My Most Memorable Experiences Being A Hunter. Some Were Very "Interesting"

And a plug why hunting and hunting skills are important.

U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers: Tionesta, PA, lake and dam in fall.

My last essay:

These are some of my most memorable hunts

This took a lot of thought since there were many that are. Including some that were bizarre.

My first archery hunt:

My hunting buddies and myself had hunted deer and small game. We decided to also hunt with a bow because that gave you a chance to take an additional deer for the season, but only one antlered deer per hunting license. There are two kinds of bows commonly used for target and hunting. A recurve, where the ends of the bow bend forward for more velocity, and a compound, where there are pulleys and cables that reduce the force needed to pull the bow back to full draw. This makes it possible to use a bow with a higher draw weight for more velocity and power.

targetuniverse . com A recurve bow

kandbarchery.com A compound bow. Like an AR-15, some are pretty scary looking.

We all bought compound bows and practiced. You should be able to consistently hit a pie plate at 20 or 30 yards. If you can't, you have no business hunting with a bow. You also need to learn what 10, 20 or 30 yards look like out in the field. ALWAYS know the distance. NEVER take a bad shot or one out of the range that you know you can hit.

Hunting archery, you wear camouflage and either wear a camouflage mask or paint because the one thing all animals recognize is a human face.

I got to my tree stand at my wife's family farm while it was still dark and got comfortable. All the stars were still out, and the moon had already set. Eventually, it faintly started to get light. All the birds began calling and moving around, and as it got lighter, the little animals, then the squirrels. I was still and they were on the branches around me. They came right up to me. They weren't concerned, but seemed to sense something wasn't right. They played around me all morning. I was actually looking for a buck, instead, a doe appeared and was going to walk under the stand. Interestingly, about 50% of deer will never look up for danger. This one did and I froze. Deer are red and green color blind and will move their head around to better see an object. They will also snort or paw to try and get it to move. However, I had no intention of shooting. I just watched as she went under me. I never did see a buck that day. I did see two more does and just watched as they went by. It was a good day to be in the woods.

The bear surprise hunt:

One year I went deer hunting with two guys I worked with at a Giant Eagle grocery store. The one guy's uncle had a cabin on Tionesta Creek which flows into the Allegheny River. Tionesta is in Forest County, one of the more wooded and rural counties in northwestern Pennsylvania. The population is less than 500. A saying in Tionesta is “flush the toilets, Pittsburgh needs the water.” Pittsburgh draws its water from the Allegheny River.

It took hours to warm up the frozen cabin, so we sat with our coats on and ate Three Alarm Chili. Even though it was freezing, as you ate the chili, you began taking off your outer clothes till you were down to your tee shirt.

There are paths cut through the woods for underground gas lines, which gives you a great view. As I was climbing up on a big pile of rocks and heard snoring. I looked down in a hole in the rocks where the sound was coming from and about ten feet down, I saw a black bear hibernating! I could see its side rise and fall as it inhaled and snored. The closest I ever got to a bear. Had a great weekend yet never saw a deer.

The pheasant hunt:

One year, my wife's brother, Jimmy and I decided to go pheasant hunting on a pheasant preserve, a large tract of ground with a perimeter fence to keep birds on it contained. Which of course is difficult since they fly. We practiced shooting clay targets from a skeet launcher with our shotguns till we hit them all.

When hunting small game, you have to find it and flush it for a shot. At the preserve, we were assigned a handler and his hunting dog to sniff out, find and flush the birds. The dog was an older English Setter named John Cappeletti after a great Penn State running back. Larger hunting dogs wander further out in the field picking up a scent and of course freeze and point when they find something. First shot was Jimmy’s. The dog is told to flush the bird. To shoot something with a shotgun, you point at it, swing past and pull the trigger. Because we were practicing shooting skeet and making them go fast, he swung past and missed. Then it was my turn and I missed. That dog actually glared at the both of us! After that, we realized what we were doing wrong, and we each got our five birds while having a great day hiking through the fields. That was the only time I ever hunted with a dog, and I'll always remember it.

At the time I was a glass blower at Fisher Scientific and the head maintenance man, also named Dave, would make extra cash smoking turkeys, hams and making sausages and other meats. I paid him to smoke the pheasants. I still remember the flavor.

The shot at in the tree stand hunt:

One year hunting at my wife’s family farm, I climbed into a tree stand that was right along the railroad tracks. It was an oak about eight feet around. The stand platform was about 30 feet in the air on the back of the tree away from the tracks. An important detail. You had a great view up and down the tracks, into the woods and across the tracks above the roof of the house and into the hay field next to the farm. I saw a deer running and a hunter in back of it take three shots, missing all three. With the fourth shot, he got the deer. Regarding the three missed shots, I would hear a boom and a zing, because the bullets were coming right at me! Fortunately, at about 400 yards his bullets couldn't go through a tree eight feet in diameter. But branches were breaking around me and I was screaming some choice words.

Another friend, Steve and my wife's uncle Walt came flying out of the house. They thought I was shot. When the so-called hunter was done shooting, I climbed down, and Steve and I took a walk to the field. When I asked him what his problem was, he was clueless. I pointed out he was missing the deer and shooting over the roof of the farmhouse and at me! We told him he was too stupid to hunt and took down his license number.

Little did we know, at the time, my wife's brother was at eye level with me but back in the woods, and the bullets were hitting around him in the ground. He hit the ground and laid there. Thanfully he wasn’t hit.

The police escort to the hospital hunt:

Randy’s parents bought a piece of wooded and grassy property to build on and he asked if I wanted to hunt there. We scoped it out and set up tree stands. He set his on the side of a hill next to a trail and I set mine in a swampy area where there were trails.

The second day of hunting, after it got light, he came walking over to me with kind of a dazed look. I asked what's up and he told me he fell out of his tree stand! He got to the top step which pulled out and he fell over backwards! Going down hill the platform would have been 20 feet off the ground. I asked if he was okay and did he want to go to the hospital. He said he would go sit in my Bronco for a bit. Then, I see him driving toward me. My Bronco was chocolate with a cream colored cap. When he reached in to put his rifle in the back, the back of his head brushed the cap and left a bloody smear. I got down from my stand and off we raced to the hospital about 20 miles away. Of course it started to pour. On the highway, I got pulled over. The cop politely asked what was my hurry and when I told him what had happened, his attitude changed to holy crap, follow me. He took off with the lights and siren going. He was going around 80 mph and I was doing my best to keep up in the pouring rain. At the hospital he asked if we needed him to get hold of anyone. I said I had Randy’s parents phone number and would do it and thanked him.

Randy had a concussion and I think needed ten stiches to close the gash and stayed overnight for observation. He also had a sore shoulder. When his dad went to clean the rifle, he found a three-inch stick stuck in the barrel! He fell backwards with the rifle slung on his shoulder with the barrel hitting the ground first, which most likely saved his life.

My longest shot, (to date), hunt:

It was almost the end of antlered White-tail season and I wanted to try one more time. I went over to the family farm to see my wife's uncle Walt and tell him I would be hunting till dark. He suggested I stay on or near the railroad tracks which weren't used anymore and watch for the herd that would be crossing at the far end of the property. I sat down where his road crossed the tracks and got comfortable. Shortly, I saw some does crossing. I spread my knees out and braced my elbows behind them on my thighs and steadied my rifle. Then a buck stepped out. Before range finders, you used the cross hairs in your scope to measure an animal’s distance. I guessed the buck to be about 300 yards away. Sighted 0 at 100 yards, my bullet should drop 12.6” at 300 yards. I aimed a few inches above his back, held my breath and fired. He disappeared.

My wife's uncle heard the shot and came out. I told him what happened and the plan was I go up in the woods in a stand and he would walk down the tracks, into the woods where they crossed and push them to me. I went up and waited. Then I saw him come out into the clearing and waved for me to come down. The deer fell dead instantly in a ditch along the tracks when I saw him disappear. I hit him in the heart. Counting the number of sections of rail, the distance was 325 yards. That was the last and farthest buck I shot to date.

Do I still hunt?

Since we came to Washington, only coyotes that have taken our chickens to which we are pretty attached and marmots, cousins of ground hogs, which will decimate your garden and plants if not kept in check. Or an occasional rattlesnake that gets too close to the house. Otherwise only with a camera.

White-tailed deer, a buck and doe.

Wild Turkey hens

One of the many rafters of Wild Turkey in my back yard.

Bighorn sheep ram and ewes

I still target shoot. Maybe someday I will hunt elk, or moose.

Years back, my wife's cousin asked how I enjoyed hunting Mule deer, Bighorn sheep and other game out here in the west. I told him I can't because there's no sport in it. Back east, if a deer or other game animal saw you, there were only a few seconds before it was gone, yet we always had a freezer full for winter. Here, deer stand and look at you, even if you run at them yelling because they are eating plants in your yard. The same with the Bighorn sheep. We have rafters of turkey that stand and look at you. It would be like shooting your pets. Hundreds of quail, which are funny little birds to watch. But too small to be worth your trouble, unless it really hits the fan.

Is hunting necessary?

Nature will find balance. There are prey animals and predators to control their numbers. If the prey population grows beyond predator control, they will starve for lack of food or die from disease. With few predators to control a growing number of prey because of an abundance of modern-day food, deer will eat a fair portion of a farmer’s hay or corn, just eating the silk and ruining the crop. Because they are spreading into cities, destroying your garden or expensive shrubbery. Prey animals need controlled for their own good. Hunting licenses pay for game management and acquiring more habitat. Federal waterfowl stamps pay for more wetlands and other ground along migratory bird paths which have increased migratory bird populations and saved more than a few species from extinction.

I have known some seriously skilled male and female hunters and outdoorsman and women over the years. As of the last count in 2020, there were 15,158,443 hunters in the U.S. In addition, there are millions of male and female pistol and rifle target shooters. Marksman and women accurate out to a 1,000 yards or more. In 2022, the number of handgun target shooters in the United States was approximately 13.3 million alone! Incidentally, the total size of the U.S. military is only 2.1 million. Everyone has heard of the Minute Men. In my previous essay, I mentioned Minute Women:

The American legacy

The American men and women who defeated the greatest military in the world at the time were hunters, marksman and outdoorsman and women. Biden has allowed over ten million foreign invaders, including skilled military age men to cross our border, and created a woke military in disarray:

Courtesy POSTCARDS FROM BARSOOM by John Carter

The core warrior population of America has always been the Scots-Irish of the Appalachian regions, the good ol’ boys of the South, and the farm boys of the Midwest. Hillbillies and rednecks, in other words. Many families from these areas have multi-generational traditions of service.

For the last decade they have been relentlessly and mercilessly whipping American whites: defaming them as racists, mocking their intelligence and manliness, tearing down their statues, erasing the names of their ancestral heroes, replacing their fictional archetypes with diverse doppelgangers in the media, disadvantaging them in education and employment, demanding that they attend racial struggle sessions. The list of outrages and humiliations is long and all too familiar, permeating as it does every one of our institutions.

The Bud Light Military

The U.S. military is also without weapons since they are being depleted faster than they can be made in sending them to Ukraine or left behind like in Afghanistan. The descendants of American’s Minute Men and Minute Women most likely will have to defeat America's enemies once again.

The war's over!