SQUIRREL HUNTING

Before I was in elementary school my mother would substitute teach on rare occasions and I would require a babysitter. I recall several times a good friend of ours from church, Nell Sager would keep me at their farm. I don’t remember a lot about the days there but I do remember that she let me play with the collection of die cast tractors and farm implements that belonged to her son, John. I am sure he came home from school and wondered how his tractors got spread out across the living room floor. Little did I know at the time that John would one day become my brother-in-law. I suppose that the tractors and machinery that I viewed as just toys were more than that to him, as he would one day receive a PhD in Agricultural Engineering from Penn State.

Years later when John was dating my sister, Barbara, he suggested that a small wood lot on the Sager farm held plenty of squirrels if I was looking for a place to hunt. He said he had often had success there in his youth. He didn’t have to say anymore. The next opportunity I got I was out there on a sunny fall Saturday. I had three choices of weaponry – a shotgun, a .22 rifle or a .22 pistol. The shotgun would provide for the least challenge and the best chance for success. The rifle would provide more of a challenge but I wasn’t too concerned about actually bringing home dead squirrels. I was just interested in getting in some shooting. If I took the pistol I’d be traveling more lightly and almost guaranteeing I wouldn’t have to clean any game that day. So that’s what I did.

On most days squirrels are more active in the mornings and evenings. I figured I would get out to the woodlot early to have the best chance of seeing some. I parked by the Sager’s milk house. Theirs was a dairy farm and we used to get our milk there in large glass gallon jars. It was pasteurized but not homogenized so the thick cream rose to the top. I remember Dad used to scoop this cream out for his coffee. But I digress, back to the squirrels. It was a short walk across a recently-cut cornfield to the woodlot. This was probably about two acres of 80 to 100 year-old oaks in the middle of all the cultivated fields. I guessed that the original farmers had left these trees for firewood or perhaps even structural lumber in the past. It reminded of how simple and self-sufficient life used to be in this rural area.

There were lots of stumps to sit on so I found one with a comfortable height and sat down. It was a perfect fall day with sunny skies, low humidity, and a temperature in the low 60s. I pulled out my pipe and settled in for peaceful morning. It didn’t take long before I noticed movement on the floor of the woodlot. It seemed there were birds everywhere. They were fueling up on seeds for an eventual flight south. The squirrels on the other hand would be staying put for the winter. It wasn’t long before they came out of hiding to gather nuts for their larder. I noticed that many were just exiting a nest in the very top of a large oak that looked like a big ball of leaves. I reminded myself that I was going to have to be very careful with the direction of my shots. Even from a pistol, a .22 bullet can travel a long way. I would have to have a solid backstop for any shot I took. My brother (who knew everything about everything) had told me about how the pioneers used to “bark” squirrels. This was a procedure whereby the hunter would shoot a ball from his muzzleloader into the tree immediately adjacent to the squirrel. The squirrel would either die or be knocked unconscious from the flying bark dislodged by the ball. After harvesting the animal the hunter would then use his knife to pry the ball out of the tree for future use. I considered that if I got a close enough shot I might just try this technique. Who was I kidding?

As activity in the squirrel community picked up I began to get more interested in what they were up to than getting a good shot (or a good bark). I noted that most of them were red squirrels. I saw one gray and one fox squirrel as well. Most of the activity was too far away for a shot but close enough to observe what was going on. It was a good year for acorns and the squirrels were really getting busy gathering them. It seemed there were two distinct groups with “headquarters” in two different large oak trees. As I watched I didn’t see any “slackers”. Everyone was involved in the effort. This was not a “union shop”. They would dart around in the leaves, sometimes “tunneling” under a thick pile, I suppose until they had their jaws full of acorns. Then they would dart back up the tree, normally circling around it to the opposite side from my vantage point. I’m not sure if they sensed my presence but they seemed to give me a wide birth. After they had “made their deposit” in the storage area they were back down to the forest floor again. Once in awhile they would take a short break for what appeared to be “play time” – two or three would begin to chase each other around in the piles of leaves. They resembled little kids but I suppose it was more like office workers taking a mid-morning break with banter around the water cooler. The more I watched the less interested I became in killing one of these furry little workers.

As I thought about the squirrels and their corporate effort, I began to consider the Sager farm and what it must have been like at the turn of the century. Everyone worked hard on the farm these days but they had all the modern conveniences and could run to town to buy what they didn’t grow. Not so even fifty years before. Then I began to think of the nearby Amish community and how life there hadn’t changed all that much in the last hundred years. Like the squirrels the Amish were like a large family, working together and taking care of one another for the good of the whole. I suppose they may have had some slackers but I had never seen any in my observations. If they didn’t work I guess they didn’t eat. How unlike our current culture!

After a morning of watching the squirrels lay in their winter food supply I got hungry and decided to head home. When I walked in the door from my “hunt” Mom, as she always did, asked if I got anything. My response was, “Yeah, I got an education.”

FISHING FOR NATIVE BROOK TROUT

Pell Run is one of many spring-fed tributaries of the Tionesta Creek. Others are Duck Eddy, Messenger Run, Mead Run, Thad Shanty Run, Minister Creek, South Branch, and Dodge Run. Pell Run entered the main stream on the opposite bank from our camp approximately a quarter mile upstream. As I have mentioned before a narrow gage railroad used to run beside the stream and the old grade could be used for an easy walk along its banks. There was so much our family enjoyed about this walk. The cool water and abundant shade made for a delightful hike on a hot summer day. The sound the water made as it babbled over the rocks and downed tree limbs was like listening to a relaxing symphony. In the summer when the main creek’s temperature rose, a cool water pool was formed at the confluence of the two streams. The trout in the creek would congregate in this area and frustrate us because they wouldn’t bite on any of our offerings. We tried just about everything. We would cast a delectable-looking night crawler right under the nose of a large trout and let it sit there for an hour to no avail.

Anytime there was no action on the Tionesta we might head up Pell Run to try our hand at catching a native brook trout. The term “native” refers to the fact that the fish was not stocked there. It occurs in the stream naturally. These were the most beautifully colored fish I had ever seen (see photo). They had a wide brilliant orange section along the bottom of their sides and bright white lines along their fins. The remainder of the fish was varying shades of green with small yellow and white spots. Because of the small size of the run the carrying capacity for fish was not great. A six-inch “brookie” would be sizeable in Pell Run and four inches was more of the norm. Between riffles and waterfalls there were small pools. Each was from about 8 to 18 inches deep. I don’t believe I ever found more than one trout per pool but you could normally figure there would be one in each. There was neither enough food nor cover to support more than one fish in a pool. Cover consisted of large rocks, downed tree limbs, or undercut stumps. Food was anything that washed in from upstream or fell in from above – insects (either adults or larvae), worms, salamanders, tadpoles, grubs, etc.

Fishing Pell Run meant everything had to be down-sized. Ultra-light tackle would have been preferred but we could only afford one rod and reel. You needed the smallest hook you could find and you baited it with just a piece of a worm or a small grub you might find under a rock. Because a trip up the run was normally impromptu, the bait usually consisted of whatever you could find around the stream-bank. The technique was pretty simple – keep as low a profile as possible when approaching the target pool. These fish spooked very easily. Next the cast had to be fairly accurate (sometimes you only got one chance). One needed to present the bait directly into the water flow from the riffle above. If you could do that the current would carry the bait right in front of the resident brookie. After a good cast you would immediately watch the water for a shadow or a disturbance that meant you were about to feel a strike. Due to the small size of these fish and their ability to pick the bait right off your hook, the strike wasn’t obvious. If you could set the hook you immediately tried to raise the fish out of the water. There was no room to “play” the fish and the longer they stayed in their natural habitat the less chance you had of landing them. On way too many occasions I would get the fish just clear of the water to see it shake itself violently off the hook. If you were lucky enough to bring one to your hand you needed to admire it quickly, wet your hand so as not to strip off any of the fish’s natural oil or scales, gently remove the hook and return it to its pool.

One hot August afternoon I was by myself on the Tionesta while my brother lazed on the screened porch with a book and my parents were out for a hike. Nothing was biting despite my use of just about every known bait and lure. I decided to head up Pell Run. As was my routine I began to turn over flat rocks on the way up looking for worms or grubs. It had been dry so I wasn’t having a lot of success. As I was bent over looking for bait I heard a voice behind me say, “Whatcha lookin for?” Startled, I turned to see a fellow in his early twenties who had obviously come from upstream on the run. He had a fly rod in his hand as well as all of the typical fly fisherman accouterments (cowboy hat, vest, and hip boots folded down around his knees). “Something to fish with,” I replied. “Not much available,” he continued. “Come with me and I’ll show you something.” Now in this day and age kids are trained to be wary of strangers they meet anywhere, let alone in the woods. I figured, what the heck. I could use a fly fishing lesson.

As we walked together toward the next pool worthy of testing I asked him where he was from. “Name’s Jeff,” he responded, offering his hand. “I’m from around Scranton and I just graduated from Penn State in June, I’m here for the week with my aunt and uncle. They have the fourth camp down below on the left bank.” I thought my parents knew his relatives. I had heard them mention that they were from Zelienople. I asked if he had a job and it turned out he would be going to work for the Hammermill Paper Company in Erie in a couple weeks. He was a forester and would be helping them to manage their timber holdings (I’m ashamed to admit it now but I recall wondering what trees had to do with paper). As we walked up Pell Run I asked him several questions about why he chose to attend Penn State in a field such as forestry. I also asked him all about fly fishing. He said that he loved the outdoors and his chosen career would enable him to spend his work life there. There was just something about this young man that caught my fancy. I appreciated that he had shown an interest in me and was willing to spend a little time with a youngster.

When we got to the first large pool Jeff described how he had briefly hooked a trout here on his way up and decided to let the pool rest for awhile and try again. His first encounter had been on a dry fly so he decided this time to try a “bead-headed nymph.” It was so tiny I could barely see it on the end of his leader. As I had learned to do, he flipped the nymph into the flow as it entered the pool and quickly responded to an almost instantaneous strike. He pulled out one of the nicest natives I had ever seen – my guess was about nine inches. I was a little surprised when Jeff said he was going to keep it – “for supper” he said. “I always put them back,” I responded. He said, “Didn’t you want some bait?” He pulled out his knife and quickly slit the fish open and pulled out the guts. “Here’s your bait,” Jeff said.

For the next hour or so we baited small hooks with pieces of trout entrails and proceeded to catch and release a brook trout from about 50% of the upstream pools. (I should note that this practice is illegal today.) When we got back to the main stream and went our separate ways I thanked Jeff for the lesson. “Sure thing,” he said, “I was young once too.” That sounded strange coming from someone only eight or so years my senior. I remembered Jeff when it came time to choose a career. Like him I took up forestry primarily because of my love of the outdoors. And like Jeff I also enjoy teaching fishing techniques to some younger folks whenever I can.

THE FLIG'S CHRISTMAS LETTER

I can’t recall exactly when I received the first “form” Christmas letter from a friend in lieu of the traditional Christmas card. I suppose it was 20 or 25 years ago. Probably about the time people got computers and life got too hectic to sit down and write personal notes on the cards. For a few years I even took a shot at such letters. It seemed a good way to synopsize a year in your life for those you had lost touch with. (Now I guess FaceBook does that for us.) Writing such a letter always required a lot of thought and some tact to assure that it didn’t come off as bragging too much. Of course you were proud of your kids and wanted your friends to know what they were doing but writing down that, “little Johnny scored the winning goal on his soccer team for the third consecutive game and is already being scouted by Liverpool United,” or “Susie was just voted class president, prom queen, most likely to succeed, and was currently a finalist on American Idol,” seems a bit much. It was always nice to read these letters from our friends and see what they were up to but, unfortunately, they sometimes could be a little nauseating. Have you ever received a letter that painted a picture so rosy (and so sickening) that you were tempted to respond with the antithesis? If so it might look something like this –

Dear Friend,

We just received your humble yet newsy Christmas letter and picture of your beautiful family, all dressed up in their fancy clothes, in front of your great big house, with those expensive cars parked in the driveway. God has certainly blessed you! (Both God and a really good plastic surgeon from what we can see.) It just shows how He will reward one for faithful clean living. Who would have ever thought after bankruptcy, divorce, and that messy business when your son took you to court, that your life would turn out so great.

We just thought we’d respond to your letter and let you know that we have been blessed this past year as well. Your trip around the world sounded great but we too were able to take a fantastic vacation. Every Thursday the local senior center sponsors a bus to the Indian casino in Oklahoma. On our anniversary we decided, what the heck, let’s go for it. We got up early and boarded the bus at 7 AM. Can you believe the bus ride is free (you don’t even tip the driver) all the way to Oklahoma. Now here’s the best part – they give you a coupon for a free lunch and a $5 roll of quarters to play the slot machines with. No, actually here’s the best part – when the casino rep on the bus found out it was our anniversary, he gave us an extra role of quarters! (We decided we’d save those quarters and use them for the senior breakfast at the nearby restaurant on another special occasion.) All the way up and back we gawked out the bus window at the beautiful houses we passed. We tried to imagine who could possibly have enough money to live there. Now we know – somebody like you might live in those mansions. You sure have been blessed!

Of course we love our home too (even though it’s not big and fancy like yours). This year we were able to afford to get the drainage problem fixed so that nasty sewer smell is finally gone. We can hear the train go by on the nearby tracks several times a day. It makes us wonder where all those rich people are going that can afford train travel (folks like you taking vacations I guess). In Texas you get a homestead exemption and a senior discount on property taxes. That means we can afford to turn on the air conditioning anytime it gets over 100 (which it does quite often so we are blessed as well).

We can’t believe you’ve been to all those places you wrote about IN PERSON. Even the Super Bowl, right there at the stadium and all. We used to be able to watch those sorts of games on our TV but we couldn’t afford the converter box when they switched over to digital (darned Al Gore) so now we can get the local teams on radio. We just can’t imagine actually going to the Super Bowl!

You mentioned about your new tennis court in the back yard - well, we play tennis ALL THE TIME ourselves. Last Christmas the kids got us one of those Wii machines and you can use it to play tennis right in your own living room. (It still works on the TV since you don’t have to be hooked up to any antenna.)

Our kids are doing great just like yours. They call us several times a year so we don’t have to incur any long distance phone charges. We don’t have any grandchildren that we’re aware of but our kids don’t tell us much about their personal lives.

Like you, we attend church regularly but we don’t have 4,000 members like your church. They won’t let us tend the nursery ever since my emotional breakdown. It was probably due to the 401K tanking (darned Al Gore).

You mentioned that you were praying that all your friends will have a blessed new year. I guess we will just say that we pray you will get all that you deserve in 2010.

Merry Christmas,

RABBIT HUNTING

At the age of fourteen our church youth group took a trip to the World’s Fair in New York City. This was a huge trip in those days (as the World’s Fair was a huge deal). I recall we made and sold hoagies every other Saturday for months beforehand to raise money. Nobody in that era had a hundred bucks or so laying around the house to give their kid for a trip to New York City. So we took orders during the week and then got up early on Saturday and set up the hoagie assembly line at church. We may have had more fun making the sandwiches than we did on the trip. Once again, you’re asking yourself what could the World’s Fair have to do with rabbit hunting. As we made our way through the Canadian exhibit there in New York City I was looking for a present to bring my mother. I’m not sure why I only bought something for her but I did. For some strange reason a tanned rabbit hide caught my attention (what was I thinking?). I imagine it probably cost about a quarter (this was 1964), which was right in my price range so I pounced on it. It was really soft and a nice mottled tan color. I figured she would love it. Of course you had to know my mom to appreciate her response. “Oh, a rabbit fur,” she exclaimed, “It’s wonderful.” I’ll put it right over here on the coffee table and put Aunt Grace’s doily somewhere else. It’s so soft!” I don’t think Mom ever said a negative word about anything.

Cottontail rabbits were plentiful in Western Pennsylvania. It was the one upland game species that you could always count on getting a shot at in the field. Even when a pheasant or grouse could not be found, it was the rare day that a rabbit wouldn’t cross your path. I guess it is true what they say about rabbits multiplying.

Rabbits were one of my dad’s favorite game species, probably because he grew up hunting them for food. Even though Dad wore glasses his eyesight was keen in the field. He could spot a rabbit’s eye in the brush and take its head off with a well-placed shotgun blast, spoiling none of the meat. Dad was my hero when it came to shooting sports. It seemed there wasn’t anything in that area he wasn’t good at.

Many of my friends had beagles, which, of course, are the classic rabbit hound. Some folks used springer spaniels which were known for hunting both rabbits and birds. We had neither so I, as the youngest in the group, became the “dog” on many occasions. I didn’t mind this unless it meant going through a briar patch. You will recall the story of Br’er Rabbit and how he encouraged Br’er Fox to throw him into the briar patch – because that’s exactly where rabbits are most comfortable. Like Br’er Fox the briar patch was a tough spot for me to get through. The cover we hunted in the Slippery Rock area was pretty diverse but there were plenty of farm fields that had not been cultivated for years. They were in the process of returning to their wild origins and in many cases were covered with thick, tangled underbrush. I recall looking at certain fields and thinking to myself, “Every animal in the county could be in that brush and you’d never see them.” Whether I was too dim-witted to know better or just too anxious to get some shooting, I often would pick my way slowly through such a dense tangle of barbed wire-like vegetation. My dad wore brush pants that were specially designed to protect your legs from briars. I wore blue jeans which provided very little protection (in those days hunting clothes came via hand-me-downs and nobody had outgrown any hunting pants yet). It is interesting to note that years later Dad did hand those pants down to me when he no longer used them. I recall at the time they were huge and there was no way I could wear them. I kept them in Dad’s old Army foot locker in the basement with all my other hunting clothes. I tried them on again in my early fifties and found them to be uncomfortably tight (how could they have shrunk so badly while in that foot locker?). I also found that the cuffs were filled with a variety of dried seeds from his last trip to the field decades before. I got that same feeling as the archeologists who discovered the grape seeds in the ruins of Pompeii and used them to grow a new vineyard 2,000 years later.

Clothed in my minimal protection I would carefully wade into a briar patch intent on spooking a rabbit out into the open. This was always attempted when you were hunting with others as, if you were alone, there is no way you could get a shot off in the middle of a briar patch. Sometimes you could get through by crawling on your hands and knees. This procedure normally meant the overhanging briars picked your hat from your head on numerous occasions. Other times the best option was to grab large stems with gloved hands in an attempt to navigate from bare spot to bare spot. Of course all the while it was necessary to assure you didn’t scratch your shotgun. Dad afforded us great guns to hunt with but also demanded that we treat them with due respect. What you were always looking for was that elusive brush pile or tangle in the middle that might be holding a rabbit or two. Often times after a grueling effort one would be disappointed to find a hole in the middle of the patch into which any self-respecting rabbit you were chasing would have long since exited.

I loved hunting when there was snow on the ground. That enabled you to see the various animal tracks in the snow. Of course it also became very frustrating when you saw all those tracks and no game. The crazy thing about rabbits is that while they love the briar patches and other impenetrable cover, they often can be found hiding in a small patch of grass stubble in the middle of an open field. These are the ones that shock you so badly when they flush, you often miss the shot.

This particular hunt took place on a Saturday morning between Christmas and New Years. It was as they used to say, “the second season.” A couple inches of fresh snow made things much easier. I had drawn the middle position (as always) between Dad on the right and Johnny on the left. It seemed as though the briar patch or crabapple thicket was always dead in front of me. As I carefully worked my way through these, in many cases on hands and knees, I would call out if I heard anything flush ahead of me. In some instances the noise would be followed by a shotgun blast from the left or right. If from Dad’s direction the shot was normally followed by silence. This meant Dad had killed the rabbit. On the other hand, if Johnny shot you could count on either of two responses. Whooping and hollering if he scored or swearing and muttering if he missed. I rarely got a shot off as the rabbit either flushed too far ahead of me or it did so when I was pulling my hat off a briar bush.

On this particular day; however, I did get off a shot – two for that matter. As I entered a particularly dense thicket I could see a ton of fresh tracks in the snow. As it had snowed early that morning I determined they were no more than a couple hours old. I called out to Dad and Johnny that I thought there were rabbits in this tangle. They took up decent shooting positions on the sides as I proceeded through. My target was a blown-down tree near the center of the thick underbrush. Its demise years ago had opened the canopy above, letting enough light reach the ground to encourage the thick vegetative growth. The rotting log looked to be a perfect place for hiding bunnies. I carefully worked my way toward it trying to avoid the briars and still maintain a quasi-shooting position. Every so often I would try my dad’s technique of stopping briefly to make any close-holding game think that I had seen them.

Suddenly from almost underfoot a rabbit took off. I could see its brown form perfectly against the snowy ground. I pulled the over and under to my shoulder and fired almost immediately in the general direction of the rabbit. This was as I used to call it, “a warning shot”. You see the adrenalin rush associated with such an explosive departure of any game from thick cover makes most hunters (and me in particular) pull the trigger way before the bead on the end of the shotgun’s barrel is leveled on the target. I saw a puff of snow rise as the BBs hit the ground not far in front of me and not very close to the rabbit. The good news was that this first shot must have prompted the rabbit to jump. As I finally got the bunny in my sights he was airborne and approaching the top of his arch over the downed log. This time as the shot rang out it was a puff of fur that flew, not snow. Dad and Johnny, not used to hearing shots from the center of the thicket, immediately called out in unison, asking if I had hit the mark. I shouted back that I thought so but it would take a few minutes to make my way to the point where the rabbit crossed the tree. I moved more quickly now with great anticipation through the briars. I was just hoping that there wasn’t a groundhog hole on the other side of the log. There wasn’t. On the other side lay the dead rabbit silhouetted against the white snow. “I got him!” I shouted. “Now all I have to do is find my way out of here.”

I picked the rabbit up by the back legs and felt its weight. It was a nice sized bunny. I laid my shotgun down against the log and struggled to slide the rabbit into the game pouch of my hunting vest. Hunters who shot game often got good at this maneuver but I didn’t fall into that category. I wound up taking the vest off to get it in. I crawled out of the briar patch and met Dad and Johnny on the other side. As always I described the shot in exacting detail. They congratulated me on connecting with the airborne rabbit. Then Dad added, “Just because the shotgun has two barrels doesn’t mean you have to use both whenever something flushes.” In other words, “Take your time with the first shot next time and you won’t need the second.”

After another mile or so of slogging through heavy brush we arrived back at the car with four rabbits between the three of us. When we arrived home Mom greeted us the same way she always did – “Did you get anything?” She would enjoy cooking the rabbits for supper that night after Dad had skinned and cleaned them. The one thing that he never did though was tan the rabbit hides. I guess you could only get a rabbit fur from the New York Worlds Fair.

THE FIRST DAY OF TROUT SEASON

The opening day of trout season in Pennsylvania is almost as big as deer season. Like many deer hunters, a substantial number of fisherman only fish one day a year. The opening day is an excuse to get together with a bunch of friends, drink some beer, cook some food over an open fire, and perhaps pitch a tent and haul the sleeping bag out of mothballs. Later in life I avoided streams on this day like the plague but I admit when I was a boy I got caught up in the excitement. Unless you were an ice fisherman, this mid-April event meant the first chance of the year to pick up a rod and reel – so what if you might have to stand elbow-to-elbow with a bunch of drunken stumblebums. The Pennsylvania Fish Commission stocked trout from their hatcheries pretty much the same way that the Game Commission stocked pheasants. Any stocked stream would be jammed with subsistence fishermen the first day. There was no place to escape.

Since my dad was not a fisherman he didn’t care much for the crowds that surrounded our camp on the opening day but he was always glad for an excuse to spend a weekend there. As with deer season the trip to camp on Friday evening saw roads crowded with fishermen. Also like deer season, preparations began long in advance. On a late-winter shopping trip to Butler with my mother I would stop by Kirkpatrick’s Sporting Goods. Unlike Meyers’ Hardware this place had a ton of tackle. I looked around the store in awe of the new rods and reels, waders, creels, nets, lures, and line. “Who in the world could afford these amenities just to catch fish?” I wondered. Old man Kirkpatrick was glad to advise a novice trout fisherman of all the necessary tools of the trade. I couldn’t afford the Mepps spinner set (“The Trouter”) that he recommended. I had some old spinners and daredevils that I had found snagged under rocks while swimming in the creek the summer before. I did need a small jar of salmon eggs though. I had never caught a fish on a salmon egg but it seemed everyone used them early in the season. Mr. Kirkpatrick said he had best success with orange. Both yellow and red looked like they would attract fish as well but I went with his advice. Next he said I would need gold hooks so the trout would not notice the black hook embedded in the orange egg. I had never heard of gold hooks before and it sounded like they would be too expensive for my budget. I hemmed and hawed while he extolled their virtues. I decided on the smallest package they had (5) as well as a sleeve of Eagle Claw snelled hooks for use with night-crawlers. I suppose my bill came to all of a couple dollars.

Johnny and I shared a small, blue, metal tackle box. When you opened it two compartmentalized plastic shelves popped up. These were mostly filled with lures that we had found or inherited from relatives. In the top bin there were my favorites like the flatfish, hula popper, rapala, and jitterbug. There were also some little-used lures like the diamond jim, lazy ike, and crazy crawler. The next bin down held a variety of spinners, small crank-baits, and a couple plastic worms. We didn’t have a clue how to present plastic worms in those days and I doubt we ever caught anything on them. We kept sundry items like bobbers, hooks, sinkers, swivel-snaps, a stringer, and the like in the open space in the bottom of the box. I looked with envy on the pros who kept all their fishing supplies in a vest. They had stuff clipped onto the vest like small clippers and forceps. Their many pockets contained small plastic boxes, well organized with flies, spinners, split-shot, etc. At the time I thought you could spot a real professional by the flies and lures they had hooked into their hats. Now I realize that these guys are actually poseurs. It takes way too long to un-snag a hook out of your hat. Boxes that fit in vest pockets are the way to carry your gear.

That year we arrived at camp to find all the surrounding camps full of fishermen. We were really dismayed to find that a group of 6 to 8 people had pitched a tent right on the banks of the creek below the camp. It was illegal to do so in the National Forest but we knew that nobody was about to tell the occupants that. It figured to be a crowded creek the next morning. The creek was swollen by rain and snow-melt. It wouldn’t be easy to fish. Johnny and I were up before Mom and Dad and grabbed a bowl of cereal before heading for the creek. As we surveyed the situation from the top of the hill we knew that all of our favorite haunts were already surrounded. We would have to look for a more remote stretch of the creek if we were going to have any chance of fishing without crossing lines with the “interlopers”. We decided our best chance would be to go upstream, cross the swinging bridge and work our way further upstream on the opposite bank. We figured that the steepness of the stream-bank on that side would be unattractive to the casual fishermen. We were right. The upstream pool was too deep to wade completely across and we were able to perch ourselves precariously on the steep bank to have a section of water to ourselves. A couple of fellows on the opposite side called over to ask how we got there but we feigned deafness and didn’t answer.

I baited my line with an orange salmon egg, a gold hook, and two split shots. Johnny started with a gold Mepps spinner. I told him that I had great confidence in my choice (based on old man Kirkpatrick’s advice) and that I would share my eggs with him. He ignored me and kept casting the spinner to the same rock. He would cast upstream and beyond the rock and then drag the spinner through the current in the rock’s lee downstream. I was impatient if I didn’t get a strike on the first several casts but Johnny seemed determined that he had the right technique and kept it up. After a dozen or so casts he got a strike but didn’t set the hook quickly enough. I thought he may have gotten snagged on the rock. He kept it up and after a few more casts he hooked the first trout of the day. Between the cold water and the hatchery-reared fish it wasn’t much of a fight. He quickly brought it to his hand and we admired the brown trout of about 9 inches. Six inches was legal but neither of us really enjoyed eating fish so he tossed it back. The catch had created lots of interest on the other side of the creek and it seemed they were horrified that anyone would throw back a legal fish. We noticed one of this group had caught a 12-incher and was actually wearing it on his belt. “What a loser,” we thought.

After his success Johnny continued his technique. Also after his success I tied on a gold spinner. I looked for a rock that made a similar dent in the current. I found one but it was another 10 to 15 feet out and a little downstream. The shoreline in this area rose even more steeply from the water. I was able to hook my foot into a tree root for some semblance of stability and I began to cast toward the rock for all I was worth. I knew I would have similar success if I could just duplicate my brother’s technique. My first cast fell woefully short of the target. The next was a little closer but I knew that something was going to have to change if I was going to make the perfect cast. I grabbed an overhanging tree limb with my left hand for support and cast the spinner with all my might. All my might was just enough momentum to pivot me on the limb right out into the creek. It seemed at the moment I had a choice whether to hold onto the limb or my rod. I chose the rod and plopped into about six feet of water. The current carried me quickly to the mouth of Pell Run where a sand bar made it easy to exit the creek with as much dignity as I could muster, which is to say not very much.

The water temperature was about 35 and the air temperature about 45. I recall feeling more embarrassed than cold. I had put on quite a show for the louts on the opposite bank. A quick glance over my shoulder proved that even the loser with the trout on his belt was laughing. Johnny covered the steep terrain between us quickly and was on the bank as I struggled out of the creek. He took off his coat and put it on me, he grabbed my rod and we were off for camp as fast as we could go. Crossing the bridge with wet shoes, soaked clothing and shivering hands was a challenge. When we burst in the door of the camp my mother took one look and went immediately into panic mode. Everyone helped me get my wet clothes off and Mom wrapped me in a blanket. Dad put a couple small dry logs on the fire and I stood right in front of the fireplace to warm up and dry out. Man, it felt good! After a while I was ready to go back out. My mother wasn’t. “You’re not going back out there and fall into that creek again,” she said. “Take a lesson from your older brother,” she motioned toward Johnny who was sitting on the couch, reading a book and eating cookies. My first day of trout season had ended early. I asked Johnny if he had picked up my jar of salmon eggs before he pulled me out.

PHEASANT HUNTING

My earliest recollection of pheasant hunting was when our bird dog, Lucky, was still alive. As I have mentioned previously, Lucky was a great bird dog. He was a brown and white English Setter and he loved to hunt more than anything else. I’m not sure how old he was in the early 60s but I suppose he was over ten years old. Lucky had been bred to a female setter and my dad was given the pick of the litter in return. The puppy was black and white and my grandmother gave it the name “Pup” (a classic of understatement). At that time my Uncle Wid and Grandma lived next door to us. Uncle Wid took a liking to Pup and Dad was glad to give him the dog. While Pup never became the hunter that his father was he was a more loving pet. At that time in my uncle’s life he really needed a dog, and especially one like Pup. Wid had never been married and didn’t have any close friends to my knowledge. He took care of Grandma and was close with our family but I never knew him to interact with anyone else. He had been injured on a construction job and was permanently disabled. I am sure he suffered from depression but nobody talked about such things in those days. My uncle enjoyed getting out in the woods with the dog and we hunted together occasionally but he was by no means an avid hunter. He would accompany me on after-school hunting trips when I was too young to hunt by myself. He would let me use his old Fox 16 gage double-barrel before I was big enough to handle Dad’s 12 gage. Uncle Wid was good to me and I have fond memories of him. Whenever you saw Wid, Pup would be close at hand.

The common, Chinese or ring-necked pheasant is not native to Pennsylvania. I am not sure when it was introduced there but I’m glad someone had the idea. The cold winters and snow of the area are certainly not ideal for the species and in severe winters the bids cannot survive. The Pennsylvania Game Commission raised pheasants at several facilities around the state and conducted a stocking program each fall. Next to deer season the pheasant season was the most anticipated in my youth. There were always rumors circulating as to where and when birds would be stocked. The best places to get this “skinny” (as they used to say in the Navy) were Bill Matthew’s barber shop, Fred Meyers’ hardware store, Isaly’s, the gas station, or my dad’s car dealership. Beginning about a month before the season these rumors would start to circulate. These days I believe that the stocking schedule is actually published on the Commission’s website. Obviously these were the days before computers or, for that matter, government’s desire to share much information with the taxpayers.

One Friday night Dad came home from the dealership with a gleam in his eye. He had heard from his friend, Joe Ligo (the local undertaker whom Dad had nicknamed “Digger”), that the Game Commission had just stocked some pheasants on the Culhane farm (not their real name). I’m sure that Ligo hadn’t provided this intel out of the goodness of his heart. If he could have hunted the next morning he would have been out there, not us. He probably had a funeral to attend to and figured he owed my dad a favor. In a small town with two funeral parlors there was great competition for dead bodies. Both funeral directors bought cars from Dad. They must have figured he was going to die before the Ford dealer did. They were wrong as the Ford dealer died before he was 60.

Now I had never met any of the Culhanes but I was aware of their reputation as one of those families that seemed a blight on the community. A rough clan that could turn a nice clean homestead into a junkyard seemingly overnight. I am not sure whether the piles of junk that surrounded their house were self-generated or not. I can’t imagine that any one family, no matter how large, could come by the wrecked cars, rusting appliances, and piles of non-descript garbage that populated their farm. Surely they must have had a network of other loathsome hillbillies that brought in garbage by the truckload. There were also various farm animals that wondered around in the garbage – goats, chickens, pigs, and an occasional donkey. The Culhanes moved around often - each time after a mysterious fire. In those days it was common for the neighbors to get together and “burn-out” families like the Culhanes who were bringing down the community. Strangely the authorities never suspected nor investigated arson in the wake of such fires.

At any rate, early on Saturday Dad, Johnny, Uncle Wid and I loaded Lucky and Pup into the trunk of our green and white Eighty Eight Olds and headed for the Culhane place. I should note that in those days very few landowners posted their land to keep hunters out. It was a common practice to either ask the landowner’s permission to hunt beforehand or to stop by and share the kill with them afterwards. I was guessing when hunting the Culhane farm we wouldn’t be soliciting permission in advance.

I was more excited than normal this day. We all had a good feeling there would be birds in the vicinity after the leaked stocking reports. The hunting day began at seven AM and it was just about that time when we approached a pull-off along side of the county road on the Culhane farm. As Dad eased the Olds off the road a ring-neck rooster walked across the road and into the brush in front of the car. This was going to be a good day! Johnny and I got all excited and both began to jump out of the car at the same time. Dad cautioned to take it easy. The bird would not go far once it got into the cover. Besides the dogs would track it down wherever it went. We all climbed out and got our vests on and loaded our shotguns. Dad called the order of the hunt with himself on the left and Uncle Wid on the right. As usual Johnny and I would be in the middle. We wanted to be all set before Dad opened the trunk. Once he did both dogs bolted out like it was a prison break. Both noses hit the ground on the fresh scent and they were off. Within 20 yards Lucky froze solid. Not on point but in a crouch that meant the bird was close at hand. Unfortunately, Pup had not yet learned this technique. He clamored ahead and must have run right over the bird. The ringneck rose straight into the air cackling that pheasant rooster call that was music to our ears – “coc, coc, coc, coc.” (Since only roosters and not hens could be taken one always listened for the male bird’s distinctive crow.) Johnny and I both trained our guns toward the rising bird and he beat me to the punch. I was just about to pull the trigger when I heard the report of his gun and saw the ring-neck plummet to earth. Johnny whooped and hollered as he ran toward the downed bird. We both got there about the same time as the dogs. Lucky sniffed the carcass while Pup tried to grab it. I don’t think he would have eaten it but we didn’t take any chances. Johnny scooped it up, holding it upside down by the legs with wings fanned out to each side. When Dad and Wid arrived they congratulated Johnny and we all examined the kill. Dad pointed out that it was a stocked, not native bird, based on the short tail feathers and short claw on the back of the legs. Still it was a nice sized bird and Johnny was rightfully proud. This was the first ring-neck I had seen up close and I admired the beautiful iridescent green head, red patches around the eyes, and distinctive namesake white neck band. I helped him get it into his game pouch. I told him he better let the rest of us shoot at the next one or he’d be weighed down with two in there.

It was such a good feeling for members of the family to score so early. It was only 7:15 and we already had a kill. I just knew it was going to be a great day. Dad outlined the direction we would take from there, moving through the damp bottoms we were in and toward the cornfields in the distance. I loved to watch the dogs work as we moved deliberately out of the bottoms. It was easy to see the difference between the well-trained father and the untrained pup. Lucky wasted no motion as he worked the scent back and forth. When it cooled he immediately sped up to find it again. I could see that Pup enjoyed sticking close to Wid. He would range out a ways with Lucky but then quickly get back within sight of his master.

Before long Lucky began to slow down not far in front of Johnny and me. I called out to Dad that I thought there must be a bird close by. Before he could answer Lucky froze into a point that you could have taken a picture of for a hunting calendar. Pup was over with Wid and wasn’t about to spoil Lucky’s work this time. I spoke softly to him as I had heard Dad do – “OK, Lucky, hold him,” I whispered as I moved carefully behind him. Johnny was close enough to see what was going on and he was drawn to the action. I was afraid his movement was going to flush the bird before I released Lucky so I raised my voice a little and said, “Go ahead, boy.” Lucky took two more careful steps and the bird exploded from the dense wetland cover with a buzzing sound coming from its wings. As I pulled my gun to my shoulder I noticed there was no cackle from this bird. Also there were no noticeable tail feathers. A hen, I thought, just as I heard Johnny shoot and saw a puff of feathers in the air. Was he nuts, shooting a hen? It turns out that he was caught up in the moment, squeezing the trigger before thinking about the gender of the pheasant. His second off-hand shot was just as true as the first had been. As Dad approached to see what had transpired Johnny began to shout incessantly, “Bury it quick, bury it quick!” Now I don’t ever recall an encounter with a game warden in all my hunting days but as youth we were scared to death that one would show up immediately if we violated any game law. Johnny was eager to cover up the evidence of his transgression by giving the female bird a proper (and immediate) burial.

In Dad’s typical manner he said, “Now calm down and let’s see what he have here.” (Johnny was still muttering, “Bury it quick,” under his breath.) As Dad approached the dead bird in the weeds he said, “It’s OK, it’s a woodcock.” “Can you shoot them, I mean legally?” Johnny asked. “I think they’re in season now”, Dad answered, “but let’s check the book to be sure.” He always carried the small hunting rules and regulations guide inside his license holder. He had Johnny pull it out from the back of his vest and look up the answer. “Yep,” Johnny noted with a sigh of relief, “woodcock season runs concurrently with pheasant season.” “Looks like you’re two for two”, Dad said, pulling Johnny’s cap down over his face. “Now let’s see if anybody else can kill something.”

I know now but didn’t at the time that we were hunting very typical woodcock habitat. Their preferred diet of earthworms makes them gravitate toward wetlands and poorly-drained upland soils. While we never went hunting specifically for woodcock, we encountered them on the rare future occasion while hunting for pheasant or grouse. From that day forward in our family the woodcock would be known as the “buryitquick”.

We worked our way up to the medium height grasslands that surrounded the cornfields without additional fanfare. I was anxious to get close to the corn because I knew that the pheasants would be feeding on the corn and using the adjacent fields for cover. As always, Dad had a plan of the best way to work the cornfield boundaries. He would be on the very edge of the standing corn. Johnny and I would fan out in the tall grass, and Uncle Wid would take the far edge, adjacent to the woods. The plan seemed perfect. If the birds were in the corn the dogs would bring them out. If they were in the tall grass they should hold tight. If they were in the woods, once again the dogs would find them. Dad cautioned us to be extra careful as we approached the end of the field. If a bird was running ahead of us it would stop there and flush when we got close. Sure enough, when we reached the first corner Johnny kicked out a rooster that angled toward Dad. It was a privilege to watch my dad wield a shotgun (whether in the field or on a trap range). The bird wasn’t airborne long before he was on it and dropped it with an efficient shot. There was no puff of feathers. Dad always strove to hit the bird in the head with a few BBs to keep from spoiling any of the meat. No doubt a throwback to his childhood of subsistence hunting. As always everyone gathered around the dead bird to examine it (including the two dogs). This rooster was different than Johnny’s. Its tail and the barbs on the back of its legs were twice as long. It also seemed like the green head feathers were brighter in the sunlight. A wild bird to be sure, not one from the current stocking. I began to wonder how this rooster had survived last year’s harsh winter. To me it looked like the kind of bird one would have mounted if you did that sort of thing. My dad was not one to “waste” money having an animal mounted. I think he figured that kind of money would be better spent on a new shotgun or pistol.

This day was turning out even better than I had hoped for. We had three birds and it wasn’t 9 o’clock yet. I just knew my turn was coming. We turned the corner of the cornfield and began to work the same pattern down the other side. This time the shots came unexpectedly from my right. Pup had put up a grouse in the edge of the woods and Uncle Wid had brought it down with a couple rounds of his 16-gage. “What would be next”, I thought, “a rabbit.” I could never remember a hunting trip where such varied game species were taken. I must admit though that it was starting to bother me that I had yet to get in a shot. I would have shot at the buryitquick if I had known it was legal. I was determined to participate in this hunt by hook or by crook.

We continued working the edge of the cornfield toward the Culhane farmhouse. Most times I was a little uncomfortable hunting close to a residence but I had a hard time putting the Culhane place into that category. I imagined that any careless shot in that direction would be absorbed by the junk piles in the yard. As we approached the end of the field I remembered what Dad had said and about that wild rooster he had taken at the last corner. I put my thumb on the safety and began to ready myself for a possible shot. No rooster was going to take me unawares at this point. Lucky was working in front of Johnny and Pup was bouncing wildly back and forth between Uncle Wid and I. I wished it had been the opposite. I had much more faith in Lucky’s nose than I did in Pup’s. The end of the cornfield was within 15 yards or so and I was getting anxious. I just knew there had to be a bird holding up ahead and I picked up my pace in anticipation. I was right. A rooster was holding tight right at the very end of the field. I don’t even think Pup smelled it, he just ran over it. It bolted into the air right in front of me and for once the gun was to my shoulder before it got ten feet off the ground. I was on the bird and fired before I realized that Pup had made a leap for the bird as it startled him more than it did me. I heard Pup yelp and saw him bolt for the woods on a dead run. The ring-neck kept on going but nobody made a follow-up shot at it. “Oh no,” I thought, “I’ve shot the dog.” “How could I have been so stupid?” “Why did I shoot so quickly?” Uncle Wid ran after Pup as fast as he could through heavy cover calling for the dog to come back. We all gathered where the bird had gone up to see if we could see any signs of blood. I started to sob and told Dad I was sorry for shooting Pup. Dad put his arms around me and said, “We don’t know what’s happened to Pup yet. He’s running pretty fast for a dog that’s wounded. Maybe he’s just scared. Let’s try to track him down.”

We all took off in the direction Pup went, following Wid’s voice as he called to the dog. We caught up with Wid before too long. He was winded from running through the heavy brush and taking a little breather under a large oak. It looked like he had been crying but I wasn’t sure. I told him I was sorry for the errant shot. Dad asked if he thought the dog was injured or just scared. Wid said he didn’t know but he hadn’t seen any blood in the dog’s tracks. However he wasn’t even sure which way the dog had gone from this point. Dad planned a search pattern for us so we could fan out and find Pup. He kept me close to himself as I think he knew I’d need some serious consoling if we found Pup’s dead body in the woods. We must have spent the next couple hours combing the woods and surrounding fields for the dog – calling and listening for his bark. All to no avail. We tried to get Lucky involved in the search but all he wanted to do was sniff bird trails. It was now about two o’clock and we were all hot and tired. Dad suggested we return to the car and maybe go home and get a bite to eat. Maybe Pup would be out walking the road looking for us. We could come back out later on. Wid said, “You guys go ahead, I’m going to hang out around here for awhile. I’ll be here when you get back.”

I was one forlorn boy when we reached the car with one dog less than we’d started the day with. Dad suggested we drive slowly along the road and watch and listen for signs of the dog. When we passed the driveway to the Culhane’s dad pulled in. “What are you doing?” Johnny and I both asked in unison. “I’m going to see if anyone is home and see if they’d like a couple of these birds,” Dad answered. As Dad weaved the Oldsmobile up the lane around the junk piles Johnny and I resolved to shrink down in the backseat so nobody could see us. When we reached the house he said, “Come on, let’s see if anyone’s home.” It was said in that tone of voice Dad used when there would be no negotiation. As Dad approached the front door with his game vest in hand we toddled behind him like a couple of grade schoolers. Before he could knock on the door a woman emerged from the house. I have no idea how old she was but in my young mind she was a really old woman. She probably looked much older than her years due the hard life a Culhane matriarch must have lived. She had a worn house dress on with a soiled apron covering it. I expected she would be mean and demand to know just who it was that had the nerve to approach her house (almost as though Hansel and Gretel were eating it). To my surprise her voice was pleasant. “Hello, can I help you men,” she said. My father replied, “Ma’am my name is Wayne Fleeger and these are my two boys. We’ve been hunting over there (motioning to the adjacent fields) and shot a few birds. We wondered if you’d like a couple for supper tonight.” “How thoughtful,” she replied, “we love pheasant, I’d be delighted.” Somehow it seemed odd hearing such proper grammar coming from someone named Mrs. Culhane.

As Dad reached into his and Johnny’s game pouch for the two pheasants, Mrs. Culhane asked, “You didn’t have a black and white dog with you did you?” “Yes and he’s missing, have you seen him,” Dad replied. “He’s in the back yard with our dogs. He showed up here about three hours ago and looked scared to death. I thought maybe he had a run-in with a coon or something. I put him inside the fence until I could figure what to do about him. Come on around back and we’ll get him,” she said as she lead us around the side of the house past old cars and appliances. I was overjoyed. I could have kissed this lady who I had always considered lowlife in the past (even though we had never met). I was first to make my way to the backyard where Pup met me nose to nose as he jumped up on the wire fence. I immediately looked for any signs that he’d been shot but he seemed lively enough. I could feel tears running down my cheeks.

“Tommy, you put Pup in the trunk while I say goodbye to Mrs. Culhane,” said Dad as he motioned me toward the car. “Johnny, go get your Uncle Wid. He should be in that stand of trees over there. We’ll pick you up where we parked this morning.” As I opened the driver’s door of the Olds to get the keys Pup jumped in and sat behind the wheel. I guess he figured he wasn’t taking any chances of getting left behind. When Dad saw him he laughed and said he could ride up front as long as he already had his dirty paws on the seats. Pup sat between us as we rode back down the lane. “I guess the Pup was just scared by your shot at that bird over his head. I can’t see any sign he’s been shot,” Dad reasoned. “Being inside the Culhane’s fence explains why he wouldn’t come back. Guess we’ve all learned some lessons today.”

We pulled off the road in the same spot we began the day and waited for Johnny and Wid. When they first came into sight Pup jumped right over me and out the open window of the car (car windows were much larger in those days). Pup ran to greet Wid and I could tell it was a happy reunion for both. Pup joined Lucky in the trunk and we headed for home. Nobody said too much on the way. It was obvious that all were pretty relieved. As we unloaded the car back home I said to my father, “You know, Dad, Mrs. Culhane seems like a pretty nice person, I mean for a Culhane and all.” His answer was classic Wayne Fleeger – “Tommy, most people are nice if you give them half a chance. I suppose that’s all Mrs. Culhane needed was half a chance.” “I guess you’re right, Dad,” I answered as he pulled me close to his side while we walked up the driveway.

BEAR HUNTING

(photo courtesy of www.tomjonesbuckeyephotos.com) The summer of 1966 was special for me. First I turned sixteen and began learning to drive. This was such a big deal in a car dealer’s family. Soon I would be behind the wheel of all those beautiful new cars that my dad brought home. Being able to drive would open all sorts of new freedoms, not the least of which was to actually take a girl on a date instead of meeting her somewhere or having my parents deliver us to a dance. Being sixteen also meant that people in general took you a little more seriously and it seemed your parents had a little more confidence in you. After all, if you could pilot a two-ton vehicle around you must be somewhat responsible – right?

This was also the summer that I attended the Butler County Conservation School – a week-long resident camp for youth to learn more about hunting and fishing specifically, and the outdoor environment in general. The experience was one to which I trace my professional career in the natural resource management field. The following hunting season I was anxious to use some of the skills I had learned there.

At that time Pennsylvania had a one-day black bear season the Saturday after Thanksgiving. For some reason Dad had to work that day and it was the first time my brother, Johnny, and I ever went to camp by ourselves. On Friday we all went pheasant hunting (that’s another chapter). After lunch, Dad went to work and Johnny and I loaded the red 1967 Olds Cutlass sedan with all the necessary equipment and supplies for both the Saturday bear hunt and the Monday deer hunt. Over the last several months I had packed and re-packed all of my gear so my stuff was all ready to go. Johnny, on the other hand, was neither as excited about the hunt as I, nor was he very well organized. It took awhile for him to get things together. It was after 3:00 by the time we were ready to leave. Mom kissed us both goodbye and recited one last litany of all the reasons she didn’t think it was a good idea for her two boys to go off to camp hunting without their father. We heard, “Be careful starting the furnace, and unload your guns when you cross a fence (she didn’t realize there were no fences involved in bear hunting), and lock the doors before you go to bed, and hold on tight when you cross the swinging bridge, and don’t shoot each other.” Oh and also, “Don’t get lost in the woods!”

We assured Mom that we would be careful and we were on our way. Man, this felt like a big deal to me. Heading out for hunting camp with my brother. Since neither of us were much of a cook, we stopped at the Sportsman’s Paradise for supper. This was a little out-of-the-way bar and restaurant between Leeper and Lucinda. Dad had stopped there once with us on the way home from camp but here we were on our own. The place was crowded with other hunters, also on their way to camp. We must have looked like real rubes to the rough and tumble bunch bellied up to the bar. We found an empty table and both ordered cheeseburgers. This was our typical fare at any restaurant. It seemed that we should be ordering something more “hunter-like” – perhaps rabbit stew, the elk plate, pot roast, meatloaf, or even slumgullion, but we hadn’t ordered anything but cheeseburgers at a restaurant for as long as either of us could remember. Johnny ordered root beer to drink but I noticed that they had birch beer. I had never tasted it before but thought I’d give it a try. It came in a brown bottle that sort of made it look like you were drinking a regular beer. I thought that was neat. As we ate we glanced around at the various game mounts on the walls. There were lots of deer, an elk, an antelope, a moose, and two bear. Johnny pointed out that one was what they called a “dog bear” and the other was a “hog bear”. They got their names from the differing shapes of their snouts. They were both black bear just with different noses. “I guess sort of like the difference between Italians and Jews,” I said. Johnny thought that was a crude but appropriate analogy. He paid our bill with money that Dad had provided for the trip and we were on our way.

It was well after dark when we arrived at camp. That made unloading the car and carrying everything down the long flight of steps a little more difficult. There were no street lights in the area nor was there much ambient light from surrounding camps. It was about as dark a place as one could imagine unless there happened to be a full moon. The first thing you had to do when entering camp was to grab a flashlight from the mantle and go through the dark building into the corner of the bedroom where the electric box was. There were two fuse blocks that you had to pull out, turn over and slide back into place. That flooded the camp with light and made things a lot less spooky. The next step was to unlock the basement door and light the oil furnace. This was a pretty involved procedure requiring valves to be turned to start the flow of oil, lighting a piece of newspaper with a match, dropping it into the bottom of the furnace and then taking a stick and stirring the paper around to light the oil. Lighting a fire in the fireplace heated the camp up much more quickly although the heat source was much less efficient. This was normally the next step.

By the time all the groceries were put away, the gear stowed, and the camp was warming up it was time to curl up in the easy chair or on the couch and relax before turning in. Mom had the foresight to send some homemade cookies along in the big white round tin that, at one time, had said “cookies” on the side. The word had been worn off years earlier. The tin had gotten a lot of use. Johnny sat down with a glass of milk and the tin in his lap. I on the other hand made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I was on my own for a change and I was going to do whatever suited me. As we ate our cookies we talked about where we would hunt the next day. We got out the National Forest topo map that was rolled up in the corner and looked at possibilities. Johnny wanted to stick close to camp in case he needed to return early (as he always did), but I wanted to strike out into some unexplored territory. Neither of us were really considering the prospects of actually shooting a bear. We were far more concerned with scouting places to hunt for deer on Monday. A day of “research” in the woods would be valuable. We talked about a variety of things as we watched the fire burn down. I tried to focus on bear hunting while Johnny’s conversation flowed from one topic to the next. He was just too smart to limit his thinking to a single topic for very long. I finally grabbed my sleeping bag that I had warming by the fire and headed for bed.

It seemed later when we turned in but I suppose it was 10 or 10:30. I was dead tired. It had been a long day. I don’t know why we bothered to set the alarm clock. I was awake at 5:00, excited about the hunt that lay ahead. For the first time I would be hunting bear by myself. It was cold inside the camp – probably in the low 50s. This meant getting dressed quickly. Fortunately I had laid out my clothing in a logical order the night before. There was no reason to light the fireplace or to turn up the oil furnace as we would be gone soon. Breakfast was pretty simple – Life cereal and milk. No hearty hunter’s breakfast of bacon and eggs like when Dad was along. We were not accomplished cooks, too lazy to fix anything complicated, and too anxious to get out in the woods. We didn’t finally decide where we were headed until we were alone in the dark of the front porch. Johnny would cross the road and climb the mountain on the other side. I would cross the creek via the swinging bridge and work my way up Pell Run. We both knew it was Mom’s desire that we stick together but we figured this way at least we would guarantee we would follow at least one of her directions – not to shoot one another.

It had snowed a couple inches overnight but I could see stars in the sky and figured the snow was over. I loved to hunt in fresh snow for a variety of reasons. Most importantly it provided contrast to the trees and the game you were after, making spotting the target much easier. Secondly it made it impossible to get lost as you could always backtrack the way you came in. I slowly picked my way down the hill to the Tionesta Creek using the steps we had cut into the earthen bank with a shovel the summer before. It was slippery in the snow but I was careful to hold onto the small trees that lined the pathway. Once at the bottom my flashlight picked up the path that led to the bridge. The going was easier now and I was at the bridge in no time. Climbing the ladder up to the bridge was not easy as the rungs were icy. Going across and down the ladder on the other side was even worse. As I slipped and slid my way across the bridge and down the ladder I remembered my mother’s words of caution. It did occur to me that if I slipped off the bridge into the icy water of the creek below my chances of survival were slim. I loved my mother dearly and I took a little extra time to assure that she wouldn’t be heartbroken that her baby boy had ignored her advice and drowned or died of hypothermia even before the sun came up on his first bear season.

I wanted to take the path of least resistance up the mountain in the dark and snow. The old tram railroad path on the banks of Pell Run would provide just that. In the early part of the century this area had boomed with both the lumber and oil industries. Narrow gage railroads ran along the banks of the creeks and their tributaries to access the slopes. The rails had long ago been removed and the ties rotted away but you could feel the remnants of the right-of-way under your feet as you walked. It had been a wet fall and Pell Run, that in the summer was just a trickle, made a delightful rushing sound as it fell over large rocks from pool to pool. I loved this area of the forest and spent hours there seeking native brook trout in the summer. I would have enjoyed sitting down on the bank and waiting for sunup but I pressed on in hopes of finding just the right spot with a good downhill view by daybreak. I kept reminding myself that this was really more of a dry-run for deer season than a bear hunt.

It was almost 7:00 when I reached my destination near the top on the run. The sun would be up soon so I sat down on a comfortable stump to see how much of the valley below was within view. I was pretty warm from my climb so the cool breeze in my face was refreshing. It was a gorgeous sunrise – the kind that made you wonder what you did right to deserve being out on the top of a mountain to see the first rays bounce off the fresh snow on the landscape below. It had been a successful practice hike for Monday morning. Now if there were just some deer around it would be perfect. I kicked myself that I hadn’t been more observant of tracks in the fresh snow on my way up the hill. I should have been able to see if any deer had been moving along the hillside and, if so, at what elevation. One thing was sure, I was alone on this slope. This area was so remote nobody in their right mind (that left me out) would make this trek so early. If any deer were moving it would be there normal routine as opposed to being pushed. The more I thought about it, the same would hold true for bear. If there were any around they wouldn’t be pushed to cover here. I knew it was too early for them to be hibernating.

This was the first time the thought occurred to me – what if I saw a bear this morning? If I shot a bear up here there was no way I could get it out of here. Even if I could get it down the slope aided by the blanket of snow, how would I get it across the creek? If Dad had been here he would have told me I was nuts for going to all the trouble to explore this new territory in bear season. That’s what summer is for! I found myself talking to myself and snapped back to reality. There was no way I was shooting anything today. I might as well have left the gun at home but I went ahead and loaded it anyway. I had learned to be methodical about the way I loaded the 30-30 carbine so I could do it in the dark if necessary. First I opened the chamber by working the lever action. I carefully guided a bullet into the chamber and closed it. What got a lot of people into trouble was that they would forget to put the safety on by gently releasing the hammer with their thumb while pulling the trigger. I did that carefully and then shoved four more shells into the magazine through the slot in the side. All was ready now with five shells at my disposal. I decided to rest here for awhile and see what developed.

What developed was nothing. Two hours passed and it didn’t seem there was any life on this side of the creek. In addition I was getting cold. The temperature must have been somewhere in the low 20s and seemed to be dropping. I could also see some high clouds moving in. I decided a walk might be in order. Since I really wasn’t interested in killing anything today I figured I might as well see some unexplored territory. The top of Pell Run was as far up this valley as I had ever been. Back over the top and down the other side about five miles away was a Forest Service picnic area and campground called Heart’s Content. My family had been there many times but always by car. I didn’t have a clue how to get there cross country and no desire to find out. I just set out to see what was over the top of the next ridge.

I briefly wondered about venturing into unfamiliar country by myself, especially territory so remote with no roads and little hope of finding any other hunters. I remembered my mom’s final advice – “Don’t get lost.” On the other hand my ace in the hole was the fresh snow on the ground. All I had to do was track myself back to the top of the ridge and head downhill to the creek. No problem. I decided to skirt the edge of the hilltop so that I could maintain my view downhill. That way I could cover some new ground and still see where the deer were on this side.

I had only gone about a half mile when I spotted movement below. I first thought it was a hunter by the slow pace at which it trod. I had never seen a deer move like that. Then it dawned on me that there actually was a bear on this side of the hill. I raised my rifle so that I could observe the bear through the scope. It looked large, I guessed between two and three hundred pounds. This was great – a chance to observe this creature from afar, undisturbed in its native habitat. I sat down in the snow and took a good rest for my rifle. I had no thoughts of taking a shot but I wanted to get as good a look as possible as the bruin lumbered through the forest. It seemed he was looking for food. Every once in awhile he would stop and paw the ground, seemingly for acorns or perhaps grubs in the un-frozen ground beneath the snow. Every once in awhile I would get up quietly and move to a new position along the ridge. I was high enough above that he didn’t seem to notice my slow movements. I was able to do this for about an hour or so and I admit I was having a blast. Then abruptly the bear’s demeanor changed. I could tell something or someone had spooked him. His nose was in the air and he was definitely hearing or smelling something he didn’t like. It wasn’t me - the disturbance was obviously below him. Perhaps there were other hunters on this side of the mountain after all.

I watched as the bear rose stiffly on his haunches, as if to get a better look into the valley. He didn’t get up very far before he took off like a shot straight up the hill – straight toward me! I froze, still watching him through my scope. I watched as he got much bigger in the lens. I had never seen an animal move that fast. It began to occur to me that I might have to shoot a bear today just in self-defense. I sat in the snow motionless with my gun to my shoulder, my heart pounding so loud in my chest that I thought the bear must surely be able to hear it as he approached. I pulled the hammer back just in case. As it turned out the bear was only interested in getting away from whatever had spooked him below. He wasn’t watching where he was going and didn’t appear to be wary of anything on top of the hill. He passed me at about 10 yards going full tilt – snow flying and branches breaking under foot. I could hear his breathing and see his breath as he ran. Even though he had sprinted a long way up the hill it still seemed effortless for him. I knew he could keep going like this for a long distance. After he passed I again observed him in my scope as he disappeared over the top of the hill. “That was great,” I thought to myself. I began to relax and look over the top in the direction the bear had run.

Then my curiosity got the better of me and I began to wonder how far the bear had gone and what sort of cover he might run to. I had never tracked a bear before but it sure wouldn’t be hard. I knew right where to pick up the trail. So that’s what I did - I began to follow at a leisurely pace. After all I sure didn’t want to happen upon Mr. Bear in heavy cover. I just wanted to see how far he went before he slowed down and where he was headed. I had fun measuring his strides. Before long I noticed he had begun to lope and then finally he was walking again. I knew I was getting miles from where I started at the top of Pell Run. Also I wasn’t sure exactly what direction I had gone. Now the clouds had moved in and completely obscured the sun. I couldn’t depend on it to provide direction. However, I could still clearly see my tracks in the snow and so I was confident that soon I would turn and back track my way out. I decided it was a good time to eat the lunch I had packed. I sat down under a big hemlock tree that blocked the wind and where the ground was bare. I took out the plastic poncho I carried in the event of rain and spread it on the ground as a sort of picnic tablecloth. I sat down and ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, washing it down with some orange juice I had brought along in an old army canteen. As I finished my sandwich I reclined on one elbow and thought about the excitement of the day. I was exhausted from a short night’s sleep and the morning’s steady up-hill hike. I laid down on the poncho and thought how good it would feel to take a quick nap – just rest my eyes (as my father used to say).

When I woke up it was one of those sudden jerks like when you doze off in church and jump awake, putting those around you on notice that you’ve been asleep. This was a surreal awakening as I had no idea how long I’d been sleeping. To my horror the sky was almost dark and snow was falling steadily. A quick glance at my watch told me that it was almost 5:00. How could that be? How could I possibly have been asleep for almost five hours? I’d have to get going quickly to get back to camp. I picked up my poncho and my rifle and began moving quickly in the direction from which I’d come, but where were my tracks? It had snowed several inches – enough to obscure the morning’s tracks. I did my best to estimate where they would have been but it didn’t take long before I got confused and unsure that I was heading in the right direction. I tried to recall where the bear had come from and how I had tracked him to this point. The growing darkness didn’t help any and panic was quickly setting in. I was almost running through the woods now without any real direction. It was too dark to see without a flashlight and I finally resigned myself to the fact that I was lost. I had no clue what direction the camp was. Heck I wasn’t even sure what was uphill and what was down. I sat down on a snowy log and prayed. “Dear God, you’ve got to help me get out of this one. I’m all alone here and I don’t know what to do. Could you please help me find my way home?”

I shone the beam of my flashlight around my position. I’m not sure what I expected to see but perhaps a pillar of fire, like He provided for the Israelites in the desert. What my light did fall on was a huge boulder – perhaps 15 to 20 feet high. Underneath it was a cleft that looked large enough to provide a temporary shelter from the wind and snow. I figured this was indeed a sign from above that I wasn’t about to find my way home. I would have to spend the night here. I checked out the rock overhang and found that it would at least keep me dry. If I could start a fire I could also keep warm. I put my pack and my rifle under the rock and began to search for something dry to burn with my flashlight. I was just hoping that my batteries would last until I could get a fire going. I pulled a small survival kit out of my pocket that I had gotten at conservation camp last summer. It contained a variety of first aid stuff that I wouldn’t need. What I did need were the two kitchen matches contained in the small kit. I remembered that they had taught us to find dry leaves and sticks under large hemlocks or other conifers that would prevent rain or snow from penetrating their foliage. I also recalled that the bark of a paper birch tree could be used, like paper, to start a fire. I went about searching for what I needed and was pleased to find dry leaves, dead hemlock lower branches, and some birch bark.

I got back under the rock overhang as far as possible to build my fire out of the wind. I laid some rocks down for a base so that air could get underneath the fire. Then I shredded the bark into fairly thin strips and piled them in a cone shape. I covered that cone with the small dry twigs I found, standing them on end and leaning them against the bark. I readied dry leaves, more twigs, and more bark to add if the fire started. I also had a pile of large hemlock branches to put on the fire. I was praying hard that this worked. I believed my survival depended on this fire. When I had things as well prepared as possible I struck the first match and, shielding my kindling from the wind with my body, lowered it into the pile. To my delight the birch bark burned exactly as the camp instructors said it would – like paper. The bark also ignited the twigs. Now slowly and oh so carefully I began to add some leaves and more twigs. It was working. “Thank you, Lord,” I breathed. I tried not to get greedy and add too much fuel at a time. Slowly I worked my way up to large branches. I was limited to branches of a half inch in diameter or less as anything larger that I found was wet.

Reluctantly I left my small fire to find more fuel. I could see that gathering sticks was going to be a continual affair throughout the night. I was fortunate that there were several large hemlocks nearby so I didn’t have to go far to break off their dead lower branches. As I returned with fuel I also brought back some live branches I had broken off and piled them around the overhang to provide a windbreak. Once I was able to take a short break from gathering wood I sat down beside my masterpiece to warm myself. Despite a temperature in the teens, I really hadn’t felt too cold. I suppose it was a combination of adrenaline and exercise. As I sat by the fire it occurred to me for the first time that Johnny would be worried sick when I didn’t come home. I was normally the last to come in so he probably wouldn’t have been concerned until 5:30 or so. It was now after 7:00. Dad wouldn’t arrive at camp for at least another hour and I guessed that Johnny would probably just sit tight until Dad got there – at least I hoped so. Of course these were days before cell phones. The camp didn’t have a phone and the nearest pay phone was in Sheffield, five miles up the road. I was sure that Johnny would stick tight. I began to kick myself for striking out on my own and not hunting closer to him. Why did I have to be so darned independent?

Suddenly I remembered that they had taught us at conservation camp to shoot our rifle three times quickly if we were lost after dark. Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier? I grabbed my rifle and fired into the ground three times as quickly as I could work the lever action. I listened impatiently for a response. None came. I heard only the wind in the tree branches and the crackling of my small fire. I briefly wondered if perhaps someone could see my fire or the smoke from it. Then I realized that I was in the middle of nowhere. Just about as far from a road or camp as you could get in these parts. I guessed I was roughly about half way between camp and Heart’s Content.

I gathered some more branches and added them to what was now a pretty amazing fire (for one match). I thought I had earned a break and curled up next to the fire, trying to cover myself with the poncho as best I could. It felt so good. The adrenaline rush was over now and I fought the urge to fall asleep. I knew that if I did, the fire would go out and I might freeze before I woke up. I would just close my eyes for a few minutes. I thought of the words to the old Fanny Crosby hymn, A Wonderful Savior is Jesus My Lord, “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock and covers me there with His hand.” As I dozed my mother’s words echoed in my mind, “Don’t get lost in the woods.” And I had done just that. Sorry Mom.

Again, as if I were in church on a Sunday morning, I awoke with a start. It was light out. I was lying on my poncho under the big hemlock with my rifle by my side. The sky was hazy but there was no snow. A quick glance at my watch told me that it was 12:45 - PM not AM! It had all been a dream. A terrible nightmare! I could see my morning tracks in the snow clearly, pointing the way back to camp. I prayed again, “God you have one warped sense of humor. But thanks for the object lesson!”

I couldn’t move fast enough retracing my steps through the snow back to where I had watched the bear and then back to the top of Pell Run. My first thought was to just head straight downhill to the creek but I figured I wasn’t going to leave these tracks for anything. I knew where they led and I wasn’t going to take even a remote chance of getting lost on the way home. The distance that had taken me almost two hours to cover in the morning I made in half that time going home. When the camp came into sight I almost cried. It had never looked so good.

I wasn’t surprised to see Johnny sitting on the couch eating cookies and reading a book when I opened the door. He sure was surprised to see me though. “I didn’t expect to see you until dark or after. You’re always the last one in. You must have had an uneventful day. Did you see anything at all?” “Wait till I tell you,” I said, stripping off my hunting coat and handing him my rifle. I asked him to unload it while I proceeded to describe my bear in great detail. I also bragged about being so far back in off the beaten path. What I didn’t mention was my dream. It had felt so real. I was glad to be awake. Glad to be back at camp. And I didn’t want to talk about getting lost in the woods. As Johnny worked the lever to unload the carbine he asked why I had only loaded two shells.

SMALLMOUTH BASS FISHING ON THE TIONESTA CREEK

The Tionesta Creek was best known as a trout fishery. It was a beehive of activity from season opening in mid-April through about early July when the water warmed enough for the trout to get lazy and stop biting. Then only the purist dry fly anglers were out in the evenings. We spent much more time at camp in the summer and we were much better bass fishermen than we were for trout. While we had more success in the mornings and evenings we spent the best part of most days trying different techniques to catch the “bronzebacks”.

Under the bench on the back porch was a foot locker full of old tennis shoes. We never threw a pair away – we just took them to camp. Each day we would don a swim suit, a tee shirt and a pair of old tennis shoes and head for the creek. I can remember there was great anticipation each morning as to whether the fish would be biting or not. Of course now I know about all manner of things that impact on fish habits such as moon phase, barometric pressure, water clarity, creek flow, and water temperature, etc. In those days it was just a crap shoot to us – they were either hungry or they weren’t.

The Tionesta was a series of pools and riffles. The smallmouths could be found primarily in the pools and we got to know where they would be at any given time. The problem was what to offer them.

Artificial lures were my preference for the obvious reason that you didn’t have to find bait and then continually freshen it on your hook. My favorite for daylight use was a small orange flatfish (yes, Fred Myers would have been proud) with three sets of treble hooks. This was an unusual set up and I spent way too much time untangling the hooks from one another. However, if a fish hit the lure, you had him. I also used various crankbaits and spinnerbaits in the daytime but when dusk approached I immediately switched to one of two old standbys – the jitterbug or the hula popper. As far as I’m concerned there is no more exciting moment on the water than when a smallmouth hits a surface lure. After dark you can’t see the water explode but you can hear it and in the quiet of the forest it is a sound like no other.

I remember one particular evening when Johnny and I set out to fish from “the big rock.” This was an area of the creek bank just below the camp that featured a series of large boulders with overhanging hemlock trees. A flat rock jutted into the creek and made casting from it easy. An adjacent boulder rose about ten feet above the creek and if you were careful you could flip your offering from atop it. As we approached the rocks and ducked underneath the hemlock limbs a great blue heron took off from the creek bank a few feet in front of us. I doubt a 747 could have scared us any more. After our heartbeats returned to normal we both tied on jitterbugs and began to cast from the flat rock to the far side of the creek. It was clouding up and getting so dark that sometimes the only way to know where your lure landed was whether it clicked into the rocks or plunked into the water. It seemed that the closer you could get the lure to the opposite bank, the better your chances of a strike – as though the bass actually did think our jitterbugs were frogs and they were waiting for them to jump from the bank. It was a thrill to hear the lure hit the water, then the rhythmic gurgle of bug as it waddled back and forth, then a big splash combined with a tug on your rod as the bass struck. After we had each landed a couple of nice bass it began to rain – gently at first and then a steady downpour. Johnny suggested we head up the hill to camp but I questioned why we would leave when the fish were biting. He agreed and recommended we move back a little under the protection of the hemlock. We were still getting wet but the rain was not so bothersome under the tree. We were catching fish on almost every cast now. Somehow being soaked to the skin didn’t bother us quite so much when we were catching fish. Before long we heard Mom call us from the camp. She and Dad were playing cards on the screened porch and enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof until they realized we were still down at the creek. They couldn’t believe that we didn’t have the “sense to come in out of the rain.” Reluctantly we agreed to come home. While we hated to leave biting fish the fireplace sure felt good when we reached the camp. Then we thought it was quite a coincidence that the bass were so voracious during the rain. Now I realize that the fish were responding to the sudden drop in barometric pressure. Whatever the case it was the most fun I’ve ever had in the rain.

When it came to live bait a bass would take a nightcrawler but so would just about everything else (chubs, suckers, rock bass, sunfish, mudpuppies, and hellbenders). There is no more ugly creator that swims the waters of the earth than the hellbender. They are large salamanders, normally more than a foot in length. They exchange air through wrinkly folds in their skin and they have a flat head that looks like someone hit them with a shovel (it should be noted here that one could hit them over the head with a shovel and nothing would happen). They are almost impossible to hold onto if attempting to extract a hook so whenever I caught one I merely cut the line and returned them to the deep. While a variety of species would also take a crayfish there was a much better chance that you would catch a bass with one.

One Saturday afternoon we were using crayfish for smallmouth and Johnny found a soft-shell. (Crayfish shed their skin every so often as they grow in size and for awhile afterward their shell or “exoskeleton” is quite soft.) These are somewhat easy to spot with the eye but as soon as you grab one you can tell immediately what you’ve got. What you have is a real delicacy to a smallmouth bass. The creek was clear and you could spot the bass in their typical lairs. When Johnny made his first presentation to a nice-sized bass with the soft-shelled crayfish the bite was almost instantaneous. From then the search was on. It seemed from our very un-scientific survey that less than five percent of all the crayfish we encountered were soft. That meant turning over a lot of rocks in the shallows of the creek to find one. As soon as we did we were off to find a bass. On that day it seemed they were not interested in anything else. If you found a soft-shell, you caught a bass. It was too bad that we spent such a large part of the day bent over looking for crayfish as opposed to fishing. They sell soft-shells at the bait shop but we had never bought anything at the bait shop before and weren’t about to start when they could be found for free (by turning over a hundred rocks). Such was the Fleeger accounting philosophy. I suppose during the entire afternoon we caught about a dozen soft-shells and about as many bass.

Boy, were we stiff and sore the next morning. We wanted to get up and go right back to the creek but Sunday mornings at camp meant putting on good clothes and heading for the small (really small) Methodist church in Barnes (a really small town a few miles up the road). Attendance was probably about 40 or so and most of the folks recognized our family as visitors from the “big” Methodist church in the “big” town of Slippery Rock.

The best thing about going to camp for the weekend was getting there and the worst was going home on Sunday afternoon. It signaled the end of leisure for another week and the beginning of another week at school. Not that I didn’t like school, I just loved those times in the woods and streams of the Allegheny Plateau.