General
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Tree Stand Dreaming
Hunting season is right around the corner and preparation is under way. This of course includes shooing bows, sighting in rifles, prepping gear, and a laundry list of other items. To me, it also includes utilizing & checking trail cameras. I have used trail cameras since I was about 16 years old. I have enjoyed having them and mainly used them to see what deer are in an area. For many years, this required physically going to “check” the camera to see what pictures it took. In recent years, I have picked up a couple of cell cameras. These have been awesome, especially considering cameras I have set up at…
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Shed Hunting PR
Once again I found myself headed Northeast on I-80 at 5:30 AM. It was Saturday March 9th and I was driving to camp to get a morning shed hunt in. The forecast for the day wasn’t great (at least from a walking perspective). It was looking like steady rain all day – perfect for making antlers easier to spot. Vince and Dan were originally planning on making the trip as well, but the rain scared them off. Heading out alone, I opted to once again hike behind camp rather than the Wilderness. I started off at 7:00 AM to hit some new areas before taking one last trip through the…
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Shed Hunting Tips & Tricks
Shed hunting is addicting. Over the last 4 years, I have spent at least a few days each spring in the PA big woods in search of shed antlers. While the world was on lockdown from COVID, I decided to give shed hunting a go. I thought they would be nearly impossible to find, especially where we hunt. Food sources everywhere and there’s not one central location where finding an antler would be “easy”. I soon learned they certainly weren’t impossible to find, but it took a lot of work. From the moment I laid eyes on the first one that spring, I was hooked. I have to admit that…
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Super Shed Sunday
I decided to put a different spin on “Super Bowl Sunday” this year. I set the alarm for 5:00 AM Saturday night and was up bright (dark this time of year) and early Sunday. By 5:35 AM I was headed for the mountains for half a day of shed hunting. This is the earliest time of year I have shed hunted, but I knew from trail camera pictures that the snow was melted and Saturday afternoon brought rain. The wet, dark ground of compressed leaves and underbrush would make for perfect shed hunting. I arrived at camp at 7:35 AM and after checking to make sure everything was in good…
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Hot Spot
The PA Rifle Season opener has come and gone, and while it didn’t bring with it the action we were hoping for, it turned out to be a great weekend in Penn’s Woods. Saturday morning, our crew made our annual hike into the Wilderness. I had high hopes, especially with the big set of sheds I found there this spring. I was set-up in the same spot I have harvested 2 big bucks in years prior. The morning was slow, with none of our group seeing much action. I did manage to see a coyote around 9:00 AM – my first while hunting – but he busted me as I…
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Guys Weekend 2023
Our Annual Guys Weekend trip has come to a close, and it was certainly one for the books. A record number of deer were taken for our crew. While we failed to see the “peak rut” activity we were hoping for, it is hard to argue with the results. After getting settled into camp Tuesday evening, I hit the woods first thing Wednesday. Robert and I sat for about 3.5 hours in the Graveyard area and failed to see a deer on stand. We decided to head back to camp to re-group before heading out for a long evening sit. Uncle Rob and I headed out near his spot where…
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The Rut
The time of year we hunters dream of will be starting any day now. When bucks are chasing doe with only one thing on their mind. Deer running all around without a care. They are the days where you can seemingly do no wrong, and those days are here. “The Rut” is upon us. With our annual Guys Weekend trip coming up this week, I was able to get up to camp for a pre-trip hunt and scout. I was up at 4:00 AM today, showered, packed up my lunch & coffee, and was out the door at 4:45 AM. The drive up was eventful in and of itself. On…
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Swing And A Miss
My first archery hunting trip of the season finally came as I headed to camp the evening of Friday October 13th. I made it up in time to get set-up for an evening hunt, and with the gate behind camp closed I decided to set up just 75 yards into the woods behind the edge of the yard. I made the switch from my tree steps to a one-stick set-up this year and this was my first hunt putting it to the test…it did not go well. I spent half the climb dangling as my feet continuously wanted to kick-out from the tree. Once I got set, I decided to…
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Uplander
I have wanted an over & under shotgun for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my dad had a beautiful 12 gauge Browning Citori that I had always admired. Similarly, Uncle Rob a stunning 12 gauge Beretta. I recently got the shotgun bug and went down a deep rabbit hole of gun shopping that inevitably we have all dove-in head first on numerous occasions. My search led me through many brands and guns, and with it came a something I never previously considered. The classic side-by-side. Generally thought of as a tougher gun to shoot, the side-by-side over the years gave way to the new and improved over…
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Gar-Hole
Yes, you read that right. The dreaded “Gar-Hole”… I’m not sure where the term originated, but it has come to rival that of “Honey-Hole” in Southern Ohio, at least in our crew, the past few years… Back in mid December (2021), one week before Christmas, I took a trip down to Dan’s in Southern Ohio for a pre-Christmas muzzleloader hunt. Myself, Dan, Aiden, Rob, Robert, Nathan and Cole headed over to Lowell’s and the state forest surrounding the property. We were coming in for the late gun hunt; a muzzleloader-only season in hopes for a nice buck. Dan sent me up through the “honey-hole” (read: gar-hole) where I planned to…
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Reflections
The 2021 Pennsylvania hunting season is officially underway, and I am often finding myself reflecting on last season. It was without a doubt my best year in the woods to date, and one that I will not soon forget. The year started out with trying my hand at shed hunting. It was something I always wanted to get into, and COVID shutting everything down gave me a great excuse to head to the woods. I ended up finding 4 antlers over the course of 2 hikes. Two of which ended up as matching sides (from the 2018 season) to a nice 10 point that I actually ended up harvesting in…
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Keystone Bugles
There was a time when elk roamed throughout the Pennsylvania Wilds. Bulls could be heard letting out roaring bugles throughout the Allegheny Mountains, across the surrounding fields and through nearby valleys. Unfortunately, due to settlement and lack of regulation, hunting wiped out the state’s native herd in the 1870s. There wouldn’t be an elk in Penn’s woods until the dawn of the new century. The early 1900s arrived along with the re-introduction of elk by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Shipments made from the west and Yellowstone National Park brought bugling bulls back to Pennsylvania. Luckily, they have since remained. As yet another century began, so did modern elk hunting in…
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The Most Wonderful Time of The Year
No I am not talking about Christmas. I am talking sleepless nights, chilly days and leaves falling. I’m talking daydreaming about bucks walking by stands and chasing doe. That’s right, I am talking about hunting season, and it is finally here. For many of us, these next few months are our favorites of the year. I have spent the last couple months watching videos of guys hunting out west and in other nearby states. Finally, after this past weekend the PA season is underway. Our Guys Weekend group text has been lighting up with everyone getting excited to spend time at camp hunting and hanging out this fall. This past…
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Embrace The Suck
This past weekend I made a trip to camp with a few high school buddies for a weekend getaway of great food, deer scouting, hiking and laughs. I arrived at camp Friday evening around 7:30 and had 4 doe in the yard upon my arrival. After watching them trot off, I got everything unloaded and put away and got camp in order for the guys. I walked out on the back deck to take my obligatory beer picture for the Guy’s Weekend group chat (a tradition that I am not sure who started, but I happily partake in – we take a picture of a beer on the deck overlooking…
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Tag Soup
Well, it’s that time of the year again. This past Monday, hunting licenses for the 2020-2021 hunting season went on sale in Pennsylvania. To me, there is something about buying a PA license for the upcoming year that really kicks off the anticipation for the upcoming season. This is usually when I start shooting my bow in the yard to get dialed in for archery season. I’ll also start to head to the range to make sure all my guns are sighted in as well. And one of my favorite things to do now, is check trail cameras. With bucks starting to put on the velvet by the week, there…
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Guys Weekend
Just 2 simple words – Guys…..Weekend. When spoken together, they prompt memories for about a dozen of us of probably the greatest “weekend” of the year. You see, each year just after Halloween, our Guys Weekend group assembles at our camps for an extended weekend of archery hunting, outdoor cooking, eating, having a few drinks, and just flat out enjoying ourselves. Don’t let the “guys” part of it mislead you into thinking this is some anti-female trip – it’s just one of the few times we don’t have wives, kids, and other family that we need to take care of. It’s pretty simple really – we hunt, tell stories,…
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This I Believe
I wrote this in January 2015 and thought this would be the perfect place to share: “I believe that everyone should experience feeling small. Not the type of small that comes from criticism – but the small you feel knowing you are a part of a bigger picture. As a child, I often made trips to our family cabin outside of Tionesta, PA, a small town bordering the Allegheny National Forest. “The Camp,” was founded by my grandfather and great uncle as a means of escape for family and friends. For as long as I can remember, my dad, uncles and cousins all went into the wilderness to hunt, hike…
