Opening day of PA deer season (Rifle)

Opening day for PA rifle deer season.

Rain poured down all night and it was still falling when I woke up at 6 AM so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Chester was having none of that, however, so I go up, got dressed and fed the cats.

The rain stopped falling around 7 AM and there was a hint of blue skies by 8 AM. Outside I could hear other hunters taking shots and got the itch to see what might be in my backyard.

I had my act together and was out the door by 8:45. I walked up our second driveway (it's a two lot parcel of 17 acres total) being careful to step where there was no snow. Still, I was less than 30 yards from the house when I heard snow crunching off to my right--up wind of me. I froze and peeked through the young pines and beeches. A deer was paralleling my course at an angle to intercept the driveway just 15 feet ahead of me. And it had horns. Just not enough horns. In NY or NJ my hunt would have been over, but PA requires 3 points on at least one side of the antlers and this looked to be a simple spike. I had the safety off and the rifle on my shoulder looking through the scope but could not see any forks on the antlers which were at times hidden by the deer's ears. It froze when it reached the driveway as if to pause long enough to look both ways before crossing. That's when it saw me and i said, "Boo" in a quiet voice. It took two bounds in the woods paralleling the driveway and then burst out on to the drive heading away from me. I can't say it was terribly spooked because it kept its tail down. I watched as it disappeared up the drive and still couldn't make out more than spikes. Ten minutes later there was a shot from the neighboring property in the direction deer took. Perhaps that person didn't see any horns--or didn't care that this buck was not legal. I doubt there was second deer in the area. I did not investigate.

I found a spot to put my stool and sat down for the morning. At noon an second, larger buck came up the hill about 100 yards to my left heading right to left. I could clearly see at least three points on its left antler but there were an awful lot of small beeches off in that direction. I followed the buck with my rifle on my shoulder just hoping to get a clear lane in which to shoot. When I thought I had one, I squeezed the trigger. I knew right away that I had missed. The deer just didn't act like it had been hit and, since I was shooting toward a rather steep hillside and the echo reverberated off that slope, the deer was confused as to where the shot came from. I reloaded and hoped for a second chance a little further along the still walking deer's path. It came in a narrow lane between the tree trunks and I missed again. I walked over to check that there was no blood on the snow and to follow the track up the hill a short way to see where it went. I heard another shot from the same area as earlier--which was right in line with the deer's trail.

Later in the day, I saw a large deer bound across a small, semi-pen field at the bottom of the hill and into some pines on the other side. The deer was close to two hundred yards away from me and it was impossible to tell if it had horns or not. I had no chance for a shot anyway.

And so ended my opening day of the Pennsylvania deer season.

Three deer seen: two bucks fr sure; one legal; two missed shots.

Others were shooting all around me for much of the morning. Things slacked off considerably after the noon hour. Many were single shots (dead deer?), some were double (maybe a dead deer?) and a few...well, let's just say it sounded like one or two were spray-and-pray.