The Deer Tag

    I am not much of a deer hunter. Sure, as a youngster growing up in Potter County there were many opportunities to "bag a deer." And, goodness knows, there were deer by the barrelful to be shot.

    When I turned twelve and I could legally hunt, I unwittingly became involved in the harvest of what is probably still regarded as the county record for the most deer shot in one day. It was 1949 and, as I recall, over 6,000 doe were shot that day, a Saturday I believe. My job, essentially, was simply to be there, with a gun and tag, while the rest of the group did the actual shooting. All of this came as somewhat of a surprise to me as I somehow had allowed myself to think that hunting involved skill, woodcraft and other things that I had read about in Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. What does a twelve-year old know? Especially, one who reads too much.

    Nay, nay. The "drill" in those distant days was simply to lay out as much lead as legally possible and hope that the tally at the day's end was up to par. This was at a time when on an evening one could easily count upwards of 400 deer in the fields while driving between here and Galeton, should one be inclined to be on the road to Galeton. A time when camps with rosters of 15 to 20 hunters would, at the end of their stay, be able to honestly claim that everyone went home with a deer.

    It was also the time when the Game Commission simply had to let farmers shoot deer in their fields all year 'round. The farmers were being eaten out of existence. As the son of the VoAg teacher who was required to visit his Ag students through the summer months I benefited from the more than occasional venison roast in July - "here, Prof, treat you family to some of this venison...we can't begin to eat it all up."

    The upshot is that I didn't actually shoot a deer that first season. Rather, my oldest brother, Bob, who had already got his deer earlier in the day and who had promised my mother that he's come back and take me out hunting, did. And the whole thing was over in such a short length of time I was somewhat dazed. While chugging up Jenkins Hill, the four of us (two of my brother's friends had joined us for the afternoon hunt) spotted a small herd of deer crossing the highway. While not technically qualifying as "road hunting," an accepted practice in those days, it nevertheless served the bill.

    Long story short is that once we had all bailed out, got into the fields and I finally figured out how to load my borrowed Uncle's gun, my brother simply grabbed it, snapped off a shot and dropped a doe. But I, of course, had to tag it, soon. I believe the other two hunters each dropped a doe also. And so, less than 4 miles from where I had been fidgeting and waiting for my brother in the family hallway fully dressed for a deer hunt, I got to tag a deer. By four in the afternoon of that day there were six doe hanging off the back porch. Similar scenes were played out in many of the local households that day.

    The background particulars of my first deer hunt are straightforward enough. Because of the shortages imposed by the Second World War, gas and ammunition were hard to come by. At the same time, demand for farm production was high which translated into more fields under cultivation. Ditto forest products, with the resulting clear cutting and thousands of acres of newly created deer habitat. The draft and over-time work in war production plants effectively and greatly reduced the numbers of hunters. Consequently the deer herd swelled.

    Thus it was that by the time my turn came to take up the deer rifle the Game Commission declared the first doe day since before the war. It neatly dovetailed with the pent up deer hunting fever of hundreds of Pittsburgh steel mill workers, deer hunters, who for years had neither the time nor the money to travel to this part of the Big Woods. Now they did. And much later, we would see them in the Academy Awards film, The Deer Hunter. And later still, buying property and retiring to Potter County.

    I remember hearing about hunters sleeping in their cars for lack of accommodations here in Coudersport. And the resulting 'call to arms' of the local politicians. This was the beginning of the Great Deer Hunter Boom. Suddenly, there was money to be made...simply make those spare bedrooms available. And housewives, my mother included, responded: Room and board plus a packed lunch - $7.00 a day. But that is another story unto itself.

    And, to be candid, this was probably not the best of times to learn the art and skill of deer hunting. It was all too casual.

    The next year my other brother, Jim, took me under his wing. He was working for the old Department of Forests and Waters, having completed his degree at Penn State in Forestry, and was in the woods all of the time. Indeed, I was surprised one day on an outing with him in his restored Model A to have him suddenly brake, leap out of the car and take off after a deer on foot! Talk about hunting. Yikes! And he damned near caught it. To an impressionable youngster, this was the nuts to beat all. I would hunt with Jim. I would get a deer. Period.

    And we did, but once again, it really wasn't the way I figured it would be. He had been doing some work for the department in the vicinity of Patterson Park and had had plenty of time to study the area. So that's where we went. And he was right. There were deer tracks all over the place. I probably was carrying the old Winchester lever action .32 Special with open sights. I'm hustling down a narrow trail per my brother's instructions. The doe was downhill about 50 yards. My first deer. An experienced hunter reading this knows what is going to happen. I'm going to aim and miss because I don't know how to stop, set up and carefully squeeze off for the downhill shot.

    Worse. I fire, the deer goes down, but it isn't dead. I've severed its backbone and it is bleating and flopping and struggling to drag itself away. And I'm running, my brother is running and I get there before him. But, I don't know what to do. Suddenly, the gun is yanked from my hands, a shot is fired, it's over. My brother is very quiet. He turns to me and says, "I hate that, I hate that."

    No recriminations, no lectures, no ranting, no 'you shudof done this, ya shudof done that'. Just: "I hate that." I was beginning to learn.

    It's not so casual.

    Almost ten years later, I agreed to the request of a close friend, a fellow Naval officer from Washington, DC, who had always wanted to hunt deer but had never had the chance. The deal was if he would come up to Potter County and hunt with me, we'd get a deer. Tony had had polio as a youngster, his well-to-do family had seriously restricted his childhood activities. So he really, really wanted to hunt.

    As I recall, the early morning hours were not productive and he was a bit down. He'd bought a nice .300 Savage lever action for the trip, but had nothing to show for it. I had tried all day to put him in favorable spots, but it was to no avail. Finally, out of desperation, I decided that we would do some cruising a.k.a. road hunting. Desk-bound functionaries of the Washington scene, neither one of us was in the best of shape, so this seemed the sensible thing to do. And it worked.

    In late afternoon, just before dusk, a nice buck ran across the road in front of the car. I braked, parked and explained to him that he should quietly exit, load and move off into the woods and then work his way along parallel to the road. If he got a good shot, he should take it. Meanwhile, I'd back him up by working the edge of the dirt road. I didn't think the deer would move deeply into the woods.

    The plan, such as it was, worked. He did, in fact, get positioned so that the buck was pinned between him and the road, not far in at all. I came upon the deer trying to hide behind a tree. They will do that. Tony moved, the deer panicked, leaped over the road and I caught him with one shot, through the heart, in mid-air. He was dead before he hit the ground on the other side.

    But...he wasn't my deer. As it has turned out it was my best shot ever on a deer, but he wasn't mine. It was a simple issue for me...Tony came up to get a deer. He got a deer. I showed him how to fill out his tag. The same way my brother Bob showed me for my first deer.

    Weeks later, back at work in DC, after the Christmas holidays, Tony told me about the very fine venison stew the family chef prepared for their Christmas dinner. In Lake Forest, Illinois, an upscale suburb of Chicago. And how wonderful it was.

    I haven't seen or talked with Tony for many, many years. But I'll bet he still has the tag.