my spirit to know that before Easter, I’ll have flowers blooming in my yard. For spring gobbler hunters, March, or what’s left of it, may be a more important month than April or May. Same holds true for the Ruffed Grouse that spend their daylight hours drumming on fallen logs. That’s because it is the unique sound of our state bird beating his wings in the air at a fast speed to create the romance call to female grouse. A drumming grouse is a unique and wondrous sound. It sounds ...

Lady Mounties capture top 2 clay target honors

From Mirror reports CRESSON — Two students on the Mount Aloysius College clay target team recently received awards from the USA Clay Target Leave College Division. Paige McMullen, of Ashville, was awarded second place for trap shooting and third place for skeet shooting in the league. ...

Survival rate for white-tail stays same

From Mirror reports UNIVERSITY PARK — Juvenile white-tailed deer that strike out to find new home ranges — despite facing more risks — survive at about the same rate as those that stay home, according to a team of researchers who conducted the first mortality study of male and female dispersal where deer were exposed to threats such as hunting throughout their entire range. Dispersal occurs when a juvenile leaves the area where it was born and moves to a new location where the young animal establishes its adult home range, explained Duane Diefenbach, Penn State adjunct ...

Philly working to save the birds

The Associated Press The lights of Philadelphia might not shine as bright in the coming weeks as a coalition in the City of Brotherly Love tries to prevent millions of migrating birds that pass through twice a year from slamming into skyscrapers and crashing to the sidewalk. Bird Safe Philly recently announced the Lights Out Philly initiative, a voluntary program in which as many external and internal lights in buildings are turned off or dimmed at night during the spring and fall. The problem of artificial lights attracting birds to their deaths in the city is not new. “We ...

Old school when it comes to wet flies

To help pass a few long winter evenings in the past couple of months, I read once again several classic fly-fishing books that had greatly influenced me during my early years. Absorbing the familiar pages of titles such as “A Modern Dry Fly Code” by Vincent Marinaro, “Nymphs” by Ernest Schwiebert, “Selective Trout” by Doug Swisher and Carl Richards “Hatches” by Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi is like having dinner with an old friend. Those books were first published at least 45 years ago, and all provided many clues to solving the puzzles of a trout stream back then. And ...

Waterfowl meeting for state hunters nearing

From Mirror reports HARRISBURG — Hunters and members of waterfowl organizations are invited to virtually attend the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Annual Waterfowl Briefing, which will be streamed live via the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Facebook page on Wednesday at 1 p.m. The briefing will be recorded and a link will be available to view onlinepgc.pa.gov . During the live briefing, Game Commission Waterfowl Biologist Nate Huck and Wildlife Management Program Chief Ian Gregg will be discussing the proposed 2021-22 waterfowl hunting seasons, proposed regulations, proposed ...