Jan 11, 2014 4 min read

While most of the bucks I saw at meat processors and taxidermy shops this year were small, I did get a chance to measure a very large nontypical buck taken in the Eighty Four area.

This 22-point was downed late in archery season by Stacy Skerbetz, a teacher at Beth-Center and the girls basketball coach at Bentworth. The rack had 22 points of over one inch. They totalled 55 inches.

The gross score was over 190, with a net score of 183.

This will place the buck high in the state record book and is probably the highest-scoring archery buck I have measured since I put the tape to the state’s top archery buck, a 36-point taken by George Sikunis that measured at over 209.

The Sikunis buck came from Allegheny County. Skerbetz’s buck came from Washington County.

• The state is considering putting a bounty on coyotes. When I was younger, there was a bounty on foxes that was dropped because it was a waste of money.

There is one thing a bounty would help – cleaning up the berms of local roads.

Coyotes will turn up with tire tracks across their back.

Regarding roadkills, observant drivers will note we have three types of deer living near our highways.

The first group are doe. The second group are buck with pencil-sized antlers. The third group is seemingly headless deer.

I have never seen a headless deer in the woods, but they do seem to get hit by cars. It’s no wonder they get hit. They don’t have eyes.

I wouldn’t believe the headless deer story unless I had seen them myself along the roads.

• As many hunters and target shooters have found, not only is ammunition hard to get, so are reloading components.

Some cartridges are impossible to locate, such as the .243.

Why this particular round?

Who knows? But it is also difficult to find a box of .243 shells at the local store as well.

Among handgun cartridges, the .380 would have to be high on the can’t-find list.

Primers are becoming available, as is a little Alliant powder. I am basing that on the scarcity of Bullseye, a fast-burning, smokeless powder popular with target shooters.

I am hearing the question raised about why there is a scarcity of these items for the past year. The latest issue of American Rifleman trys to answer that question.

The article doesn’t blame anti-gun factions. It lays the shortage at the feet of two other groups.

The first is the increasing number of shooters. The more people at the range shooting a firearm, the greater the demand there is for ammunition.

This growth in popularity shows up in the increase in female shooters. There is no doubt that there has been an increase in the number of women taking up target shooting and in self-defense courses.

The other issue is hoarders. Can you blame those who shoot on a regular basis from doing so when they expect a shortage?

This also goes for school rifle teams.

The Rifleman article points out there is an increase in the demand for ammunition and the factories just can’t keep up with the demand.

It all comes down to the fact the demand for ammunition has increased greatly, but the manufacturers are already working at maximum output.

Hopefully, everything will return to normal soon.

• This year’s sport show at Harrisburg should be interesting simply because of a change in organizers. After last year’s show was cancelled and the fiasco that followed, the NRA has taken over the event.

This year’s show runs Feb. 1 through 9.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.