{"id":348093,"date":"2025-12-14T11:05:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348093\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T11:05:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:05:13","slug":"keys-to-the-hunt-bagging-a-deer-takes-quick-reflexes-and-sometimes-all-day-from-the-trailhead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348093\/","title":{"rendered":"Keys to the hunt: Bagging a deer takes quick reflexes, and sometimes all day | From The Trailhead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This is a combination of columns that first appeared Saturday, Dec. 6 and 13 in The Trailhead, a free email newsletter featuring Penn\u2019s Woods coverage of Pennsylvania\u2019s great outdoors on lehighvalleylive.com and pennlive.com. It comes out weekly at 8 a.m. Saturday. Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hunting public land in the Pocono Mountains, I set the alarm for 3:50 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 29 \u2014 opening day of the regular firearms season for Pennsylvania deer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was a bit of a struggle to find the right tree to stand beside in the predawn dark, the red light of my headlamp illuminating only a few feet. A little before 11 a.m., my mind wandered to what is wrong with the Eagles after that Black Friday loss, and I was getting a little worked up when I saw the first deer of the day. It was just the hind quarters, about 120 yards away, disappearing into mountain laurels that were just beginning to reflect the midday sun into a blinding sea of white.<\/p>\n

Some steady flurries fell, and I liked how the earth smelled when I scraped away the leaves to be able to stand and turn around quietly. Black-capped chickadees and crows moved through.<\/p>\n

You can hunt until 5:06 p.m. opening day<\/a>, and around 4:30 I packed up, figuring to walk out slowly for the last half-hour as darkness settled. Just then, a couple of deer burst onto the hillside beside me, up against each other for a moment, and I could see through binoculars the one in front was a good-size doe. The other looked to be a spike buck, but I focused on it to try and be sure. He\u2019d stop and stare directly at me, and I could see it was a spike. But by that point, I lost sight of the doe.<\/p>\n

Spikes are protected under Pennsylvania\u2019s requirement that a buck have three points or more to one antler, or four in western portions of the state. I had an antlerless tag for that Wildlife Management Unit but didn\u2019t act decisively with the doe. <\/p>\n

What I lack in aggressiveness when a shot opportunity appears, I make up for by enduring the full-day sit from dawn to dusk. I enjoy the standing still for once in our busy lives, the fresh air, the looking around at the woods. There\u2019s time to think about the approach to the shot, the field dressing and getting the deer to the car. But also, why is Hurts throwing behind people? How could they come out at halftime against the Bears and go three and out, again?<\/p>\n

\"KeysThe Trailhead curator Kurt Bresswein wraps up another all-day search for white-tailed deer Saturday, Nov. 15.Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com<\/p>\n

Today could be another long day for Pennsylvania deer hunters still looking to fill a tag before the regular firearms season comes to a close.<\/p>\n

Whitetails may be hunkered down, wary and weary of the annual infiltration of hunters into their midst these past two weeks. Regular firearms is the Pennsylvania deer season when most hunters are out and finding success \u2014 accounting for 60% of 476,880 whitetails<\/a> harvested in 2024-25. <\/p>\n

How do you pass the time when your ticket home \u2014 getting a deer \u2014 remains elusive?<\/p>\n

It starts with the basics, like making sure you\u2019re dressed warmly as the December cold sets in and winds whip through your corner of the woods. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recommends<\/a> a layer of synthetic fabrics that wick moisture from the skin and dry quickly; outer garments that are tightly woven, water repellent and hooded; gloves and a hat. <\/p>\n

A collapsible seat is nice to have along when ground hunting, like a camp chair or fishing stool.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the food and a hot drink. The Pennsylvania Game Commission earlier this month asked hunters for \u201cYOUR go-to hunting snack<\/a>,\u201d and it\u2019s Little Debbies for the win. Other responses included homemade cookies, fig newtons (ooh, quiet!), Sour Patch Kids and jerky\/beef sticks, apples, oranges, Pringles, Snickers and Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups, Lebanon bologna rolled up around peanut butter, cereal bars, root beer barrels and Honey Buns \u2014 which may or may not also be Little Debbie. <\/p>\n

A Thermos of coffee or hot tea gives you just enough of a reward to while away chunks of hours, counting on a cup now and then, and you can almost tell the time by how much of your backpack smorgasbord you\u2019ve eaten.<\/p>\n

I like to keep my hunting fuel simple, but fairly specific: whole-wheat bread sandwiches \u2014 one with peanut butter, dried cherries and honey, then one with ham or turkey or leftover meat and kale, spinach, chard or what have you, plus some mayo. They go in plastic, which is quieter than foil to unwrap, and get stuffed into a Ziplock with a Clif Bar, granola bars and some kind of fruit. I\u2019ve been bringing a Vitamin Water-type drink and liter of water, plus the coffee.<\/p>\n

Deer hunters spend most of their time looking around for deer, grinding bootprints into the ground or alternating which direction you face in the tree stand. But I\u2019ll never forget the advice of Rusty Miller, my seventh-grade reading teacher, to bring a book \u2014 read a page, look around, read another page.<\/p>\n

Some choice hunting-related reading material you can find at the links here include short stories like: Raymond Carver\u2019s \u201cThe Calm\u201d<\/a>; \u201cThe Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber\u201d<\/a> by the genre\u2019s king, Ernest Hemingway; and Ray Bradbury\u2019s \u201cA Sound of Thunder.\u201d<\/a> Themeateater.com offers \u201cA Short Story Every Hunter Should Read,\u201d<\/a> and fieldandstream.com has \u201cGreat Deer Stories: 18 Tales of Anticipation, Pursuit, and Harvest.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Beyond firearms season, more Pennsylvania deer hunting is in store with flintlock and late archery \u2014 plus extended firearms in select Wildlife Management Units and DMAP properties statewide \u2014 opening Dec. 26. (Find complete seasons and bag limits<\/a> for Pennsylvania\u2019s 2025-26 license year.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This is a combination of columns that first appeared Saturday, Dec. 6 and 13 in The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-348093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}