Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2015 11:05:50 GMT -5
I have shared this one with a few of you via email, but being as it is Thanksgiving day, and I'm feeling particularly thankful on this special day, I decided to post this story. I hope you all get some measure of enjoyment from it. The photos are not included so as to conserve bandwidth for the site, and it is photo intensive. Don't let the copyright statement bother you. I do this with all my writing. If you wish to share it with someone, consider this statement written permission to do so. This may not be the final version anyway, since my editor (W 1 FE unit) has not yet taken her red pencil to it.
Best,
George, aka the Mutt.
edited to add an update including Larry's buck.
2/6/2016
Best,
George, aka the Mutt.
edited to add an update including Larry's buck.
2/6/2016
ONE FOR THE BOOKS
SUBTITLE: A SEASON TO REMEMBER
by: George R. Naugle
© Copyright 2015, George R. Naugle. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
2015 turned out to be quite a memorable year for me, hunting wise. In January of that year, I celebrated my 73rd birthday, albeit with a pair of gimpy knees that I worried might restrict my hunting more than I wished, but also with that “hope springs eternal” viewpoint that most hunters have. Of course every year each hunter in Pennsylvania, and I suspect every other state, thinks that this will be the year for him/her. This is going to be the year I take a great big buck, a turkey gobbler, and maybe even a black bear. For the vast majority of us that hope is not realized, and for all of my years of hunting which began for me in 1954, it never is. But for me, this one shining year in my hunting career became one to remember.
On Friday, May 1, I journeyed out to camp for the spring gobbler opener. I had camp all to myself, since my son-in-law, Crawford had a retirement party to go to, my hunting buddy, Dave was tournament salmon fishing, and my other hunting buddy,Larry still had a few health issues. Nobody was hunting out of any of the other camps either. This amazes me since we have been hearing and seeing a few gobblers.
On Saturday morning, May 2, I made my way into the woods at full moon. No flashlight necessary at all. At least four different gobblers were sounding off as daylight approached, one of which was down in the creek hollow near where one of our deer hunting stands we call “the good stand” is located, so I decided to set up on the hillside above it at another of our stands we call “the blowdown stand.” Good choice, but not so good results. Two gobblers and four hens went past me at a distance of close to eighty yards. No way was one of the gobblers going to detour away from the real deal.
I spend Saturday afternoon working the chainsaw and piling up some wood to split, and Sunday afternoon splitting a load to take home. Sunday evening, I heard one gobbler sound off close to dark. It sounded like he was in the area of another of our stands we call “the Laurel stand,” so I decided to set up along the old woods road that goes close to that. The woods was fairly quiet, but just before daylight, a lusty gobble came from the other participant in this drama. I bided my time, and when I judged it to be the right time, I gave a few tree yelps, followed by a “coming down from the roost” cackle. A few minutes later, I spied a large and very dark object intruding on my field of vision, and it moved! The gobbler made his way toward me, and at 7:15 A M, I had what I considered to be a good opportunity for a shot. At the report of the shotgun, a 22 pound bird with a 9 3/4 inch beard and a bit less than one inch spurs flopped a few times and then lay still. Of course there was nobody in camp to take a proper hero shot, so this following two phtos were the best I could do. (photos not included)
Now, having taken a springtime gobbler, we must fast forward to fall, when the archery deer season for Pennsylvania finally rolls around. This year it began on October 3, but as usual with Larry and I hunting, we didn’t see much. The season began with a pouring rain on that opening day, but that afternoon the skies cleared a bit and we ventured out to chosen stands. Larry went to “the front stand,” and while he did not see any deer, a black bear travelled almost under his ladder stand. I was located on “the laurel stand,” and my sit was perhaps a bit more exciting. About an hour before dark I spied something reddish brown in color making its way uphill toward me. That materialized as something quite rare in Pennsylvania, a bear of a color other than black. This one was a bit off of chocolate brown, having a good bit of reddish tint to his coat. I tried to get a photo of him with my cell phone, but resolution is not all that good. Perhaps the reader can make out a bear in this photo. Later, at just about dark, a couple of does made their way past me at too great a distance for a shot, had I wished to take one.
This is the way it usually works for us. We go out and put in the time and do not see many deer, but we know that things will improve, and they usually do toward the beginning of November when the whitetail rut kicks in.
And kick in, it did, with a vengeance. Our trail cameras picked up images of at least half a dozen nice bucks with racks sporting six or more points. Toward the end of October, the bucks do a lot of walking around while looking for receptive does, and sometimes they get lucky and find one. A lot of fighting takes place in a struggle for dominance. Some bucks lose part of their antlers in this, as did this guy we started calling “the raghorn.” (photos of two bucks not included)
Our buddy Larry was nursing a bad back by this time, thus limiting his hunting efforts. Dave and I resolved to put our time in for this prime two weeks, and on Friday, October 30, Dave was finally rewarded. While hunting out of the stand we call “the bear stand,” he had two bucks walk past him. The first one was a nice eight point, but his shot was intercepted by a twig and he had a clean miss, as proven when he found his arrow a bit later on. Half and hour later, a buck with a strange rack came within range and Dave’s second shot of the day had positive results. This is the second consecutive year in which Dave has taken a buck from this stand, named because I had taken a black bear a couple of years before this from it.
We returned to the cabin on Thursday, November 5. Dave and Larry got there first. I had to make a stop in Springs, PA to pick up my new Horton Storm crossbow at Arrowhead Outdoors. Mike Wisman, the owner and operator, had set up the bow perfectly and the first few shots I took were dead center bullseyes, so I thought I might be ready to end the season’s drought, buck wise.
While Dave would have a couple of close encounters with a ten point at his ground blind, Larry and I had to be satisfied with seeing a few does. No shots were taken until Monday, November 9.
I was sitting on a stand overlooking our cabin’s sand mound that morning, when a doe emerged from the woods next to the sand mound and went directly to the turnip patch Larry had planted this past summer. Deer love turnips, and will snack on the green tops, and later after frost hits, they will actually dig up the turnips themselves. As the doe nibbled turnip tops, this buck came out of the woods, hot on her trail. I had a steady rest on the stand’s shooting rail, making this a relatively easy shot, and my buck ran only thirty yards or so before piling up. Then is when the real work began. When I finally got the buck to our cabin and got him hanging on our skinning gantry, I put the PA Game Commission’s chest tape around him. The tape estimated his live weight to be 217 pounds, and dressed weight at 184, thus making him the heaviest buck I have ever taken in Pennsylvania. His rack measured 17 inches in width and it sported five points on the right side and four on the left. I checked the tooth succession on his lower jaw and estimated his age at 3 and 1/2 years. (Photo of buck not included)
So, at this point, I had taken a spring gobbler, and now a beautiful whitetail buck. I started to think that this actually might be “the year” in which I might take all three of the big game animals we have here in Pennsylvania, but hopes were not all that high when reality set in. We did not have a good mast crop this year. Acorns were sparse and quite spotty, and even the beech trees did not have a good crop of nuts. The lone exception was a grove of chestnut trees about half a mile distant from our camp, but by the end of October, the deer and bears had pretty much cleaned up this year’s nut production from them. While the deer had other food sources, bears depend upon the mast crop to accumulate enough fat for the winter’s sleep, so they had departed in search of acorns.
Our archery deer season ended Saturday, November 14. The following Monday, November 16, our archery bear season began. I had a few chores to clean up from the “honey-do” list at home, and most of the guys did not have high hopes, so I was the only one to make the trip to camp during the week. I began archery hunting for bear on Wednesday evening, and put in full days on Thursday and Friday, but there wasn’t even a pile of bear scat for me to find in the vicinity of camp. It appeared that this would be another typical bear season for us at camp Rip-N-Tear, in which we would hunt pretty hard and not harvest any bears.
Friday, November 20, Dave Hartman and his nephew, Judd rolled in that afternoon, followed by Crawford and his buddy John. We partied a bit that Friday evening, but made the call, bright and early on Saturday morning. Each of us journeyed to his chosen stand. Right away in the morning, hunters from a neighboring camp owned by Mark and Joe Giovannitti, put on a drive in Alex/Glade Hollow, but were not successful in moving any bears. Most of the shooting we did hear, and we did hear more than most previous years, seemed to be coming from the area around the town of Ursina, some three miles distant, with some to the Cranberry Lake area, but absolutely nothing close to camp.
That afternoon, Dave and I went to the Giovannitti camp and left a note asking whether or not we could get together for some drives on Monday. Mark got back to me that evening and suggested we visit on Sunday, which we did. Crawford and John left on Sunday to return home, leaving Dave, Judd, and me to work on filling a bear tag. While Dave and I conducted business with Mark, Joe, and a bunch of their fellow hunters, Judd worked on smoking some salmon for dinner, which was simply outstanding.
During our visit to the Giovannittis, we made plans for them to meet at our camp on Monday morning at 6:30 AM. We did three drives that morning in the area of camp, but moved only deer and turkeys. One buck sighted on the first drive was a huge ten point that walked almost under “the hollow double stand.” After the third unsuccessful drive, John McDermott, who hunts with the Giovannitti group, suggested that we try one last drive over on the western edge of Somerset County along Augustine Road. The area driven was actually in Lower Turkeyfoot Township, Somerset County, but only a few hundred yards from the Fayette County line.
The drivers walked over half a mile east on Augustine Road, and then dropped downhill toward the Youghighenny River to form their skirmish line. As with many drives, the two on the bottom of the line went a bit off course, which was fortunate since they probably were the ones who drove a smaller, but adult, bear uphill. We speculated that when the bear got in sight of Augustine Road there probably was someone walking there or a car/truck going by, so he altered course to the East and this brought him past my stand position. I found an opening in his path and when his head hit my sight, I squeezed the trigger. The bear dropped on the spot. I had made a slightly lucky shot and hit him in the neck, breaking it cleanly. I then yelled out, “Bear down!” There was some confusion below me because a couple of the drivers and standers, thinking the drive was over, were standing there talking when I touched off the shot. I’m not sure they believed me, but when the group arrived on the spot, we were in possession of a genuine black bear.
I’m not sure who was the happiest among the hunters. Mark later told me that this was the first bear the group had taken, and this was really a great thing for their group. Lots of back slapping and photo taking ensued, and then four of the younger guys each grabbed a paw and up the hill they went with the bear.
We brought the bear back to camp and did the clean and dress thing, and then, following our traditional toast to the animal harvested, loaded him into Dave’s pickup for the trip to New Centerville where the Game Commission has a bear check station set up. They examined the bear, removed a tooth for determining age, and weighed him. The WCO stated that this was in fact an adult bear, probably aged two years, and while the weight was only 82 pounds dressed, they remarked that he was exceptionally pretty. Having decided that since we already had one bear taxidermy mount on the wall in camp, this one would not be done that way, we skinned him and hung him in our shed overnight. The next morning, Dave and Judd did the cutting while I set up the grinder in our kitchen. We cut out several nice looking roasts and the tenderloins. I removed a large pot full of trimmings to grind into hamburger, the plan being to make a pot of bear chili for dinner the night before the upcoming buck season. I contacted Mark by email when I got home and suggested that we get together that evening with the intention of sharing it.
Our rifle deer season will begin on Monday, November 30. After all of this, it will be sort of an anticlimax. Larry Guise is still nursing a bad back, so it is somewhat doubtful as to whether or not he will make the call. Crawford, as usual, will do his deer hunting closer to home. Dave and I have DMAP tags for the Mount Davis area, so we can take does there. If I am successful, I will get mine butchered and give it to Larry, since he and his wife Avis like to eat venison. Whether or not that happens, this year, 2015, is one that will live on in my memory, so long as I have a memory for sure. The title of my first book was THE LUCKIEST HUNTER ALIVE. With a year such as this one, I am starting to believe that I just might be exactly that. Well, maybe not, but I do feel blessed to be able to do the things I do at 73 years of age, and to have the wonderful friends that I have to do it with.
Herewith, a toast to all of my fellow hunters, and especially to those who helped make this year a great one for me. It is adapted from a work of Rudyard Kipling, and one used frequently by my father.
“Here’s to ya, Fuzzy Wuzzy, and the missus and the kid.
Yer a full beknighted heathen, and a first-class huntin’ friend.”
Update, and final entry for 2016. Rifle deer season began November 30 this year, and on Sunday, the day before, Larry, Dave and I hit the camp. Dave and I, having filled our buck tags, would be relegated to hunting the Mount Davis DMAP area. Larry still had a buck tag to fill, so he would be hunting at camp. The day was wet and cold with a light drizzle. Dave and I returned to camp mid afternoon having had enough of that sort of weather. Larry decided to spend the evening portion of the day in the mini condo next to the sand mound, and wouldn’t you know it, the raghorn put in an appearance and Larry scored. This makes us three for three on bucks with a bear thrown in, so it is by far, the most successful season we have had since we moved to Camp Rip-N-Tear.
Above: Larry with his first day buck, the old raghorn.
While Crawford chose to hunt back home in Franklin County, both he and Seth ended up being successful. Seth took a smaller buck that Crawford ended up finishing off for him. Crawford, while hunting in Letterkenny, took a really big eight point. Photos below.
SUBTITLE: A SEASON TO REMEMBER
by: George R. Naugle
© Copyright 2015, George R. Naugle. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
2015 turned out to be quite a memorable year for me, hunting wise. In January of that year, I celebrated my 73rd birthday, albeit with a pair of gimpy knees that I worried might restrict my hunting more than I wished, but also with that “hope springs eternal” viewpoint that most hunters have. Of course every year each hunter in Pennsylvania, and I suspect every other state, thinks that this will be the year for him/her. This is going to be the year I take a great big buck, a turkey gobbler, and maybe even a black bear. For the vast majority of us that hope is not realized, and for all of my years of hunting which began for me in 1954, it never is. But for me, this one shining year in my hunting career became one to remember.
On Friday, May 1, I journeyed out to camp for the spring gobbler opener. I had camp all to myself, since my son-in-law, Crawford had a retirement party to go to, my hunting buddy, Dave was tournament salmon fishing, and my other hunting buddy,Larry still had a few health issues. Nobody was hunting out of any of the other camps either. This amazes me since we have been hearing and seeing a few gobblers.
On Saturday morning, May 2, I made my way into the woods at full moon. No flashlight necessary at all. At least four different gobblers were sounding off as daylight approached, one of which was down in the creek hollow near where one of our deer hunting stands we call “the good stand” is located, so I decided to set up on the hillside above it at another of our stands we call “the blowdown stand.” Good choice, but not so good results. Two gobblers and four hens went past me at a distance of close to eighty yards. No way was one of the gobblers going to detour away from the real deal.
I spend Saturday afternoon working the chainsaw and piling up some wood to split, and Sunday afternoon splitting a load to take home. Sunday evening, I heard one gobbler sound off close to dark. It sounded like he was in the area of another of our stands we call “the Laurel stand,” so I decided to set up along the old woods road that goes close to that. The woods was fairly quiet, but just before daylight, a lusty gobble came from the other participant in this drama. I bided my time, and when I judged it to be the right time, I gave a few tree yelps, followed by a “coming down from the roost” cackle. A few minutes later, I spied a large and very dark object intruding on my field of vision, and it moved! The gobbler made his way toward me, and at 7:15 A M, I had what I considered to be a good opportunity for a shot. At the report of the shotgun, a 22 pound bird with a 9 3/4 inch beard and a bit less than one inch spurs flopped a few times and then lay still. Of course there was nobody in camp to take a proper hero shot, so this following two phtos were the best I could do. (photos not included)
Now, having taken a springtime gobbler, we must fast forward to fall, when the archery deer season for Pennsylvania finally rolls around. This year it began on October 3, but as usual with Larry and I hunting, we didn’t see much. The season began with a pouring rain on that opening day, but that afternoon the skies cleared a bit and we ventured out to chosen stands. Larry went to “the front stand,” and while he did not see any deer, a black bear travelled almost under his ladder stand. I was located on “the laurel stand,” and my sit was perhaps a bit more exciting. About an hour before dark I spied something reddish brown in color making its way uphill toward me. That materialized as something quite rare in Pennsylvania, a bear of a color other than black. This one was a bit off of chocolate brown, having a good bit of reddish tint to his coat. I tried to get a photo of him with my cell phone, but resolution is not all that good. Perhaps the reader can make out a bear in this photo. Later, at just about dark, a couple of does made their way past me at too great a distance for a shot, had I wished to take one.
This is the way it usually works for us. We go out and put in the time and do not see many deer, but we know that things will improve, and they usually do toward the beginning of November when the whitetail rut kicks in.
And kick in, it did, with a vengeance. Our trail cameras picked up images of at least half a dozen nice bucks with racks sporting six or more points. Toward the end of October, the bucks do a lot of walking around while looking for receptive does, and sometimes they get lucky and find one. A lot of fighting takes place in a struggle for dominance. Some bucks lose part of their antlers in this, as did this guy we started calling “the raghorn.” (photos of two bucks not included)
Our buddy Larry was nursing a bad back by this time, thus limiting his hunting efforts. Dave and I resolved to put our time in for this prime two weeks, and on Friday, October 30, Dave was finally rewarded. While hunting out of the stand we call “the bear stand,” he had two bucks walk past him. The first one was a nice eight point, but his shot was intercepted by a twig and he had a clean miss, as proven when he found his arrow a bit later on. Half and hour later, a buck with a strange rack came within range and Dave’s second shot of the day had positive results. This is the second consecutive year in which Dave has taken a buck from this stand, named because I had taken a black bear a couple of years before this from it.
We returned to the cabin on Thursday, November 5. Dave and Larry got there first. I had to make a stop in Springs, PA to pick up my new Horton Storm crossbow at Arrowhead Outdoors. Mike Wisman, the owner and operator, had set up the bow perfectly and the first few shots I took were dead center bullseyes, so I thought I might be ready to end the season’s drought, buck wise.
While Dave would have a couple of close encounters with a ten point at his ground blind, Larry and I had to be satisfied with seeing a few does. No shots were taken until Monday, November 9.
I was sitting on a stand overlooking our cabin’s sand mound that morning, when a doe emerged from the woods next to the sand mound and went directly to the turnip patch Larry had planted this past summer. Deer love turnips, and will snack on the green tops, and later after frost hits, they will actually dig up the turnips themselves. As the doe nibbled turnip tops, this buck came out of the woods, hot on her trail. I had a steady rest on the stand’s shooting rail, making this a relatively easy shot, and my buck ran only thirty yards or so before piling up. Then is when the real work began. When I finally got the buck to our cabin and got him hanging on our skinning gantry, I put the PA Game Commission’s chest tape around him. The tape estimated his live weight to be 217 pounds, and dressed weight at 184, thus making him the heaviest buck I have ever taken in Pennsylvania. His rack measured 17 inches in width and it sported five points on the right side and four on the left. I checked the tooth succession on his lower jaw and estimated his age at 3 and 1/2 years. (Photo of buck not included)
So, at this point, I had taken a spring gobbler, and now a beautiful whitetail buck. I started to think that this actually might be “the year” in which I might take all three of the big game animals we have here in Pennsylvania, but hopes were not all that high when reality set in. We did not have a good mast crop this year. Acorns were sparse and quite spotty, and even the beech trees did not have a good crop of nuts. The lone exception was a grove of chestnut trees about half a mile distant from our camp, but by the end of October, the deer and bears had pretty much cleaned up this year’s nut production from them. While the deer had other food sources, bears depend upon the mast crop to accumulate enough fat for the winter’s sleep, so they had departed in search of acorns.
Our archery deer season ended Saturday, November 14. The following Monday, November 16, our archery bear season began. I had a few chores to clean up from the “honey-do” list at home, and most of the guys did not have high hopes, so I was the only one to make the trip to camp during the week. I began archery hunting for bear on Wednesday evening, and put in full days on Thursday and Friday, but there wasn’t even a pile of bear scat for me to find in the vicinity of camp. It appeared that this would be another typical bear season for us at camp Rip-N-Tear, in which we would hunt pretty hard and not harvest any bears.
Friday, November 20, Dave Hartman and his nephew, Judd rolled in that afternoon, followed by Crawford and his buddy John. We partied a bit that Friday evening, but made the call, bright and early on Saturday morning. Each of us journeyed to his chosen stand. Right away in the morning, hunters from a neighboring camp owned by Mark and Joe Giovannitti, put on a drive in Alex/Glade Hollow, but were not successful in moving any bears. Most of the shooting we did hear, and we did hear more than most previous years, seemed to be coming from the area around the town of Ursina, some three miles distant, with some to the Cranberry Lake area, but absolutely nothing close to camp.
That afternoon, Dave and I went to the Giovannitti camp and left a note asking whether or not we could get together for some drives on Monday. Mark got back to me that evening and suggested we visit on Sunday, which we did. Crawford and John left on Sunday to return home, leaving Dave, Judd, and me to work on filling a bear tag. While Dave and I conducted business with Mark, Joe, and a bunch of their fellow hunters, Judd worked on smoking some salmon for dinner, which was simply outstanding.
During our visit to the Giovannittis, we made plans for them to meet at our camp on Monday morning at 6:30 AM. We did three drives that morning in the area of camp, but moved only deer and turkeys. One buck sighted on the first drive was a huge ten point that walked almost under “the hollow double stand.” After the third unsuccessful drive, John McDermott, who hunts with the Giovannitti group, suggested that we try one last drive over on the western edge of Somerset County along Augustine Road. The area driven was actually in Lower Turkeyfoot Township, Somerset County, but only a few hundred yards from the Fayette County line.
The drivers walked over half a mile east on Augustine Road, and then dropped downhill toward the Youghighenny River to form their skirmish line. As with many drives, the two on the bottom of the line went a bit off course, which was fortunate since they probably were the ones who drove a smaller, but adult, bear uphill. We speculated that when the bear got in sight of Augustine Road there probably was someone walking there or a car/truck going by, so he altered course to the East and this brought him past my stand position. I found an opening in his path and when his head hit my sight, I squeezed the trigger. The bear dropped on the spot. I had made a slightly lucky shot and hit him in the neck, breaking it cleanly. I then yelled out, “Bear down!” There was some confusion below me because a couple of the drivers and standers, thinking the drive was over, were standing there talking when I touched off the shot. I’m not sure they believed me, but when the group arrived on the spot, we were in possession of a genuine black bear.
I’m not sure who was the happiest among the hunters. Mark later told me that this was the first bear the group had taken, and this was really a great thing for their group. Lots of back slapping and photo taking ensued, and then four of the younger guys each grabbed a paw and up the hill they went with the bear.
We brought the bear back to camp and did the clean and dress thing, and then, following our traditional toast to the animal harvested, loaded him into Dave’s pickup for the trip to New Centerville where the Game Commission has a bear check station set up. They examined the bear, removed a tooth for determining age, and weighed him. The WCO stated that this was in fact an adult bear, probably aged two years, and while the weight was only 82 pounds dressed, they remarked that he was exceptionally pretty. Having decided that since we already had one bear taxidermy mount on the wall in camp, this one would not be done that way, we skinned him and hung him in our shed overnight. The next morning, Dave and Judd did the cutting while I set up the grinder in our kitchen. We cut out several nice looking roasts and the tenderloins. I removed a large pot full of trimmings to grind into hamburger, the plan being to make a pot of bear chili for dinner the night before the upcoming buck season. I contacted Mark by email when I got home and suggested that we get together that evening with the intention of sharing it.
Our rifle deer season will begin on Monday, November 30. After all of this, it will be sort of an anticlimax. Larry Guise is still nursing a bad back, so it is somewhat doubtful as to whether or not he will make the call. Crawford, as usual, will do his deer hunting closer to home. Dave and I have DMAP tags for the Mount Davis area, so we can take does there. If I am successful, I will get mine butchered and give it to Larry, since he and his wife Avis like to eat venison. Whether or not that happens, this year, 2015, is one that will live on in my memory, so long as I have a memory for sure. The title of my first book was THE LUCKIEST HUNTER ALIVE. With a year such as this one, I am starting to believe that I just might be exactly that. Well, maybe not, but I do feel blessed to be able to do the things I do at 73 years of age, and to have the wonderful friends that I have to do it with.
Herewith, a toast to all of my fellow hunters, and especially to those who helped make this year a great one for me. It is adapted from a work of Rudyard Kipling, and one used frequently by my father.
“Here’s to ya, Fuzzy Wuzzy, and the missus and the kid.
Yer a full beknighted heathen, and a first-class huntin’ friend.”
Update, and final entry for 2016. Rifle deer season began November 30 this year, and on Sunday, the day before, Larry, Dave and I hit the camp. Dave and I, having filled our buck tags, would be relegated to hunting the Mount Davis DMAP area. Larry still had a buck tag to fill, so he would be hunting at camp. The day was wet and cold with a light drizzle. Dave and I returned to camp mid afternoon having had enough of that sort of weather. Larry decided to spend the evening portion of the day in the mini condo next to the sand mound, and wouldn’t you know it, the raghorn put in an appearance and Larry scored. This makes us three for three on bucks with a bear thrown in, so it is by far, the most successful season we have had since we moved to Camp Rip-N-Tear.
Above: Larry with his first day buck, the old raghorn.
While Crawford chose to hunt back home in Franklin County, both he and Seth ended up being successful. Seth took a smaller buck that Crawford ended up finishing off for him. Crawford, while hunting in Letterkenny, took a really big eight point. Photos below.