Pennsylvania Game News - August 2012 - 6

for the next 15 or 20 years proved to be the most successful stand I’ve ever hunted from. In fact, it’s still in use today. The four 8-points? Never saw them again. We had a real honeyhole of a spot for small game back in the 1960s. It was acre after acre of crown vetch interspersed with patches of red brush, which made for fantastic cover. When they harvested the crown vetch just before small game season opened (which was their usual practice) it became a hotspot for a variety of game animals. On a typical day we could expect to see rabbits (our primary quarry), ringnecks, grouse, squirrels, turkeys or deer. And occasionally, we would even roust out a bear. One day three of us were hunting rabbits and we weren’t seeing much out in the open fields, so we planned a strategy where we would put two guys in the red brush and a flanker on the field edge. The undergrowth was super thick, but held lots of promise and usually lots of bunnies. I was in the thicket but I was lucky in that I was on a small trail, which was only about three feet wide with almost impenetrable brush on either side. With the dogwood and aspen trees bending over above the trail, it was like walking through a tunnel. We were approaching the end of the patch when Dad suddenly yelled, “There goes a deer. It’s a buck and a nice one.” With that pronouncement, the energy level in that thicket increased exponentially. He had jumped the buck from its bed and it ran toward the open field, but as it got to the trail it spied our flanker ahead of it. It could have turned left (away from me) or right (toward me). Mr. Murphy, sensing a golden opportunity, reached out and nudged the buck to the right and
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then sat back and watched the fun. I was now on a collision course with the frightened whitetail. Everywhere he turned he saw a human and he was in full panic, in high gear and closing fast. It was one of those moments when time stands still. What seemed like forever to play out probably lasted only a few seconds. Till the day I die I’ll still be able to see him rocketing down that trail toward me with the afterburners on and a look of utter terror in his eyes. I’m guessing I probably shared that same look. There was only room for one of us on that trail and the buck, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be claiming the right of way. I had no choice other than to yield. Which I was more than willing to do but I had no place to yield to. When the buck was 10 yards away I tried backing into the brush, but it was so thick and springy that it flung me right back out on the trail. By then impact was imminent and he showed no sign of slowing, so I tried to continue my momentum in the same direction the brush had thrown me and ended up on the other side of the trail. The timing was perfect (it had to be), and as I backed into the brush again and arched my back, the buck shot past me. I literally felt the wind as he went by. Standing there on rubbery legs, I heard Dad ask, “Did you see him?” A million responses ran through my mind but, “Yeah, I saw him,” was all I could manage to get out. Hunting today is not nearly as simple as it was years ago. On a lot of days in the fall we have the option of hunting a variety of game animals, and in a variety of ways, which gives me more opportunities than ever to make the wrong decisions. In a way, I still sort of long for the good old days when there weren’t nearly as many ways I could mess up. But who knows, maybe one of these days when my ship comes in, I may actually be at the dock. 
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Pennsylvania Game News - August 2012

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