Nov 19, 2016 3 min read

This looks like it could be a banner year for deer hunters in Washington and Greene counties if the early results of what I’ve seen and heard hold true.

I’ve already seen some very nice bucks both afield and in photos sent into the paper.

While we don’t typically run the photos of dead deer on the Outdoors page unless there also is a story involved, people do send them in every year. And there have been some very nice ones crossing my desk thus far.

Nothing, however, taken quite measures up to the elk harvested in this year’s hunt.

According to the Pennsylvania Game Commission there were 97 elk taken during the one-week season that ended Nov. 5. The success rate for hunters who won the lottery for the chance to hunt elk in Pennsylvania was 78 percent overall, with those who got a tag for a bull having a success rate of 96 percent.

Fourteen of those bulls had estimated live weights of 700 or more pounds, with two topping 800 pounds.

The largest bull was an 824-pounder taken by Stephen Winter of Perkasie that had a 9×8 rack.

The other 800-pound bull weighed in at 813 pounds and had a 7×8 rack. It was taken with a bow by Steven Armburger of Guys Mills.

In terms of rack size, the largest was a 9×8 taken of Joshua Fuqua of Clymer that measured 418 6/8 inches as a green score under Boone & Crockett scoring. That rack cannot be officially measured for 60 days.

That bull isn’t quite up to the state record of 442 6/8ths, but it’s in the ballpark.

• The scholastic rifle season is just around the corner and a couple of local high school students helped the Frazier-Simplex Rifle Club top the Dormont-Mt. Lebanon Sportsmen in a key Pittsburgh and Suburban Rifle League match last week.

Avella High School’s Becca Spencer shot a 297 and McGuffey’s Haley Wilkerson posted a 295 as Frazier-Simplex avenged a season-opening loss to Dormont-Mt. Lebanon, 1,482-1,477 in a battle of Washington County teams.

Trinity High School head rifle coach John Husk and Zac Szabo each fired 297 for Frazier-Simplex (5-1), while Avella head coach Jim Mounts had a 296.

Those scores offset the league’s first 300 score of the season posted, which was posted by Dean Trew of Dormont-Mt. Lebanon (5-1). Amy Smith and Matt Piatt each had 295s, while Tom Benedict had a 294 and Curtis Tanner 293.

The two will meet two more times this season and those matches would figure to be just as hotly contested.

• Former Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQuery won his lawsuit against school in regards to the Jerry Sandusky case, but he didn’t escape the long arm of the law when it came to breaking the hunting rules.

McQuery, who won $7.3 million in a defamation and misrepresentation case against Penn State, plead guilty this week to a hunting violation for baiting.

According to WJAC-TV in Johnstown, McQuery was cited by the Pennsylvania Game Commission two days after winning his award in court for using corn and other substances to attract deer to a tree stand while archery hunting in Centre County.

McQuery was assessed a fine of $200.

Outdoors Editor Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.