Dec 19, 2015 4 min read

Before buck season ended, I saw three huge bucks and can’t help but wonder if they were taken during the two weeks of the season. If they weren’t large enough to make book, they were at least close.

I have heard rumors of one being taken but nothing about the other two. Perhaps they will appear at the outdoors show in the Washington Crown Center where I will be measuring deer on Feb. 6th and 7 in the rear of the Gander Mountain Store.

I feel that the harvest was down a bit but that would understandable when you take the weather into consideration. While it was unseasonably warm, I remember a year when it was warmer.

Deer would go to the processor with spoiled meat where the body had been in contact with the ground. I think the temperature was somewhere in the 70s.

I prefer the warmer weather over weather that finds the old man shivering on the stand and unable to stay put. I did finally, after hunting all week, down a nice 8-point buck. While the rack was nothing great and similarly nothing to be ashamed of, the body was huge.

At my age I’m thankful just to be able to go hunting and blessed to be able to count points and down a deer.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission could sure help the old and decrepit by eliminating antler restrictions for senior license holders. We don’t see as well, can’t drag a deer far, get cold quickly and can’t walk as far.

We have paid our dues. Give us a break.

I have met many seniors who have quit because of antler restrictions and that is sad.

In 1974, it snowed the night before the opening of deer season. It snowed and snowed and then snowed some more.

I was supposed to travel to Warren County but that year the snow kept me at home. That is the reason that 1973 was my last year of hunting the opening day from a mountain hunting retreat.

While I have drug many bucks home that were local residents, I still miss the friendship that is found when a group of men get together at a remote cabin and get ready to hunt.

Clothes are hung from nails driven in the walls to be used for that purpose. There might be an empty beverage can sitting somewhere and one mustn’t forget the inevitable card game.

Neither drinking nor gambling, I sat in front of the fireplace listening to the hunting stories. One guy in the card game kept repeating his name for some odd reason.

He even spelled it, “H-a-i-n-e-r,” he said. He had the whole place laughing. When I woke, the next morning the first words out of my mouth were HAINER!

Since Eric Hainer is from the Scenery Hill area I nicknamed him the big one on the hill. That’s the stuff I miss about those trips afar to hunt.

There is more to the hunt than the kill and while hunting at home, something is missed.

There was a taxidermist, Dale Anders, also of Scenery Hill whose food we all ate. I believe that almost every camp has an old timer who stays at camp, rarely going hunting. He just cleans up and cooks meals. I sometimes think he is the intelligent one, because he shares the mountain cottage experience but stays warm.

There was always a pot of chili brought and kept warm by John Matko of Richeyville. John was pleasant company to say the least. Buffalo Bill Harvey played cards and Grimm and Ed Russel kept up the chatter.

Maybe a pie baked by someone appeared and hit the spot.

• There is a gun show coming up at Arden Jan. 9 and 10. I can’t think of a better place to be than at the Washington County Fairgrounds on a January weekend. Like many other Americans, I too will suffer from post-Christmas empty-wallet syndrome but still may be able to wring out a few bucks to buy something with.

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