A beautiful sunset, but no whitetails, was the reward on the final day of the early muzzleloader season.
Bob Frye/Everybody Adventures
Not this year.
That’s what I was thinking walking back to the truck. It was the last day of the early muzzleloader season – officially past it, now that darkness had fallen – and my trek back did not involve dragging a whitetail behind me.
I’d picked wrong.
A planned full day’s hunt had become a half day outing. OK, I thought, that’s better than nothing, and still qualifies as day 11 of my outdoor odyssey challenge.
It was opening day of the statewide pheasant season, too. I thought to use that to my advantage.
In seasons past, I’ve killed whitetails by hunting near areas where pheasant hunters and dogs are mulling about, acting almost as de facto deer drivers, moving whitetails around.
Not this time.
This year, pheasant hunters have to buy a $25 permit before they can chase stocked birds. Relatively few have.
Last fall, Pennsylvania had an estimated 85,000 or so pheasant hunters, according to the Game Commission. This fall it’s sold only about 30,000 permits.
Spots on the game lands that have in the past been full of trucks, many with dog boxes in the bed, had just a smattering of vehicles this time.
A tiny salamander on the forest floor.
Bob Frye/Everybody Adventures
I wasn’t totally disappointed, though. With little commotion, perhaps deer will stick to their normal routines. I set up in a favorite stand, near some oaks that have produced a fair amount of acorns this year. They’re located near a field edge, close enough to some standing corn that I thought I might come across a few whitetails looking to feed on one or the other.
There are two stands here, one on one side of the field, the other opposite it, 150 or so yards away on the other.
I picked the wrong one.
I saw chipmunks aplenty, and gray squirrels and a flock of a dozen big-bodied turkeys. At the base of my tree I’d even encountered a tiny salamander, half the size of a nightcralwer, and watched it for 15 minutes. It never moved.
Stillness equaled survival, was its thinking, I guess.
But deer?
I saw three step daintily, stealthily out of the woods – on the opposite field edge, the place I might have been but wasn’t.
It was minutes, if that, before sunset. They were too far away to shoot and too far away to expect them to reach me in time, even were they so inclined to come my way.
I watched them until it got too dark to see, then headed for the truck.
Archery season is still in, with the rifle season to follow and then the late flintlock season. So the game’s not over.
But this season is. And the whitetails, so far, are winning.
