(Second in a series on hunting whitetail deer in Pennsylvania)
There are many plusses, some minuses, to hunting deer in the snow, but the obvious plus is being able to track a big buck.
A buck's tracks always are longer, some showing round marks from dewclaws at the back of the hoof. Their tracks are more forceful than doe tracks, often deeper and more pronounced in the front as the big buck leans his top-heavy body forward.
In this case, on this hunt right now in the Allegheny National Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania, tracking is more difficult because the snow is more than 2 feet deep in spots.
I personally can attest that there are drifts high enough to cover my, ah, hips.
“The ideal snow is about 6 inches of powder, just enough to get tracks and to make it quiet walking,” said Dan Murphy, my hunting partner here much of this week. “This snow is just too deep.”
Know this: A two-mile walk in this snow takes at least five times the effort, even going slow, or, still hunting along the way. The forest roads and oil lease roads are tough to walk. Some have newly downed trees. But all that we've explored have lots of deer tracks.
Finding tracks hasn't been a problem. Finding deer has been a problem.
So far, in two days of hunting, except for the tracks from two large bucks around the cabins, I've followed fresh tracks of just one buck. Dan and I kicked it out as we walked up an oil lease road mid-morning today. Dan did his usual loop around the mountain laurel and worked his way toward me. I went into the mountain laurel in pursuit of whatever we kicked out.
“Keep your gun up and ready in there because they get in that mountain laurel and then pop up when you get close to them,” Dan said.
I followed the tracks to a spot that clearly was a bedding area, a deer condo under a bent pine. The buck tracks went by the bedding area and into some more mountain laurel and mixed with a bunch of other tracks. Since I knew Dan was coming the other way, I backed off and set up near the bed site to see if something happened.
Nothing did, but it was an exciting part of what was the second day of the whitetail season. Just as everyone I talked to predicted, there was a dramatic drop-off in hunters and effort. There were a few shots just after daylight, but not nearly the barrage of booms we heard all day during Monday's opener. The air had been let out of this event, but the season still had 13 days to go, plenty of time to get a buck.
On Day Two, Dan and I were joined by Mark Fredericks, an operator at First Energy Electric in Warren. Dan, who is an operator at United Oil Refinery, also in Warren, and Mark have been hunting buddies for many years. Like many hunters here, they remember when deer hunting was much better.
These two seasoned hunters say a big reason for the immediate drop in hunters on the second day is partly because most hunters have to work right now in this tough economy. But they added that there just aren't nearly as many deer in this area as there once was.
“We were spoiled up here for many years because it was common to go out and see 20 to 30 deer every time,” Mark said.
Said Dan: “It used to be that we'd have a two-week buck season before a two- or three-day doe season. In that buck season, if you heard a shot, it was a hunter shooting at a buck. Now, you never know.”
Overkilling of does – in some cases by the very hunters who now complain there aren't any deer – led to a huge decline in deer numbers here. Habitat loss due to invasive bugs that killed trees and other factors contributed to the decline.
Since the hunt began Monday morning, I've only seen one doe and one very dead buck. I did hear a deer bust brush to get away. Dan saw it but never saw antlers. The tracks indicated it was a buck.
The snow serves as an incredible natural GPS of what has walked, or, in the case of a porcupine, what waddled and crawled beforehand.
Dan pointed out the porcupine trail, an odd mix of tracks and a serpentine line of brushed, compacted snow from the bristly low-riding porcupine.
Dan also spotted some bear tracks that were fresh.
But deer tracks are everywhere, so even though the population isn't what it once was, there still are plenty of deer up here. With antler restrictions (three points on one side or better) and more limited doe tags, hunting is getting better.
“It's getting better, and there still are a lot of deer, but there's also a lot of big country for them to hide in up here,” Dan said. “This forest is huge, and they could be anywhere.”
Compared to Day One, Day Two was a mellow one. Mark Fredericks peeled off early on our morning hunt, and Dan pulled a 2-10 p.m. shift at the refinery.
That allowed me to get in my first afternoon hunt alone. It was uneventful, but nonetheless a good trudge through Pennsylvania's Polar Ice Cap. I returned to the area where my other neighbor, Rick Zemanek of Erie, shot the 9-point buck on Monday. I was hoping there was some luck left there, but not so.
One thing I must say is that this snow-white packed forest, with the contrast of black, leafless trees already in winter coat, can by hypnotic to stare at, with or without binoculars. It's a black-and-white, Ansel Adams world, and in its own special way, as captivating as the great nature photographs.
The difference is I'm sitting in the middle of this living photograph, mesmerized by it all.
On the way out and back to the cabin as darkness fell on Day Two of my whitetail deer hunt, I spotted fresh buck tracks, with just a touch of snow that fell this morning. The great news is they look to be big enough to match that 12-pointer, or at least the 9-pointer, that Dan has seen and captured on his trail camera.
Looks like Big Boy made it through the firing line of Day One. We knew he was too smart.
I know my brother-in-law Dale Olmsted, and nephew, Dennis Bambino, my camp guests who arrive from Albany, N.Y., Wednesday night, will be thrilled to know that. I sure am.
Ed Zieralski: (619) 293-1225;
ed.zieralski@uniontrib.com
