Feb 28, 2020 4 min read

Well, the major sports shows in our home area are done and now I find myself looking back on the year 2019. It is probably true that the same could be said about most years. Last year was one of good happenings and some that are very worrisome. As I checked on the antler measuring program, I had a variety of emotions pass through me. It was the first year in a long time that I wasn’t involved, which allowed me to reminisce somewhat.

I don’t remember what year we started the measuring program but it was the same year that saw the first sports show. The show was the brain child of three sportsmen and myself and was held in the now defunct Washington Mall.

There was a bit of a disagreement with the person running the farm show and the sports show was a part of that show. The answer to the problem was simple: Start their own show. Jack Dalbo, Keith Small and Ben Williams got their heads together and the first Washington County Sports Show was born. The mall was filled with hunting, fishing and environmental people in various booths and almost every sports club in Washington County had a booth. Also present were local stores and companies such as Remington, Smith and Wesson and Bushnell. The show was a smashing success. My contribution was as an official measurer for both Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young. I would measure deer on Saturday and Sunday.

We became inundated with large antlers and scored at least 25 bucks on Saturday and 20 on Sunday. I was fortunate to have found help and, without that help the program, would have ended early for no one can measure that many deer in the allotted time. But a special thanks is owed to John Dino of Canonsburg because he stayed with the program from the first year until this year. If the program still exists next year, John will be one of the persons using the tape next year. While he is not an official Boone & Crockett scorer, he is as good at the job as anyone and better than many official scorers.

I have handed my clipboard over to Mathias Wenzon of Coal Center and I am sure he is a very competent measurer. He helped me for a few years before taking the Boone & Crockett course in Montana. I still attend the show and present my winner of the George Block Conservation Scholarship award to a deserving high school student. This year’s winner was a young lady from Canon-McMillan High School, Gabriella Popovski. It is among the good things that happened last year.

I was personally happy to be able to hunt deer for at least one more year and downed a buck in Missouri and another in Greene County. When I ask Matt Shoemaker, the owner of Macon County Outfitters, if he had ever had a successful hunter of my age, he said emphatically, “I never even had a hunter try that was your age.”

Both hunts were with my son-in-law, Mike Ward and Delmont Hunnel of Greene County. Incidentally, we all downed a buck in Missouri and two of us scored in Greene County. That was some more of the good that occurred in 2019.

There were some things that are worrisome. First, and most troubling, is the constant expansion of the area threatened by Chronic Wasting Disease. Unless someone comes up with something to either prevent the spread of this deer killer or even cure it, the disease will come our way. It can and probably will decimate the deer herd and it is creeping closer and closer to home. I believe it is presently as close as Ligonier and that is not far away.

I believe that far too many hunters don’t realize how serious this problem is. It may be CWD that ends the deer measuring program. I hope not. That is the good and the bad of 2019.

George Block writes a weekly outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.