Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 36

Buzzer Beater
S
WEATING LIKE a fat man in heavy flannels dropped into a high-intensity spin
class on a stomach full of sausage gravy, that's what I was.
Not because this hillside is covered in what Game Commission maps identify as
" winter thermal cover. " It was the deer on the other end of my drag rope.
I was struggling to get it out.
The slope is steep, angling sharply up from the creek bottom where I'd taken
the whitetail to the woods edge, still a quarter-mile from my truck. It's littered with
downed logs whose jagged limbs stick up like ribs on a weathered dinosaur carcass.
And it was pitch black.
But I wasn't complaining about what a friend labeled my " buzzer beater deer. "
It was the final day of the firearms season. I'd hunted hard throughout, spending
most of the first week in the woods, seeing deer, but never big-enough antlers. A
couple of afternoon hunts early in this second week failed to offer even a shot at a doe.
Now just hours remained.
That was fitting, perhaps, since I'd pondered endings all autumn. I'd turned 50
months earlier. And while I didn't expect to keel over soon - who ever does - it was
clear my hunting career had passed its halfway point. So I resolved to spend as much
time as possible hunting.
That hadn't yet paid off in venison. There was a miss in archery season, bucks when
I needed a doe in early muzzleloader, no deer at all other days.
Now it was 3 p.m. I was in a favorite evening stand, determined to stay until dark
or a deer appeared.
Instead, frustration arrived. Two hunters wandered by, relatively close, saw me, yet
stopped, asking one another - I could just make things out - if I was the buddy they
were seeking. Unsure, they dawdled while my daylight dwindled.
Four o'clock came and went. Then 4:30. Then 4:45. Things seemed bleak.
It was around 5 when I heard deer trotting through the woods, moving like whitetails
do when bumped and edgy. Five stopped, noticed me, and gave nervous signs of
continuing on. It was now or never. None had antlers, but with an antlerless tag, I fired
at the biggest. All ran off; that last one noisily crashed.
After waiting a bit, I walked over and found it, then tagged and field-dressed it by
headlamp. Finally, I stared up the hill into the dark and sighed.
But not discontentedly. I've killed other deer later in the day. But I've never killed
a deer later in the day on the last day.
So if on the rugged slog out I sounded like an out-of-shape cyclist pedaling hard
on the road to nowhere, that's OK. All buzzer beaters are winners, this one no less.
Bob Frye
36

Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024

Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - Cover1
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - Cover2
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 2
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 3
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 4
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 5
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 6
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 7
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 8
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 9
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 10
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 11
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 12
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 13
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 14
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 15
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 16
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 17
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 18
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 19
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 20
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 21
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 22
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 23
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 24
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 25
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 26
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 27
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 28
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 29
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 30
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 31
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 32
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 33
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 34
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 35
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 36
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 37
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 38
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 39
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 40
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 41
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 42
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 43
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 44
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 45
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 46
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 47
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 48
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 49
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 50
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 51
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 52
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 53
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 54
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 55
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 56
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 57
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 58
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 59
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 60
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 61
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 62
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 63
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - 64
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - Cover3
Pennsylvania Game News - December 2024 - Cover4
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