Venison Procurement Process for ‘09 Lout Trip

This year’s PA deer season was a very special one for yours truly. It began with snow covered ground, a bonus for seeing deer in the dense forest. I climbed into my stand long before dark to allow the woods to settle down.

Shortly after first light (~ 7 am), three deer snuck through the top of the Hemlock swamp below my stand. Quickly finding them in my binoculars, I could not make out any antlers and watched as they passed through the thick beech trees below my stand. It is always exciting to see the first deer of the season and my stand typically does not see deer that early. I thought to myself, this is going to be a special day! We had seen some real bruisers during bow and small game season and each of our 11 hunters in camp were hoping that one of these big boys would show themselves. Little did we know what the day would provide Camp Yellow Snow…

About a half hour later while looking off to my west, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. As I slowly turned towards that movement, I saw a large buck step out of the thick beeches and right into my cleared shooting lane - a mere 35 yards away. Surprised that he had snuck up on my so quietly, I quickly got my rifle into position, took the safety off and took aim. BANG barked the big 7 mm Rem Mag and off he went. Did I make a good shot? That deer bolted at the shot and I wasn’t sure, but I knew at that range without branches in my way that my bullet should have flown true. I quickly chambered another round and swung the gun towards my running deer. Just as the scope swung to his path, I could see that I had, indeed, hit him hard. But with the thick beech trees still holding their brown leaves, I could not see him well as he piled up in the snow about 40 yards past where I had shot at him. Giving him 10 minutes to be certain, I unloaded the gun and lowered it and my backpack to the ground and climbed down from my stand, all the while shaking with excitement. In the heat of the moment, I realized that I had no idea just how big he was, I hadn’t needed to take the time to count antler points - I just knew he was the largest deer of my life to date.

Walking to where I had taken the shot I found his track.
Did I hit him? I must have, after all, he went down in the thick trees. There was no blood at that scene, so I began to track him, finding this in the snow…

That’s what I thought! A lung shot and a good one!!! Tracking in the snow was quite easy and I quickly recovered my 10 point buck - the largest taken to date in some 40 years of hunting at Camp Yellow Snow (I’ve hunted that camp for about the past 26 years). Later on that same day my buddy Dave shot another monster. This one an eight point buck. Two of our other hunters were also lucky enough to take legal bucks and all 11 of our hunters saw bucks, although many of those were too young to take given PA’s 3 points per side antler restrictions. Should be plenty of young bucks around for the future!

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