Pennsylvania Game News - December 2021 - 51

It was the last day of the 1967 deer
season and, though we were up early,
things didn't look promising.
It quit raining during the night, but
the fog was so thick the garage light
looked like a candle about to burn out.
I had driven from the family farm outside
of New London, Chester County,
to Brickerville, Lancaster County, the
previous day to meet friends Roy and
Marty Houck. Unlike today, there were
few deer in Chester and Lancaster counties
then, so we usually hunted deer
farther north, at Indiantown Gap. At
other times we hit State Game Lands
46, now part of Middle Creek Wildlife
Management Area.
It was to that latter spot we headed at
8 a.m., since it was a short drive away
and the fog still hadn't lifted much.
We followed Seglock Run Road past
the bridge, parked, then started climbing
to Black Oak Ridge.
It was unseasonably warm as we
picked our way across rain-swollen
Seglock Run and started up the slope.
The wet leaves and brush muffled all
sound, while the fog made it seem like
we were hunting in another world.
All that, and what seemed a lack
of other hunters - we didn't see any
vehicles on the way in - suggested it
would be a quiet day.
Almost atop the ridge, I reached
a small bench marked by a patch of
mountain laurel. I could see Marty
on my left, below the laurel, and Roy
beyond him.
Just then I spotted movement, a set
of small antlers ghosting through the
laurel to my right. The buck cut down
the hill and stopped near a logging road,
DECEMBER 2021
DECEMBER 2021
20 yards away. I had the Winchester 94
lever-action ready and took the shot.
At that, the first buck I'd seen in four
years of hunting was on the ground. My
friends came hurrying in and we had
quite a celebration. The 4-point was
not just my first, but the first deer any
of us had taken.
Luck was with me that day. If not
for the fog, we wouldn't have been at
that spot, three hours late getting into
the woods.
After dragging the deer downhill,
Roy and I decided to carry it across
the swollen stream. We slipped on
rocks and took a dip in the water before
dragging ourselves and the deer onto
the road.
Roy and Marty went back into the
woods to hunt while I sat with the
deer, thinking about the day's events.
A few minutes later, a vehicle came up
the road. It was the local game warden
and a deputy. They looked at me and
the deer and asked if I had shot it or
drowned it.
We laughed, then they checked my
license and the deer's tag. As we talked,
they asked if I was waiting for a ride. I
said my buddies were out hunting and
that they planned to bring the truck,
parked way down by the powerline,
by later.
The warden and deputy saw it on
their drive in and offered to take me to
it. I took them up on their offer.
I knew their names for the longest
time, and often saw them attached to
their Field Notes in Game News. I've
forgotten them now, but not the professionalism
and kindness they showed a
young hunter with his first deer.
51
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2021

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